A Daring Call For Shrewdness
The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into eternal dwellings.
Luke 16:8-9
Introduction
A prevailing dogma of this Christian era is one that says Christians must be meek and mild, never insist on their own way, always be courteous, always allow others to go first, never cause trouble, never get a leg up, never be pushy, never say no, never insist on a Christian way, never promote the Christian way as supreme, and the list goes on. While Christianity is hated with a fiery hatred by the general population (because it is the only true religion), Christians willing to do the bidding of the left and right are loved and praised – so long as we do not do what God’s word says.
The Passage
This passage, in the author’s opinion, is a very neglected portion of holy writ. This neglect, I believe, comes from the discomfort that emerges when one attempts to be obedient to it. This isn’t like other passages that tell us to love our neighbor, be patient in suffering, learn contentment, or to consider others as more significant than ourselves. None of those have the potential of making people mad at you. In this passage, however, our Lord is exhorting us unto something that is categorically different from many other commands in scripture.
For sake of ease, we can break Gods commands into two categories: 1) those that require us to be outward facing, and 2) those that require us to be inward facing. By inward I am referring to ourselves. These are commands that, if obeyed, would make us look selfish. And by outward I mean the opposite, those commands that, when obeyed, are helpful in relationship building.
For instance, Paul tells Timothy that, “if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever (1 Timothy 5:8).” This passage is similar to the one above, because it provokes one to look inward rather than outward. The reason this is so uncomfortable is because we have been trained by our culture to believe that being a Christian means we are to be poor, constantly giving to anyone who asks, putting everyone before ourselves and our families, and making sure that “no” is not part of our vocabulary. However, Paul is clearly saying that there is a hierarchy of importance in people’s lives. For a man, his wife and children ought to be the most important, and he is obligated to care for them first before he lends to anyone else’s needs. A man’s wife, in other words, ought to be more important to him than any other woman, and a man’s children ought to be more important to him than anyone else’s children. To put a point on it, if two children are starving to death, your child and someone else’s, this passage obligates you to feed your child over the other. If you feed the other child rather than your own, you prove that you hate Christ and are a rank pagan destined for hell. This is awkward in our day, because this is viewed as being selfish and conceited (at least to our secular culture and the church overly influenced by it), however, it is not. This is godliness. By this kind of obedience without blushing or apology God will be pleased, and our faith will overcome the world.
Likewise, in our Luke passage, we are seeing something similar. Here, Jesus is commending the dishonesty of the manager, praising his shrewdness, and this is then followed by Jesus rebuking the sons of light for not being more like him. Not something you’d expect from the kind of Jeus the majority of the church believes is only gentle and lowly.
Being Dishonest and Shrewd
“But wait, I thought lying and being clever were wrong, sinful!” you may say. And the answer is “maybe.” In another place Jesus tells his disciples to be “wise as serpents, and innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16). Now, certainly wisdom is not benign – it is something that is to be applied and acted upon. We are to be as wise as our enemies, the serpent of old, the devil. We are to think how he thinks, adopt his strategies, and embrace his playbook – and yet use it for God’s kingdom. However, we are also to be innocent in all our doings which means there must be some way we are able to think like the devil, be dishonest and clever like the manager, and remain innocent through it all. But how can this be?
First consider some other examples of this very thing.
Midwives of Egypt (Exodus 1:17-21)
Pharaoh commanded the midwives to kill all male Hebrew babies, but they disobeyed and spared the lives of many, lying to the Pharaoh about their reasons for the babies surviving.
Abram and Sarai (Genesis 12:10-20)
Abram's deception put Pharaoh in danger of not only violating their own cultural standards, but also of sinning against God. By this lie God blessed Abram with provisions and wealth.
Abraham and Abimelech (Genesis 20)
Abraham deceives Abimelech the same way he deceived pharaoh. In this scenario the Lord again enriches Abraham by the hands of Abimelech and he commends Abraham as a prophet.
Rahab (Joshua 2:1-7)
Rahab, the prostitute, hid the Israelite spies in her house and lied to the soldiers who were searching for them, protecting the spies. Further, she is listed in the “hall of faith” in Hebrews 11:31 as being opposite all the disobedient people who perished in Jericho.
Jonathan and David (1 Samuel 20:26-29)
After it became obvious that Saul was attempting to take David’s life, Jonathan lied to his father, Saul, so David could escape to freedom.
David and Hushai (2 Samuel 15:32-37)
David’s Kingdom is being overcome by his son Absalom, and David is fleeing the city. He commissions his friend Hushai to infiltrate Absalom’s counselors, pretend to be in league against David, and give bad counsel so Absalom will be defeated.
The Woman, Ahimaaz, and Jonathan (2 Samuel 17:15-20)
After David’s spy, Hushai, convinces Absalom to follow his advice rather than Ahithophel’s, he tells Ahimaaz and Jonathan the news, and they are to go tell David. However, a “young man” saw them entering the city and told Absalom. So Ahimaaz and Jonathan hid themselves in a woman’s well, and she covered it and proceeded to deceive Absalom’s servants when they came looking for the priests.
Nathan and Bathsheba (1 Kings 1:5-27)
In this scene, David is elderly and is nearing death. His son Adonijah is ascending the throne without permission or prearrangement. In order to stop this, Nathan, the prophet of God, goes to Bathsheba and advises her to deceive king David by using his old age against him and making him think he declared his son Solomon to reign as king when he, in fact, did not. On top of this, to bolster the legitimacy of the lie, Nathan came behind Bathsheba and supported her claim by affirming it himself.
