Problem Parables: The Shrewd Manager - Stanley D. Toussaint

if it were not for the person I'm going to introduce there's a real chance I would not be at Dallas Theological Seminary for dr. Stan to st. was the chairman of the Bible exposition department when I began teaching here 30 years ago and today he is honored by us rightfully so as our Nathan Mayer lectureships in Bible exposition series speaker he serves a senior professor emeritus of Bible exposition and a time serves as an adjunct professor for us when we can get him to do that he graduated from Augsburg College in 1951 Dallas Theological Seminary with a THM in 1955 and his THD in 1957 he is a native from Minnesota you'll hear about that I'm sure sometime during this week it's been a pastor teacher committed to expository preaching for his lifetime he taught at Dallas seminary since 1960 alongside of that he pastored for more than 20 years he's an editor he's an author he's been a pastor conference speaker taught in Christian schools in the Middle East in Australia the Far East and his ministered in pulpits virtually around the world his theological interest is include especially the theology of the kingdom New Testament epistles and a favorite genre of mind that you'll be introduced to afresh this week in his wife Maxine have two married sons dr. T welcome back to our campus welcome back to this platform would you join me in welcoming dr. Stan to say thank you so much thank you dr. Billy for that kind introduction you may wonder why I'm using a scooter when I was a boy of 11 years of age I had a very severe case of polio I could move a toll on either foot couldn't move my legs at all but in God's grace I was able to hike and walk and hunt and fish and work I never could run or a skip or jump but I could carry on a normal life and I thank God for that however now I mix three the experiencing medicine was post-polio syndrome which means it's coming back so every year my legs are getting weaker and weaker the prognosis is not good but this is God's sovereignty and the one response to God's sovereignty is faith if God is sovereign we're left with one alternative there's trust him I think after that privilege I do thank God for the privilege of being able to teach the Dallas seminary for for so many years I grew up in a hick town a little tiny town in the brush of east central Minnesota in my wildest imaginations I never conceived of the idea of teaching at Dallas seminary and God brought her to brought to pass is it just pure pure pure grease I'm not deserving of it and I thank God for that and I say the same thing about this lectureship is pure grace that I was invited to be here and I thank God for that great great privilege for our series this week I thought I'd take problem parables parables and have problems built into them and I am sure that you will be asked about some of these parables in your ministry in fact the one I'm going to speak on today was asked about by a friend just last Sunday so I'd like to talk about the parable of the unjust steward found in Luke chapter 16 the parable of the unjust steward is the named us commonly given to it my message today would be entitled good lessons from a bad example I stole that title from Berkeley as you know you have to watch Berkeley because sometimes is not quite accurate but he is excellent for word studies historical background social backgrounds word studies and many times of the application but sometimes he has a penchant for rationalism for instance when you come to the story of Christ walking on the water he gives a quite a lengthy discussion to the phrase epi tasteful Isis which it says may mean by the water instead of on the water and defends that he defends that viewpoint never defends Christ walking on the water so you have to use him with some discretion but here is spot on some good lessons from a bad example because we are Christians can learn many lessons from the unsaved world when it comes to money the lessons that we learn are both positive and negative for instance we may learn to avoid certain attitudes towards money especially that money is the end-all of life that our goal in life is to accumulate and yet more and more that's not the purpose of money at all we may avoid that or we may learn how to get the most out of our money unsaved people are very very skilled in how they use their money and we're going to learn some of these things this morning from this particular parable fondon't Luke chapter 16 now I'd like to look at this parable under two set two sections first there's the narration of the parable in verses 1 to 8 then secondly there's the application of parable verses 9 to 13 so it's just two ideas in the passage the narration and the application so let's start with the narration now when you look at this narration you're gonna find this at this dis scoundrel the steward goes through four steps first of all his carelessness look at it in verses 1 and 2 now he is also saying to the disciples there was a certain rich man who had a steward and the steward was him as squandering his possessions and he called him and said he him what is this I hear about you given the count of your stewardship for you can no longer be steward wealthy people would have stewardship would be in charge of various aspects of their financial Kingdom that explains by the way a great deal