Tag / William Barclay

by James Ross Kelly

THE KINGDOM AND ITS WITNESSES–Barclay’s Commentary


From William Barclay’s Daily Bible Study

Acts 1:6-8

So, when they had met together, they asked him, “Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom of Israel at this time?” But he said to them, “It is not yours to know the times and the seasons which the Father has appointed by his own authority. But when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will receive power; and you will be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judaea and in Samaria and to the farthest bounds of the earth.”

     Throughout his ministry Jesus laboured under one great disadvantage. The centre of his message was the kingdom of God. (Mk.1:14); but he meant one thing by the kingdom and those who listened to him meant another.

     The Jews were always vividly conscious of being God’s chosen people. They took that to mean that they were destined for special privilege and for world-wide dominion. The whole course of their history proved that humanly speaking that could never be. Palestine was a little country not more than 120 miles long by 40 miles wide. It had its days of independence, but it had become subject in turn to the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans. So, the Jews began to look forward to a day when God would break directly into human history and establish that world sovereignty of which they dreamed. They conceived of the kingdom in political terms.

     How did Jesus conceive of it? Let us look at the Lord’s Prayer. In it there are two petitions side by side. “Thy kingdom come; thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.” It is characteristic of Hebrew style, as any verse of the Psalms will show, to say things in two parallel forms, the second of which repeats or amplifies the first. That is what these two petitions do. The second is a definition of the first. Therefore, we see that by the kingdom Jesus meant a society upon earth where God’s will would be as perfectly done as it is in heaven. Because of that it would be a kingdom founded on love and not on power.

     To attain to that men needed the Holy Spirit. Twice already Luke has talked about waiting for the coming of the Spirit. We are not to think that the Spirit came into existence now for the first time. It is quite possible for a power always to exist but for men to experience or take it at some given moment. For instance, men did not invent atomic power. It always existed; but only in our time have men tapped it. So, God is eternally Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but there came to men a special time when they experienced to the full that power which had always been present.

     The power of the Spirit was going to make them Christ’s witnesses. That witness was to operate in an ever-extending series of concentric circles, first in Jerusalem, then throughout Judaea; then Samaria, the semi-Jewish state, would be a kind of bridge leading out into the heathen world; and finally, this witness was to go out to the ends of the earth.

     Let us note certain things about this Christian witness. First, a witness is a man who says I know this is true. In a court of law, a man cannot give in evidence a carried story; it must be his own personal experience. There was a time when John Bunyan was not quite sure. What worried him was that the Jews thought their religion the best; the Mohammedans thought theirs the best; what if Christianity were but a think-so too? A witness does not say, “I think so”; he says, “I know.”

     Second, the real witness is not of words but of deeds. When Stanley had discovered Livingstone in Central Africa and had spent some time with him, he said, “If I had been with him any longer, I would have been compelled to be a Christian and he never spoke to me about it at all.” The witness of the man’s life was irresistible.

     Third, in Greek the word for witness and the word for martyr is the same (martus, GSN3144). A witness had to be ready to become a martyr. To be a witness means to be loyal no matter the cost.

by James Ross Kelly

10 Quick Facts About Christian Universalism | Matthew Distefano


I. The Early Church Were Universalists:

Okay, not all of the early church were Universalists, but a lot of them were. Clement of Alexandria. Origin. Gregory of Nyssa. A bunch of others. As Augustine once put it, “indeed very many.” In fact, out of the 6 major theological schools, 4 taught universal reconciliation, 1 taught conditional immortality (annihilationism), and 1 taught eternal conscious torment.

II. Universalism Wasn’t Heretical for 500 Years:

A lot of people get confused about whether Universalism is heretical or not. They think because some of Origin’s beliefs were rejected, that means universal reconciliation was also rejected. This isn’t quite true. It’s not until the 6th century when Universalism is declared “anathema,” first by the despot Justinian in 543 CE and then at the Fifth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 553 CE.

III. The Final Editor of the Nicene Creed Was an Open Universalist

The Nicene Creed is, for many, the standard of what it means to be a Christian. I personally don’t need you to affirm it in order to consider you a Christian, but no one is really asking me these days. Interestingly enough, however, Gregory of Nyssa, one of the final editors of the Creed, was an unabashed Universalist, and yet no one thought it important enough to bring it up before allowing him to be involved in arguably the most important confession in the history of Christianity.

