✨WEB · Luke 16:5
What does Luke 16:5 mean?
"Calling each one of his lord’s debtors to him, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe to my lord?’"
— Luke 16:5 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
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?’
He said, ‘A hundred batos of oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’
Then he said to another, ‘How much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred cors of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’
“His lord commended the dishonest manager because he had done wisely, for the children of this world are, in their own generation, wiser than the children of the light.
Explanation
Luke 16:5 sits in the middle of one of Jesus’ more puzzling parables, often called the Parable of the Unjust Steward or the Shrewd Manager. In plain language, this verse simply describes the moment when a manager who has just been told he is losing his job begins to take action. Knowing his employment is ending, he summons each person who owes money to his master, one at a time, and starts asking them how much they owe. This is the first step in a scheme he is devising to secure his future once he is out of work.
The broader context is essential to understanding this single verse. Jesus tells this parable to his disciples (Luke 16:1), following a series of teachings on stewardship, wealth, and prior
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