in the parable of the great supper remember the man that said I can't come because I bought some property I want to go see it I thought great Hong stone the crows and start the lizards how stupid can you be if you buy land that way I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I'll sell you what what do you mean but then I suddenly realized no this is a wealthy man who had a person who was in charge of his real estate and obviously that steward had bought some land and now he wanted to go go see it the next one says I I bought five yoke of oxen and I want to try them on you would never buy a used car without try get out let alone five used cards and this man bought five yoke of oxen obviously was a steward that was in charge of livestock in this parable this rich man has a steward who obviously is in charge of accounts receivable and from reliable sources evidently he heard that this steward was misusing the money so he approached this steward and said what's this I hear about you you're fired and then he says this give an account of your stewardship we would say that they close up the books and that was the window of opportunity he needed so we see his carelessness and having the funds now I see his concern drop down if you'll do verse three and the steward said to himself what shall I do since my master is taking the stewardship away from me I'm not strong enough to dig I'm ashamed to beg I know what I shall do so that when I am removed from the stewardship they will receive me into their homes now this is a classic illustration a problem solving and all problem solving you first of all state the problem if you can't see the problem you're never going to solve it it may be a problem the text it may be a problem of chronology may be a problem of theology may be a problem of ethics but you state the problem in all Paiva so if you got to state it and then you look at the various solutions I could dig I could beg you look at all the solutions then you look at the pros and cons I could dig I'm not strong enough to dig I could dig for an hour or two but I could never dig all day long for six days a week I'm not strong enough for that well I could beg oh I'm embarrassed to be seen begging then the Lord Jesus master storyteller that is as the man say Eureka I found it I know what I'm gonna do so that they whoever the day is well received in the word receive in Greek as dekha my they will welcome you into their homes and he doesn't see what the plan is he says I've got the solution now here is the coming of this gentleman verse five and he summoned each one of his master's debtors and he was saying to the first how much do you owe my master and he said a hundred measures of oil and he said to him take your bill and sit down quickly and write fifty then he said to another and how much you owe and he said a hundred measures of wheat he said him take your bill and write eighty what Trude cunningness he calls in the master's debtors one by one these are just two examples and the first one said he said to the first one how much you owe now obviously this is a sharecropper a sharecropper would work for a wealthy person and he the wealthy person provide the farm and everything and then the sharecropper would get a certain amount of proceeds but he'd pay the master certain amount as well and he did not be the master he owed him a hundred measures of oil now a measure of oil is some play between eight and nine gallons if you look at your Greek lexicon they'll probably say 8 and 3/4 so let's make it even and make it 9 just fudged a little bit they could make at night he orders vaster 900 gallons of oil now ladies and gentlemen this ain't Texas crude this is olive oil intensely labor deliberate intensive they'd have to go and use poles to knock the olives out of the tree gather them from the ground put them in buckets or something and take them to a press and then press out those olives for oil can you imagine how many olives they would take to have one gallon of olive oil and this man told him 900 gallons of olive oil huge amount of money and so this scoundrel distorts us that's right this is what the bill says you owe my master and you sign this bill you want master nine hundred units here's your bill do whatever you want with it you want to frame it you want a plastered on your wall but you want to burn do whatever you want but sit down quickly I don't have any time sit down quickly and say you owe my master 450 gallons what do you think that that would say I like you you just saved me 450 gallons of olive oil if I can ever do your favor let me know by the way if you ever need a place to stay you're welcome to live in our house he called in the second man and the second met he had said to the second man how much do you owe a hundred measures of wheat now this is a core or somewhere between 10 and 12 bushels to eat but numbers Ron will say 10 10 bushels a week he owed the master 1,000 bushels of wheat for a Kansas wheat farmer this is no mean amount there's a thousand bushels and when you think of a person crouching down with a sickle cutting down the wheat by hand gathering it and she's taking it to a threshing floor where either an ox or a donkey would pull a threshing slit around and around and around to beat out the wheat then he's Apple take and throw it up in the air with a wooden winnowing fork and