IV. Universalism Never Went Away

While universal reconciliation became a fringe belief after being declared anathema, it never went away. There were always a handful of Christians who kept the tradition alive throughout the Middle Ages, past the Reformation, and on into the modern world.

V. Your Favorite Fiction May Be Influenced by Universalism

I’m not certain that folks like C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien were closet Universalists, but they were certainly influenced by a non-closeted one. Heavily so. In fact, both credit George MacDonald as being a great influence on their thinking, and he was not secretive about his Universalism. In addition, beloved novelist Madeleine L’Engle was a Universalist.

VI. Karl Barth Was Probably a Universalist

This is only speculation, but the most influential theologian of the 20th century was perhaps a Universalist. At minimum, Barth’s theology deemed it logically necessary. And while he never outright said it, he was certainly smart and wise enough to know the implications of his Christology.

VII. William Barclay Was a Universalist

This may come as a surprise to many, given how popular his Daily Study Bible commentaries were and still are, but it’s true. William Barclay was an unashamed Universalist, which means millions of Christians worldwide should gather up the sticks and wood and get ready to burn a whole hell of a lot of books.

VIII. Universalism is Biblical

Universalism is not correct simply because it is found in the Bible. Why? Well, aside from the fact that a lot of untrue stuff is found in the Bible, it’s because eternal torment can be found in there, too. Annihilationism is also there. But you can’t deny all the passages about God reconciling the world, about Jesus dragging all to him, about God being “all in all,” and so on. Again, it’s not to say it is necessarily true (because there are also passages about judgment, punishment, and torment), but it is in fact biblical.

IX. Universalism Comes in Many Forms

Contrary to popular belief, Universalism is not synonymous with “new age” or “liberal.” There are liberal Universalists, sure, but there are also Evangelical Universalists like Robin Parry. There are Universalists like Thomas Talbott who are more aligned with Barth or the Reformed tradition. There are Orthodox Universalists like David Bentley Hart. And so on and so forth.

X. Universalists Believe in Hell

This sounds contradictory, but only if you think hell must be everlasting. Many Christian Universalists believe in a hell of sorts. They just believe it serves an ultimate reconciliatory purpose, In other words, while the restorative effects are eternal, the duration is not.

Source: Patheos

by James Ross Kelly

Martin of Tours AD 316-397


!!Martin of Tours.jpgMartin of Tours..was a Roman soldier and a Christian. One cold winter day, as he was entering a city, a beggar stopped him and asked for alms. Martin had no money; but the beggar was blue and shivering with cold, and Martin gave what he had. He took off his soldier’s coat, worn and frayed as it was; he cut it in two and gave half of it to the beggar man. That night he had a dream. In it he saw the heavenly places and all the angels and Jesus among them; and Jesus was wearing half of a Roman soldier’s cloak. One of the angels said to him: ‘Master, why are you wearing that battered old cloak? Who gave it to you?’ And Jesus answered softly: ‘My servant Martin gave it to me.’ William Barclay

by James Ross Kelly

THE PERIL OF THE EMPTY HEART –William Barclay


William Barclay 1907-1978

Matthew 12:43–5 ‘When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, it goes through waterless places, seeking for rest, and does not find it. Then it says: “I will go back to my house, from which I came out,” and when it comes, it finds it empty, swept and in perfect order. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and take up their residence there. So the last state of that man becomes worse than the first; so it will be with this evil generation.’

THERE is a whole world of the most practical truth in this compact and eerie little parable about the haunted house. (1) The evil spirit is banished from the man, not destroyed. That is to say that, in this present age, evil can be conquered, driven away – but it cannot be destroyed. It is always looking for the opportunity to counter-attack and regain the ground that is lost. Evil is a force which may be at bay but is never eliminated.