Jesus (John 7:8-10)
In this passage Jesus tells the disciples that he will “not [be] going up to the feast” because his “time [had] not yet fully come.” And the next verse says, “but after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly, but in private.” Jesus knew the Jew would be looking for him at the feast and seek to kill him. He, therefore, does not want anyone to know he will be there, not even his disciples. To accomplish this he tells them one thing, then does another i.e. deception. He did this so that he would not be killed prematurely, hence his statement that his time had not yet come.
These are just a few examples of righteous deception in the bible, but in every one of these cases, we see the person or people lying, being deceptive, strategic, shrewd, and wise as serpents, we also see them being as innocent as doves. This is evinced by the silence of God in their condemnation. But still you ask, “how can this be? Lying is sinful! Deception is sinful!” And, again, the answer is “sometimes” and not in every case.
The question we must ask ourselves is what is the purpose and intent of the law? Certainly the law is good, holy, perfect, and right, and it reflects the very character of God. The law of God is traditionally broken into to tables: 1) laws concerning our duty toward God, and 2) laws concerning our duty toward man. Commandments 1-4 are the first table, and commandments 5-10 are the second. It is impossible to conceive of a scenario where it would be permissible to break one of the first four commandments, with the exception of the 4thcommandment, and even that only by some providential hindrance outside our control. That being said, however, it is possible to conceive of a scenario where some of the laws in the second half may be broken. But even here, only the 5th, 6th and 9th commandments can be conceived of being “broken” in any rational way.
5th: Imagine you’re a young 16-year-old Christian lad in the middle 18th century. Your Christian father is a sea fairing captain, and he is taking you on a voyage, teaching you the trade, and raising you to take over the business. On this particular excursion your ship and crew encounter pirates after a few days of sailing. The battle goes on and your ship takes on significant damage, is taking on water, and will not remain afloat for too much longer. Your father gives you strict instructions to wait on the ship while he goes to secure safe escape for you both; however, in his attempt to do so he is brought to his demise by his assailants. You see a sure way of escape via a paddle boat but before you, you remember your fathers orders. What do you do? You might say, “Well, he’s dead. His instructions are no longer binding.” But where is this found in scripture? Do you go against his command or abide by it?
6th: Imagine you’re a Christian husband and you, your wife, and your children are in pleasant slumber in the middle of the night. You’re jarred awake by the sound of a loud crack in your basement. It was your back door broken in by an intruder. You quickly and quietly get out of bed, grab your pistol and proceed to investigate. You are responsible for the safety and security of your family and home, and now there is a very credible threat against the wellbeing of your family’s life; It’s dark, and you’re under attack. You don’t know how many there are, you don’t know if they have guns, knives, or bats. You don’t know if they’re on drugs, or if their here to kill, steal, or both. You have no idea. All you know is there is someone in my home who doesn’t belong, and you have souls that need your protection. What do you do? Do you shoot this man knowing that you may kill him and thus break the 6th commandment? Or do you choose to be less lethal and risk the potential harm of your family?
9th: Imagine you are living in 1930’s Germany, and some storm troopers knock on your door looking for Jews. You’re a German Christian living through this time. What do you tell the troopers? You know that “telling the truth” will lead to their imprisonment and probable death. But lying is against the 9thcommandment. How do you proceed? You seem to be in a bit of a pickle. You tell the truth, and you break the 6th commandment, you “lie”, and you break the 9th. God’s law is apparently at odds with itself.
The Purpose of God’s Law
God’s law is intended for the preservation and protection of life. The Westminster Larger Catechism says it like this:
Q95. Of what use is the moral law to all men”
A. The moral law is of use to all men, to inform them of the holy nature and will of God, and of their duty, binding them to walk accordingly, to convince them of their disability to keep it, and of their sinful pollution of their nature, hearts, and lives; to humble them in the sense of their sin and misery, and thereby help them to a clearer sight of the need they have in Christ, and of their perfection of his obedience. (Emphasis mine)
What question 95 helps us see are the myriad ways the law is intended to grant and protect true life which exists only in Christ. I will make an argument maiore ad minus, (argument from the greater to the lesser), to say that if God’s law is to show people their need for Christ and the life that is had in him, then the law is certainly for the preservation of life on earth as well.
This means that when the law is in conflict with the preservation of life, the law takes on a different form. It would be blasphemy to say that breaking the law is permissible. We’re not heretics like Steven Furtick who thinks God broke his own law for love. But we must understand the nuance of the law so as not to fall into doctrinal ditches.
R.C. Sproul said this: “We are always and everywhere obligated to tell the truth to whom the truth is due. We are to speak the truth where justice and righteousness requires the truth.”[1] Sproul goes on to explain that there are times when righteousness requires deception. This is a startling statement, and one that, frankly, slaps the spirit of our Christian age right in the face. When we are confronted with a scenario, in other words, where telling the truth would result in the harm or death of another, and the unrighteous to prevail, we are obligated to deceive. Obligated. The person or people seeking to do the arm have no right to the truth. When Rahab lied to the Jerichoan guards, she was not lying, she was being righteous, because they did not deserve to know the truth. This is why she is listed in Hebrews 11. When Jonathan lied to Saul about David’s whereabouts, he did this because Saul was set to kill David, and he had no right to the truth of his whereabouts.
Truth is a weapon of war, and if the enemy has it they can distort it and win the battle. It is, therefore, the obligation of the righteous to conceal it from them so as to actually gain ground, conquer, and subdue the world, and as noted above, this is what God’s people have always done.
The Point of It All
We are not permitted to flippantly lie about anything we want or to whomever we desire whenever we fancy. Westminster Larger Catechism questions 144 and 145 are very clear on this point. Go read them. We must, however, have our powers of discernment trained by constant practice so as to distinguish between good and evil (Hebrews 5:14) and when we are presented with evil that is trying to get a leg up, and needs the truth to do it, Jesus tells us to be shrewd, cunning, and lie.
[1] https://learn.ligonier.org/devotionals/sanctity-truth
