Daily Bible Reading 12th November 2026 // Luke 16:1-13
1 He also said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions. 2 And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’ 3 And the manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. 4 I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.’ 5 So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ 7 Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ 8 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. 9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.
10 “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. 11 If then you have not been faithful with the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? 12 And if you have not been faithful with that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own? 13 No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”
The message of this chapter is so different from that of the previous one that the transition from the one to the other comes almost with the force of a shock. Yet it seems clear that what is said here was spoken at the same time if we are to take the first few words in 1 at their face value. The implication is that there is a connection in thought at least between the two chapters. Prominent in the thought of the parable before us is the idea of money - the mammon of unrighteousness. One cannot fail to be impressed with the large place Christ gives to the subject in his teaching. Over and over again, in His parables and elsewhere He deals with the dangers, deceitfulness and hardening power of riches. Here, it is the right use of money that He underlines. It is here that we may well see a connection with the previous chapter. There, we have the story of a young man who 'wasted his substance'. 'Give me', he said, assuming the portion of goods as his right, and as his own. And here, we have the emphatic assertion by Jesus that nothing that we have is our own, but given as a stewardship from God. We may also see the link that this parable has with the one that follows (19ff), for there again it is the question of stewardship that is at the heart of it, and from it we learn that being called to give account of one's stewardship is a solemn reality indeed, in which eternal issues are involved. Also - and this further indicates the continuity of thought between the two chapters the story of Dives and Lazarus shows us that sometimes men do not 'come home' to the Father, that they do not 'come to themselves' until it is too late, and irreversible, eternal consequences result.