(2) That is bound to mean that a negative religion can never be enough. A religion which consists of shall nots will end in failure. The trouble about such a religion is that it may be able to cleanse people by prohibiting all their evil actions, but it cannot keep them cleansed. Let us think of this in actual practice. People who drink to excess may be reformed; they may decide that they will no longer spend their time in bars; but they must find something else to do; they must find something to fill up their now empty time, or they will simply slip back into their evil ways. People whose constant pursuit has been pleasure may decide that they must stop; but they must find something else to do to fill up their time, or they will simply, through the very emptiness of their lives, drift back to their old pursuits. The lives of these people must not only be sterilized from evil; they must be nurtured to become productive and fruitful. It will always remain true that ‘Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.’ And if one kind of action is banished from life, another kind must be substituted for it, for life cannot remain empty. (3) It therefore follows that the only permanent cure for evil action is Christian action. Any teaching which stops at telling people what they must not do is bound to be a failure; it must go on to tell them what they must do. The one fatal disease is idleness; even a sterilized idleness will soon be infected. The easiest way to conquer the weeds in a garden is to fill the garden with useful things. The easiest way to keep a life from sin is to fill it with healthy action. To put it quite simply, the Church will most easily keep its converts when it gives them Christian work to do. Our aim is not the mere negative absence of evil action; it is the positive presence of work for Christ. If we are finding the temptations of evil very threatening, one of the best ways to conquer them is to plunge into activity for God and for our neighbours.

 

Barclay; William. The Gospel of Matthew, Volume Two: 2 (p. 59-60). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.

 

by James Ross Kelly

Jesus believed that so long as a man was away from God he was not truly himself–William Barclay


Jesus believed that so long as a man was away from God he was not truly himself; he was only truly himself wheWilliam Barclay 1907-1978n he was on the way home. Beyond a doubt Jesus did not believe in total depravity. He never believed that you could glorify God by blackguarding man; he believed that man was never essentially himself until he came home to God. William Barclay

by James Ross Kelly

The Equipment of the King’s Messenger by William Barclay


Matthew 10:8b-10 “Freely you have received; freely give. Do not set out to get gold or silver or bronze for your purses; do not take a bag for the journey, nor two tunics, nor shoes, nor a staff. The workman deserves his sustenance.”

This is a passage in which every sentence and every phrase would ring an answering bell in the mind of the Jews who heard it. In it Jesus was giving to his men the instructions which the Rabbis at their best gave to their students and disciples.

William Barclay 1907-1978

William Barclay 1907-1978

“Freely you have received,” says Jesus, “freely give.” A Rabbi was bound by law to give his teaching freely and for nothing; the Rabbi was absolutely forbidden to take money for teaching the Law which Moses had freely received from God. In only one case could a Rabbi accept payment. He might accept payment for teaching a child, for to teach a child is the parent’s task, and no one else should be expected to spend time and labour doing what is the parent’s own duty to do; but higher teaching had to be given without money and without price.

In the Mishnah the Law lays it down that, if a man takes payment for acting as a judge, his judgments are invalid; that, if he takes payment for giving evidence as a witness, his witness is void. Rabbi Zadok said, “Make not the Law a crown wherewith to aggrandize thyself, nor a spade wherewith to dig.” Hillel said, “He who makes a worldly use of the crown of the Law shall waste away. Hence thou mayest infer that whosoever desires a profit for himself from the words of the Law is helping on his own destruction.” It was laid down: “As God taught Moses gratis—so do thou.”

There is a story of Rabbi Tarphon. At the end of the fig harvest he was walking in a garden; and he ate some of the figs which had been left behind. The watchmen came upon him and beat him. He told them who he was, and because he was a famous Rabbi they let him go. All his life he regretted that he had used his status as a Rabbi to help himself. “Yet all his days did he grieve, for he said, ‘Woe is me, for I have used the crown of the Law for my own profit!'”

When Jesus told his disciples that they had freely received and must freely give, he was telling them what the teachers of his own people had been telling their students for many a day. If a man possesses a precious secret it is surely his duty, not to hug it to himself until he is paid for it, but willingly to pass it on. It is a privilege to share with others the riches God has given us.

Jesus told the twelve not to set out to acquire gold or silver or bronze for their purses, the Greek literally means for their girdles. The girdle, which the Jew wore round his waist, was rather broad; and at each end for part of its length it was double; money was carried in the double part of the girdle; so that the girdle was the usual purse of the Jew. Jesus told the twelve not to take a bag for the journey. The bag may be one of two things. It may simply be a bag like a haversack in which provisions would ordinarily have been carried. But there is another possibility. The word is pera(<G4082>), which can mean a beggar’s collecting bag; sometimes the wandering philosophers took a collection in such a bag after addressing the crowd.

