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Gospel Reading for November 08, 2024 – Luke 16: 1-8
OUTSMART
Jesus said to his disciples, “A rich man had a steward who was reported to him for squandering his property. He summoned him and said, ‘What is this I hear about you? Prepare a full account of your stewardship, because you can no longer be my steward.’ The steward said to himself, ‘What shall I do, now that my master is taking the position of steward away from me? I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg. I know what I shall do so that, when I am removed from the stewardship, they may welcome me into their homes.’ He called in his master’s debtors one by one. To the first he said, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He replied, ‘One hundred measures of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Here is your promissory note. Sit down and quickly write one for fifty.’ Then to another he said, ‘And you, how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘One hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him,‘Here is your promissory note; write one for eighty.’ And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently. For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than the children of light.”
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We may think that Jesus was praising the dishonest steward or that Jesus was condoning dishonesty in this reading. Jesus was just pointing out how smart and how very wily the devil is. He is not saying that we should also be wily, but we have to OUTSMART the devil and not be manipulated by him by being wary of his ways. A case in point: Nowadays, in some parts of the world, especially in first world countries, laws that are “immoral” in nature, purportedly in support of the rights of children, women, and people who are tired of living are being enacted because of the zealousness of the people lobbying for them. If we look at numbers, they are so very little compared to the number of Christians, and yet, what are we Christians doing? How many of us are lobbying against these laws? We are not supposed to be just watching the devil do his own thing and get the better of us. We have to work against the devil!
Lord Jesus, we know that all your powers are there for tapping if we truly wish to be on your side!