the wind would blow with a shaft and and then the stalks and the heavier we would follow the ground can you imagine how much labor would take to get one bushel of wheat and here you old he owed you awful sweet thousand bushels he said that's right that's all you that you signed it that you'll master your take your bill and even whatever you want with it you want to frame it plastered to your wall burn it do whatever you want but sit down quickly and say you owe my master 800 bushels of wheat I have liked you you just saved me 200 bushels of wheat if I can ever do a favor for you let me by the way if you ever need a place to live you're welcome to share a house so that Scudder went through all the bills discount Lee the bills now we come to the hard part the commendation of the Stuart look at it verse 8 and as master praise the unrighteous steward because he had acted shrewdly for the sons of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own kind than the sons of light no immediately we have a couple of problems my translation says his master that's time of the Greek text says it says the master hole kurios the Lord now we have a question is it talking about the master of the Stuart as we have in the translation here or is he talking about the Lord Jesus hmm we have another problem and that's the word shrewd when you think of the word shrewd you think of something that's crooked underhanded not quite straight but that's not the word means it's funny most and it's something like the edges that's an adverb but the adjectives means this basically sensible thoughtful prudent wise so is commending him for being wise and thoughtful and prudent not necessarily shrewd it could mean shrewd if you look at this look at a certain they forget the context a certain way but doesn't have to mean that the bidding and he is wise and prudent I think that perhaps the Lord Jesus said this I doubt if the the master was that you acted very wisely it just lost a lot of money by - by this cunning gentleman now I think that probably the Lord said this the Lord committed the servant because he had acted wisely there's the narration of the story now we come to the interesting part the application I should say applications this is very interesting because you'll find that many excellent Bible teachers I'm talking about good Bible teachers will say that a parable has one application and one only well this puts the light to it because you have three distinct and different applications made from this one story and the first one says be like him and next to say don't be like him so let's look at that first one do you like here and I say to you make friends for yourselves by means of the Mammon of unrighteousness that we that fails they may receive the same word deck oh my they may welcome you into the eternal dwellings know what in the brown-eyed world does that mean first of all he calls money a Mammon of unrighteousness not that money is intrinsically evil but it is so often associated with sin that is called a Mammon of unrighteousness your lies filled do all kinds of tricky thing is to get money is some big man up in righteousness so he says take quite as ordinary used for unrighteousness and used it to make friends just like this scoundrel did use your money to make friends so that when it feels now that's a problem what do you mean when it feels well the answer is given in the next Clause they will receive you or welcome you into eternal dwellings you must be talking about one money feels at death you can't take it with you we often say that you often hear the saying there ain't no there's no u-hauls behind the hearse you can't take it with you some money and you have to have money all your life so problem is talking about when you die when you die those people will welcome you with eternal habitations now what's the same use your money to win friends for Christ so that when you die those people will welcome you into their homes what a tremendous passes now if I would ask you how would you use your money to impact people for Jesus Christ mark Billy would say support Dallas Theological Seminary and he'd be correct he'd be wise because your money would be multiplied in soul-winners going out to win people to for Jesus Christ a pastor would say support your local church and if it's a gospel preaching Church they're right missionaries would say support missionaries and they have excellent biblical support for that in Philippians chapter 4 Paul is thanking the Philippians for sending money to him while he's under house arrest in Rome and he says it's not that I want the money then he says this that I desire fruit that may abound to your account in my classes I would often say T a I think about yet Paul is saying when you send me money and I went people to Jesus Christ which was true the whole Praetorian Guard heard about the gospel that when I went people to Jesus Christ that's not fruit that just goes to my account because you're supporting me it goes to your account well let me give you let me take this a bit further how can you do this personally on a one-to-one basis like this unjust steward yet well ladies you might have some unsaved friend and you find out when her birthday is take your money and take her off for lunch just get an invite her a little present you're gonna make a friend for her and for it for yourself