In all these instructions Jesus was not laying upon his men a deliberate and calculated discomfort. He was once again speaking words which were very familiar to a Jew. The Talmud tells us that: “No one is to go to the Temple Mount with staff, shoes, girdle of money, or dusty feet.” The idea was that when a man entered the temple, he must make it quite clear that he had left everything which had to do with trade and business and worldly affairs behind. What Jesus is saying to his men is: “You must treat the whole world as the Temple of God. If you are a man of God, you must never give the impression that you are a man of business, out for what you can get.” Jesus’ instructions mean that the man of God must show by his attitude to material things that his first interest is God.

Finally, Jesus says that the workman deserves his sustenance. Once again the Jews would recognize this. It is true that a Rabbi might not accept payment, but it is also true that it was considered at once a privilege and an obligation to support a Rabbi, if he was truly a man of God. Rabbi Eliezer ben Jacob said: “He who receives a Rabbi in his house, or as his guest, and lets him have his enjoyment from his possessions, the scripture ascribes it to him as if he had offered the continual offerings.” Rabbi Jochanan laid it down that it was the duty of every Jewish community to support a Rabbi, and the more so because a Rabbi naturally neglects his own affairs to concentrate on the affairs of God.

Here then is the double truth; the man of God must never be over-concerned with material things, but the people of God must never fail in their duty to see that the man of God receives a reasonable support. This passage lays an obligation on teacher and on people alike.

The Daily Study Bible Series/the Gospel of Matthew Volume 1/Revised Edition by William Barclay

 

by James Ross Kelly

The Door to Life–William Barclay


!!!!aKN2l John 10:7-10

10:7-10 So Jesus said to them again: “This is the truth I tell you—I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If any man enter in through me, he will be saved, and he will go in and out, and he will find pasture. The thief comes only to kill and to steal and to destroy; I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”

William Barclay 1907-1978

William Barclay 1907-1978

The Jews did not understand the meaning of the story of the Good Shepherd. So Jesus, plainly and without concealment, applied it to himself.

He began by saying: “I am the door.” In this parable Jesus spoke about two kinds of sheep-folds. In the villages and towns themselves there were communal sheep-folds where all the village flocks were sheltered when they returned home at night. These folds were protected by a strong door of which only the guardian of the door held the key. It was to that kind of fold Jesus referred in Jn 10:2-3. But when the sheep were out on the hills in the warm season and did not return at night to the village at all, they were collected into sheep-folds on the hillside. These hillside sheep-folds were just open spaces enclosed by a wall. In them there was an opening by which the sheep came in and went out; but there was no door of any kind. What happened was that at night the shepherd himself lay down across the opening and no sheep could get out or in except over his body. In the most literal sense the shepherd was the door.

That is what Jesus was thinking of when he said: “I am the door.” Through him, and through him alone, men find access to God. “Through him,” said Paul, “we have access to the Father” (Eph 2:18). “He,” said the writer to the Hebrews, “is the new and living way” (Heb 10:20). Jesus opens the way to God. Until Jesus came men could think of God only as, at best, a stranger and as, at worst, an enemy. But Jesus came to show men what God is like, and to open the way to him. He is the door through whom alone entrance to God becomes possible for men.

To describe something of what that entrance to God means, Jesus uses a well-known Hebrew phrase. He says that through him we can go in and come out. To be able to come and go unmolested was the Jewish way of describing a life that is absolutely secure and safe. When a man can go in and out without fear, it means that his country is at peace, that the forces of law and order are supreme, and that he enjoys perfect security. The leader of the nation is to be one who can bring them out and lead them in (Num 27:17). Of the man who is obedient to God it is said that he is blessed when he comes in and blessed when he goes out (Deut 28:6). A child is one who is not yet able by himself to go out and to come in (1 Ki 3:7). The Psalmist is certain that God will keep him in his going out and in his coming in (Ps 121:8). Once a man discovers, through Jesus Christ, what God is like, a new sense of safety and of security enters into life. If life is known to be in the hands of a God like that, the worries and the fears are gone.

