✨WEB · Luke 16:2
What does Luke 16:2 mean?
"He called him, and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give an accounting of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’"
— Luke 16:2 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
He also said to his disciples, “There was a certain rich man who had a manager. An accusation was made to him that this man was wasting his possessions.
He called him, and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give an accounting of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’
“The manager said within himself, ‘What will I do, seeing that my lord is taking away the management position from me? I don’t have strength to dig. I am ashamed to beg.
I know what I will do, so that when I am removed from management, they may receive me into their houses.’
Calling each one of his lord’s debtors to him, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe to my lord?’
Explanation
Luke 16:2 comes from the parable of the unjust (or shrewd) manager, a story Jesus tells to his disciples. In plain language, the verse describes a rich man who has heard reports that his manager—the person entrusted with running his estate and handling his financial affairs—has been mismanaging his property, likely through waste or dishonesty. The owner summons the manager and confronts him directly: he has heard troubling things, and now the manager must give a full accounting of his work, because he is being fired. This is the moment of reckoning that sets the entire parable in motion, as the manager, facing unemployment, then scrambles to secure his future by cutting deals with his master's debtors.
To understand the context, remember that Jesus told this parable to his disciples, though Pharisees who loved money were also listening nearby (as the following verses make clear). Luke often groups Jesus' teachings around themes of wealth, stewardship, and the proper use of possessions, and this parable fits squarely within that pattern. In the ancient world, a manager (sometimes called a steward) was a servant given significant authority over an owner's estate, finances, and dealings with tenants or debtors. Such a position required trust, and the accusation of mismanagement was serious—it meant the steward had either been careless, dishonest, or both, and the master's patience had run out.
Theologically, this verse introduces a central theme of the parable: accountability. Every steward eventually must answer to the one who owns what he manages. The manager in the story doesn't actually own the estate; he has only been entrusted with it tem
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