and she'll listen to you for the gospel and gentlemen just take some person out for dinner or for lunch now I know the common saying among pastors is I pray you pay but here is different I mean you pay you buy the lunch and you'll have some wonderful opportunities some of the best opportunities I've had for sharing the gospel is when our feet are planted under the same table eating a meal use your money for that in a way I wish is a for a class I say be creative and think how could you use your money let me make another suggestion if you live in an apartment that's not on campus or in a house you may want to have a neighborhood Christmas party just go to the neighbors and we've done this go to the neighbors and because the neighbors don't know each other and just invite them to a dinner at your house on such-and-such a night and say we invite you to come if you wanna bring your snacks bring snacks will provide the drinks you do that intentionally because you don't know what they're gonna bring and then and then just have ever have a fun session it look just because they don't know each other and they'll just laugh together won one game we played was at Christmas was a to draw pictures of something that dealt with Christmas like here comes Santa Claus here comes Santa Claus right down Santa Claus Lane or something spiritual a little town of Bethlehem something like this and what we do is divide the group into two groups and then they'd have to come to a center place and get the name of this song and then go back and draw a picture of it and and the know writing words you just have to draw pictures and so they would just laugh they were just rolling on the floor laughing at these things and then just haven't seated in your living room go around and just have them give something on some unusual Christmas that they had and then we have a speaker and we'd warn the people that there's going to be a speaker who would say what Christmas means to him the end and say what's the most unusual Christmas open when I found Christ and had that person give a brief brief brief pointed clear testimony this faith in Jesus Christ that'll cost you a little money but you're winning friends to whom do you think they'll go in the neighborhood if you've done that they know exactly where you stand spiritually that needs to come to you use your money like this counter to wins unsaved people to Christ I must church mature second application verse 10 he was faithful in a very little thing this faithful also much in much and who is unrighteous in a very little thing it is unrighteous also in much a basic principle years and years and years and years ago when the earth were just cooling off my wife and I worked with young people and one of the things I try to impress on them is little things I say hey guys if you can't remember to put oil in the crankcase of a lawnmower all can your parents trust you with an automobile and girls but is your bedroom look like you hang your clothes all over the bedroom floor then what is your bedroom look like if you can't take care of a bedroom how can you take care of a house and occasionally I would say in seminary gentlemen if you're pastoring a little church and you say I didn't have to call on these people they all know me they all know each other I don't want to be calling them and for business minis I don't have prepared agenda we'll just talk about the church information sermons huh all I graduate from Dallas seminary I know more than these people so I don't really have to study and prepare sermons if you do that little church you're gonna do exactly the same thing in a larger Church what you are little things is what you're being a large thing now it goes on to apply this verse 11 if therefore you've not been faithlyn the use of unrighteous mammon who'll entrust the true riches to you if you've not been faithful in the use of that which is another's who will give you that which is your own now what's he saying here first of all if you can't handle money you can't be faced on the use of money who will entrust true riches to you now if money is one thing what are genuine riches I think it is talking about spiritual responsibilities if you can handle money something is earthly is money how can you handle spiritual things when we would interview elders I would often ask the question have you ever declared bankruptcy are you up to date on your present bills do you pay your bills on time because if you can handle finances how on the brown-eyed world are you gonna handle spiritual responsibility then you guys want to say something even harder versed well if you have been faithful and they use that of that which is another's who will give you that which is your own obviously that which is another's is some money every single good thing we have without exception every single good thing we have is a trust from God if you have good health praise God that's a trust from God if you have a good intellect praise God that's a gift from God if you have some money praise God that's a gift from God anything that would you have which is good is a gift from God and you're responsible for having that now if you can't handle that how can God give you that which is your own now I may be getting out the branch here in limb but perhaps he's talking here about rewards your own would be the rewards that would given you