Jesus said that those who came before him were thieves and robbers. He was of course not referring to the great succession of the prophets and the heroes, but to these adventurers who were continually arising in Palestine and promising that, if people would follow them, they would bring in the golden age. All these claimants were insurrectionists. They believed that men would have to wade through blood to the golden age. At this very time Josephus speaks of there being ten thousand disorders in Judaea, tumults caused by men of war. He speaks of men like the Zealots who did not mind dying themselves and who did not mind slaughtering their own loved ones, if their hopes of conquest could be achieved. Jesus is saying: “There have been men who claimed that they were leaders sent to you from God. They believed in war, murder, assassination. Their way only leads for ever farther and farther away from God. My way is the way of peace and love and life; and if you will only take it, it leads ever closer and closer to God.” There have been, and still are, those who believe that the golden age must be brought in with violence, class warfare, bitterness, destruction. It is the message of Jesus that the only way that leads to God in heaven and to the golden age on earth is the way of love.

Jesus claims that he came that men might have life and might have it more abundantly. The Greek phrase used for having it more abundantly means to have a superabundance of a thing. To be a follower of Jesus, to know who he is and what he means, is to have a superabundance of life. A Roman soldier came to Julius Caesar with a request for permission to commit suicide. He was a wretched dispirited creature with no vitality. Caesar looked at him. “Man,” he said, “were you ever really alive?” When we try to live our own lives, life is a dull, dispirited thing. When we walk with Jesus, there comes a new vitality, a superabundance of life. It is only when we live with Christ that life becomes really worth living and we begin to live in the real sense of the word.

Barclay’s Daily Study Bible (NT).

by James Ross Kelly

Two Great Temptations in the Christian Life–William Barclay


William Barclay 1907-1978There are two great temptations in the Christian life; and, in a certain sense, the better people are, the more susceptible they are to them. First, there is the temptation to try to earn God’s favour, and second, the temptation to use some little achievement to compare oneself with others to our advantage and their disadvantage. But the Christianity which has enough of self left in it to think that by its own efforts it can please God and that by its own achievements it can show itself superior to others is not true Christianity at all.

Barclay, William (2010-11-05). The Letters to the Galatians and Ephesians (New Daily Study Bible) (p. 26). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.

by James Ross Kelly

The Story of the Loving Father—William Barclay


 Parable of the Prodigal Son

Prodigal Son by Eugene Burnand

Prodigal Son by Eugene Burnand

(Luke 15:11-32)
 Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the part of the estate which falls to me.’ So his father divided his living between them. Not many days after, the son realized it all and went away to a far country, and there in wanton recklessness scattered his substance. When he had spent everything a mighty famine arose throughout that country and he began to be in want. He went and attached himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed pigs; and he had a great desire to fill himself with the husks the pigs were eating; and no one gave anything to him. When he had come to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, and I—I am perishing here with hunger. I will get up and I will go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer fit to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired servants.”‘ So he got up and went to his father. While he was still a long way away his father saw him, and was moved to the depths of his being and ran and flung his arms round his neck and kissed him tenderly. The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer fit to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring out the best robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger; put shoes on his feet; and bring the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and rejoice, for this my son was dead and has come back to life again; he was lost and has been found.’ And they began to rejoice.

Prodigal Son by Eugene Burnand

Prodigal Son by Eugene Burnand

“Now the elder son was in the field. When he came near the house he heard the sound of music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what these things could mean? He said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf because he has got him back safe and sound.’ He was enraged and refused to come in. His father went out and urged him to come in. He answered his father, ‘Look you, I have served you so many years and I never transgressed your order, and to me you never gave a kid that I might have a good time with my friends. But when this son of yours—this fellow who consumed your living with harlots—came, you killed the fatted calf for him.’ ‘Child,’ he said to him, ‘you are always with me. Everything that is mine is yours. But we had to rejoice and be glad, for your brother was dead and has come back to life again; he was lost and has been found.'”**

