If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who shall entrust to you the true?
The Lord has just told the story of a steward who used his master's money to secure his own future. Now He draws out the point for His disciples: how you handle money decides what God will put into your hands next. His question is not about amount but about trust.
Kelly looks first at the word itself.
"Unrighteous wealth." The word here means false, in contrast with genuine riches. For the word "true," compare John 1:9 and John 17:3; and see Matthew 13:22 and similar places, "the deceitfulness of riches."
The name goes further than that. Money stands for a world that has pushed God out — yet the Lord turns even this to good use.
Our use of present things is always unrighteous, for we have lost our title. These riches now stand for the world's separation from God, and for setting up self and its pleasures in the place of God. But the Lord turns it round to good. By nature we are unrighteous stewards of unrighteous wealth. Using it for Him becomes a matter of faithfulness. Spent on self, it takes up its natural character again: the expression of selfishness. On the other hand, this use is a test of faithfulness... Whoever has used or given it according to the mind of God — setting God up and self down — God will entrust on the same principle with what is more important, even the true riches.
Calling money the least thing does not make it unimportant. Small amounts often test a person more than large ones do.
The smallest thing gives us a place to glorify God. But we must think little of the present in the light of the future... Yet, as everyone knows, little things test how real we are. A man may be honest about something of great value and still take liberties in what is petty. Some say that judging a moral failure severely over a small sum is a fuss about nothing. There is no greater mistake. In small things a man's true character is often best known.
The next verse calls present possessions "another's." That other person is Christ, and it changes what a believer thinks he owns.
The Christian's whole course here is that of someone acting for another, even Christ. We are servants holding things in trust for the Lord. The Christian should treat his time, his money, his abilities and his property as his Master's goods. His business is to serve his Master and carry out His will. This matters enormously. Covetousness is trying to make your own the earthly things God has not given you.
Holding things for someone else makes a person more generous, not less.
If we looked on them as our own, we might be tempted to spend them on ourselves, or to hoard them up — laying up treasure in the last days, as James 5:3 says. But once we see them as wholly another's, we can afford to be generous with them. We can pour them out on every interest of His, looking on to that scene where we shall receive our own things.
The riches God waits to entrust are not a bigger bank balance. They belong to the believer in Christ — and nothing on earth does.
We have a title in grace to use, in a heavenly way, that to which we have no title at all as man... Our own things are the heavenly things; the earthly things belong to another. These earthly, passing goods are not your own. If you do not use your title in grace and give them away in love, how can God trust you with the spiritual things that are "your own"? Our own things are all the glories of Christ — all that is Christ's is ours.
Failing here costs more than a reward later. It spoils the enjoyment of what truly is yours.
You cannot measure a man's godliness by his giving. Yet it cannot exist without giving, for "faith apart from works is dead." And whoever tries to satisfy himself with what is not his own, but is only his to steward, will find the things that really are his own unsatisfying in the same measure.
- Trust. Everything you hold — time, money, abilities, property — belongs to your Master. Covetousness is claiming as your own what God has not given you.
- Test. Money is the least thing. Yet small matters are where a person's true character shows, so the smallest thing becomes a place to glorify God.
- Turn. Wealth is called "unrighteous" because it stands for a world that has left God out. Spent on self, it stays that way. Used for Him, the Lord turns it to good.
- Transfer. The "true riches" are the heavenly things, all that is Christ's. God asks how you handled His goods before He entrusts you with your own.
- Result. Grasp what you only hold in trust, and even what is truly yours will not satisfy. Hold it loosely, and you can be generous now, with eternity in view.
and if ye have not been faithful in that which is another's, who shall give to you your own?
The Lord has just told a parable about a steward handling goods that were never his. Now He presses a question about ownership: whose are the things we hold, and what is "your own"?
One writer applies this to the Christian. What looks like your own property you actually hold in trust, and your whole life here is service for someone else.
Present property is not strictly one's own. The whole course of the Christian here is really that of one acting for another, even Christ. We are servants in trust for the Lord. The Christian ought to regard his time, his money, his abilities and his property as the goods of his Master. His business is to serve his Master and faithfully carry out His will. This matters enormously. Covetousness means trying to make earthly things your own when God has not given them to you.
The older wording "another man's" makes it sound like a human owner. One writer corrects that.
But then there are things also which we may speak of as "our own." What are these? Ah, they are what the Lord speaks of as, after all, "the true riches." "And if you have not been faithful in that which is another's" — not "another man's," but God's, of course — "who will give you that which is your own?"
Two instincts usually decide what we do with money: spending it on ourselves and hoarding it. Seeing money as a trust cuts off both.
They are not our own. They are "that which is another man's" — the master's goods, according to the parable, which are still in our hands until the master finally takes our stewardship away. If we looked on them as our own, the temptation would be to spend them on ourselves, or hoard them up — heaping treasure together in the last days, as James 5:3 says. But when we see them as wholly "another man's," we can afford to be generous with them. We can pour them out on every interest of His, looking on to that scene where we shall receive our own things. Only such a view of money, to speak plainly, can free us from a power that rules the human heart so strongly.
If earthly goods are only on loan, something else must truly be ours. Commentators point to what the believer already has in Christ and will never lose.
"Another's goods" are those which God has allowed us to use on earth for the time being, but we cannot call them our own, for we only have them in trust. But God gives the believer today "every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ." These are his own, because he will keep them for eternity. This is in contrast to what we have only for a time on earth.
What is truly ours also reaches into the future.
When the glory comes, we shall have what is our own. What a wonderful truth, that the wide scene of Christ's glory in which we shall reign with Him will be ours! Then we shall hold power and glory without abusing them; now we can only safely use what we have by counting it Christ's and using it according to His will.
Failing this test costs more than a loss later on. Clutching what is not ours spoils the enjoyment of what is. The writer below keeps the older wording "mammon of unrighteousness"; the ESV says "unrighteous wealth."
To use in this way what is so commonly, and so characteristically, the "mammon of unrighteousness" is not unrighteous. It is faithfulness in what belongs to Another. It is only "that which is least," as earthly things must be. Yet even so it can test and show what a person's character is about the "true riches." You cannot measure a man's godliness by his giving. But on the other hand godliness cannot exist without it, for "faith apart from works is dead." And whoever tries to satisfy himself with what is not his own, but of which he is only a steward, will find that his own things satisfy him just as little.
- Another's. Money, time, abilities and property are not strictly your own. You hold them in trust, as a servant acting for Christ.
- Covetousness. Covetousness is grasping at earthly things God has not given you. It tries to turn a trust into a possession.
- Freedom. See goods as wholly another's, and you can afford to be generous. Only that view breaks money's grip on the heart.
- Your own. What is truly yours is the true riches: every spiritual blessing in Christ, kept for eternity, and the glory you will share with Him.
- Test. The least things now show your character. Try to satisfy yourself with what is not yours, and what is truly yours will satisfy you just as little.