be given you for eternity and what are you saying here is don't be like this scoundrel handle your money carefully I would tell when I was preaching the congregation be generous tightwads which is true and your money carefully so that you can hear now there's a third application number one be like him use your money to win friends number two don't be like and be careful how you handle your money thirdly don't be like him verse 13 no servant is talking about this Pike at a Syria household servant can be a slave the words serve yours doodle doo doo oh don't be you cannot be a slave to two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to want to despise the other you cannot be a slave to God and Mammon well when I first read that I thought this is in the nature of slavery in slavery you can only have one master this I reflected on this I thought mmm that's not that's very true now let's suppose we're going back before the civil war team they have sleep I am NOT I'm not saying we should don't get me wrong I'm just using this as an illustration now let's suppose we are in the table can have a sleeve and I'd like to buy a sleeve but I don't have enough money so I know that dr. Larry waters would like to have a slave as well and so we've we formed the to st. waters slave corporation we buy a slave and we buy the best slave we can get I mean top quality dr. Ron Allen we buy him as our slave and so we say we agree that for the first week dr. waters would you have him for four hours in the morning I have been four hours in the afternoon and each each one of us would give a meal that person can easily live on a meal the two meals a good meals a day and we give dr. Elam Sonny's off for a conference ministry and then the following week would be reversed I'd have him in the morning dr. Watters to have him maybe why wouldn't that worry it would work you know why dr. waters and I have the same philosophy of life we have the same priorities so that we are not making different demands on that poor slave no it's not the nature of slavery it's the nature of the master you cannot be a slave to God and money because they make diametrically opposed to man's you love the one to eat the other you cling to the one and look down on the other you can't do it money says get get get obtain God says give yeah yeah gold says think of numero uno and I've heard this in the in the secretary Committee if you don't think of yourself nobody else will Gold says numero uno I got a thing myself God says love your neighbor as yourself gold says well if you've got to twist the truth if you have to be a little unethical just bend the situation so that you get more money if you have to lie Boyett God said be straight as an arrow don't give a fence in the use of your money as Paul tells us the Corinthians when he talked about himself handling money be straight as an arrow the demands that I made are exactly the opposite you can't be a slave to God and money so you have three applications use your money to win friends number two be careful in how you handle money number three you can't be a slave to God and money did you hear that he's talking about being a slave to God that means there's a commitment to serve God as a total complete master now I'm not talking about without lordship salvation I'm talking about through faith it's a gift given to anyone who trusts in Christ I'm talking about a commitment to serve Christ after you become a Christian now that there's a rare case where a person also makes Christ Lord at the same time be trusting Christ but most of us the Roses that's not true I trusted Christ at age 9 at a little crude Bible Camp the age 12 I committed myself to Christ no matter whatever cost with you and I admit that commitment that recommitment over and over and over again I pray God that every student member every staff member every faculty member has made that commitment that God is Lord of your life no matter what the cost I pre God but I'm quite convinced there are a number of people in this room who are Christians that have never made that commitment Romans 6 says you commit your members you yield commit your members to Christ Romans 12 I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you commit sin verb that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice if you've never done that if you've never done that that is your obligation to make Christ Lord of your life he is master of my soul this palm prayer if you've made that commitment already may I ask you please today to reaffirm that commitment just to confirm it and dear dear people if you've never trusted if you've never committed Christ if you've never done that I pray that you'll commit your life to Christ this morning what a day that would be unreservedly no matter what the cost no matter what the result you give your life to Christ so there is slave father we thank you for this passage use it narváez for your glory we can literally we commit our way to you in Jesus name Amen

Channel: Dallas Theological Seminary

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Keywords: Dallas Theological Seminary, DTS, Dr. Stanley Toussaint, Luke 16, stewardship, wisdom, leverage, Jesus Christ, friendship, Parable of the Shrewd Manager, generosity, loyalty

Id: zP8JviIQ9aU

Length: 33min 41sec (2021 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 07 2015