Prodigal Son by Eugene Burnand

Prodigal Son by Eugene Burnand

Not without reason this has been called the greatest short story in the world. Under Jewish law a father was not free to leave his property as he liked. The elder son must get two-thirds and the younger one-third. (Deut 21:17.) It was by no means unusual for a father to distribute his estate before he died, if he wished to retire from the actual management of affairs. But there is a certain heartless callousness in the request of the younger son. He said in effect, “Give me now the part of the estate I will get anyway when you are dead, and let me get out of this.” The father did not argue. He knew that if the son was ever to learn he must learn the hard way; and he granted his request. Without delay the son realized his share of the property and left home.
He soon ran through the money; and he finished up feeding pigs, a task that was forbidden to a Jew because the law said, “Cursed is he who feeds swine.” Then Jesus paid sinning mankind the greatest compliment it has ever been paid. “When he came to himself,” he said. Jesus believed that so long as a man was away from God he was not truly himself; he was only truly himself when he was on the way home. Beyond a doubt Jesus did not believe in total depravity. He never believed that you could glorify God by blackguarding man; he believed that man was never essentially himself until he came home to God.prodigal son5
So the son decided to come home and plead to be taken back not as a son but in the lowest rank of slaves, the hired servants, the men who were only day labourers. The ordinary slave was in some sense a member of the family, but the hired servant could be dismissed at a day’s notice. He was not one of the family at all. He came home; and, according to the best Greek text, his father never gave him the chance to ask to be a servant. He broke in before that. The robe stands for honour; the ring for authority, for if a man gave to another his signet ring it was the same as giving him the power of attorney; the shoes for a son as opposed to a slave, for children of the family were shod and slaves were not. (The slave’s dream in the negro spiritual is of the time when “all God’s chillun got shoes,” for shoes were the sign of freedom.) And a feast was made that all might rejoice at the wanderer’s return.

 

Prodigal Son by Eugene Burnand

Prodigal Son by Eugene Burnand

Let us stop there and see the truth so far in this parable.
(i) It should never have been called the parable of the Prodigal Son, for the son is not the hero. It should be called the parable of the Loving Father, for it tells us rather about a father’s love than a son’s sin.
(ii) It tells us much about the forgiveness of God. The father must have been waiting and watching for the son to come home, for he saw him a long way off. When he came, he forgave him with no recriminations. There is a way of forgiving, when forgiveness is conferred as a favour. It is even worse, when someone is forgiven, but always by hint and by word and by threat his sin is held over him.
Once Lincoln was asked how he was going to treat the rebellious southerners when they had finally been defeated and had returned to the Union of the United States. The questioner expected that Lincoln would take a dire vengeance, but he answered, “I will treat them as if they had never been away.”
It is the wonder of the love of God that he treats us like that.
That is not the end of the story. There enters the elder brother who was actually sorry that his brother had come home. He stands for the self-righteous Pharisees who would rather see a sinner destroyed than saved. Certain things stand out about him.
(i) His attitude shows that his years of obedience to his father had been years of grim duty and not of loving service.
(ii) His attitude is one of utter lack of sympathy. He refers to the prodigal, not as any brother, but as your son. He was the kind of self-righteous character who would cheerfully have kicked a man farther into the gutter when he was already down.
(iii) He had a peculiarly nasty mind. There is no mention of harlots until he mentions them. He, no doubt, suspected his brother of the sins he himself would have liked to commit.
Once again we have the amazing truth that it is easier to confess to God than it is to many a man; that God is more merciful in his judgments than many an orthodox man; that the love of God is far broader than the love of man; and that God can forgive when men refuse to forgive. In face of a love like that we cannot be other than lost in wonder, love and praise.
The Gospel of Luke, Barclay’s Daily Study Bible (NT).

** William Barclay’s translation.

by James Ross Kelly

Parable of the Unjust Steward—William Barclay


 

A Bad Man’s Good Example (Luke 16:1-13)

Parable of the Dishonest Steward—Eugene Burnand

Parable of the Dishonest Steward—Eugene Burnand

Jesus said to his disciples, “There was a rich man who had a steward. He received information against the steward which alleged that he was dissipating his goods. He called him, and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.’ The steward said to himself, ‘What am I to do? I have not the strength to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I know what I will do, so that, when I am removed from my stewardship, they will receive me into their houses.’ So he summoned each of the people who owed debts to his master. To the first he said, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He said, ‘Nine hundred gallons of oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your account and sit down and write quickly, four hundred and fifty.’ Then he said to another ‘And you—how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A thousand bushels of corn.’ He said to him, ‘Take your accounts and write eight hundred.’ And the master praised the wicked steward because he acted shrewdly; for the sons of this world are shrewder in their own generation than the sons of light. And, I tell you, make for yourselves friends by means of your material possessions, even if they have been unjustly acquired, so that when your money has gone they will receive you into a dwelling which lasts forever. He who is trustworthy in a very little is also trustworthy in much; and he who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. If you have not shown yourself trustworthy in your ordinary business dealings about material things, who will trust you with the genuine wealth? If you have not shown yourselves trustworthy in what belongs to someone else, who will give you what is your own? No household slave can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot be the slave of God and of material things.”

