Luke 16:8-13
The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own? No servant can serve two masters. 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 both God and Money.
This whole passage is about money: How we manage our finances shows our views of God and His provisions. We can learn from the world about financial management because they can be wiser in money matters than Christians, who can be naive, thinking that it's "holier" to disdain handling "filthy lucre." But money is a tool, it has no intrinsic moral value either good or bad. If we make Money a god, a goal in itself, that is evil, so loving money is at odds with loving God. Learning good financial practices is just as righteous a concept as any "holy" activity. Money is a tool that we need to learn more about how to use, in order to promote God's Kingdom, as His hands and feet.
Note: See also my post of June 24, 2015.