Parable of the Dishonest Steward—Eugene Burnand

Parable of the Dishonest Steward—Eugene Burnand

This is a difficult parable to interpret. It is a story about as choice a set of rascals as one could meet anywhere.

The steward was a rascal. He was a slave, but he was nonetheless in charge of the running of his master’s estate. In Palestine there were many absentee landlords. The master may well have been one of these, and his business may well have been entrusted to his steward’s hands. The steward had followed a career of embezzlement.

The debtors were also rascals. No doubt what they owed was rent. Rent was often paid to a landlord, not in money, but in kind. It was often an agreed proportion of the produce of the part of the estate which had been rented. The steward knew that he had lost his job. He, therefore, had a brilliant idea. He falsified the entries in the books so that the debtors were debited with far less than they owed. This would have two effects. First, the debtors would be grateful to him; and second, and much more effective, he had involved the debtors in his own misdemeanours, and, if the worst came to the worst, he was now in a strong position to exercise a little judicious blackmail!

The master himself was something of a rascal, for, instead of being shocked at the whole proceeding, he appreciated the shrewd brain behind it and actually praised the steward for what he had done.

The difficulty of the parable is clearly seen from the fact that Luke attaches no fewer than four different lessons to it.

(i) In Lk 16:8 the lesson is that the sons of this world are wiser in their generation than the sons of light. That means that, if only the Christian was as eager and ingenious in his attempt to attain goodness as the man of the world is in his attempt to attain money and comfort, he would be a much better man. If only men would give as much attention to the things which concern their souls as they do to the things which concern their business, they would be much better men. Over and over again a man will expend twenty times the amount of time and money and effort on his pleasure, his hobby, his garden, his sport as he does on his church. Our Christianity will begin to be real and effective only when we spend as much time and effort on it as we do on our worldly activities.

(ii) In Lk 16:9 the lesson is that material possessions should be used to cement the friendships wherein the real and permanent value of life lies. That could be done in two ways.

(a) It could be done as it affects eternity. The Rabbis had a saying, “The rich help the poor in this world, but the poor help the rich in the world to come.” Ambrose, commenting on the rich fool who built bigger barns to store his goods, said, “The bosoms of the poor, the houses of widows, the mouths of children are the barns which last forever.” It was a Jewish belief that charity given to poor people would stand to a man’s credit in the world to come. A man’s true wealth would consist not in what he kept, but in what he gave away.

(b) It could be done as it affects this world. A man can use his wealth selfishly or he can use it to make life easier, not only for himself, but for his friends and his fellow-men. How many a scholar is forever grateful to a rich man who gave or left money to found bursaries and scholarships which made a university career possible! How many a man is grateful to a better-off friend who saw him through some time of need in the most practical way! Possessions are not in themselves a sin, but they are a great responsibility, and the man who uses them to help his friends has gone far to discharge that responsibility.

(iii) In Lk 16:10-11 the lesson is that a man’s way of fulfilling a small task is the best proof of his fitness or unfitness to be entrusted with a bigger task. That is clearly true of earthly things. No man will be advanced to higher office until he has given proof of his honesty and ability in a smaller position. But Jesus extends the principle to eternity. He says, “Upon earth you are in charge of things which are not really yours. You cannot take them with you when you die. They are only lent to you. You are only a steward over them. They cannot, in the nature of things, be permanently yours. On the other hand, in heaven you will get what is really and eternally yours. And what you get in heaven depends on how you use the things of earth. What you will be given as your very own will depend on how you use the things of which you are only steward.”

(iv) Lk 16:13 lays down the rule that no slave can serve two masters. The master possessed the slave, and possessed him exclusively. Nowadays, a servant or a workman can quite easily do two jobs and work for two people. He can do one job in his working time and another in his spare time. He can, for instance, be a clerk by day and a musician by night. Many a man augments his income or finds his real interest in a spare-time occupation. But a slave had no spare time; every moment of his day, and every ounce of his energy, belonged to his master. He had no time which was his own. So, serving God can never be a part-time or a spare-time job. Once a man chooses to serve God every moment of his time and every atom of his energy belongs to God. God is the most exclusive of masters. We either belong to him totally or not at all.

Gospel of Luke, Barclay’s Daily Study Bible (NT).

** William Barclay’s translation.