Did Jesus Commend the Unjust Steward?

 The passage in Luke 16:1-13 we have these words of our Lord:

16 He also said to His disciples: “There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and an accusation was brought to him that this man was [a]wasting his goods. 2 So he called him and said to him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.’

3 “Then the steward said within himself, ‘What shall I do? For my master is taking the stewardship away from me. I cannot dig; I am ashamed to beg. 4 I have resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.’

5 “So he called every one of his master’s debtors to him, and said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 And he said, ‘A hundred [b]measures of oil.’ So 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?’ So he said, ‘A hundred [c]measures of wheat.’ And he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ 8 So the master commended the unjust steward because he had dealt shrewdly. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light.

9 “And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous [d]mammon, that when [e]you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home. 10 He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much. 11 Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? 12 And if you have not been faithful in what is another man’s, who will give you what is your own?

13 “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

The Law, the Prophets, and the Kingdom

14 Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things, and they [f]derided Him. 

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This is indeed a hard passage. I highlighted the passage that needs a lot of unpacking. In fact, in the KJV tradition, the word used is in v. 8 "for the children of this world are in their generation much wiser than the children of light". This can give the impression that Jesus is favoring the children of the world compared to the children of the light. What is at play here is the translation "master" too, did this refer to our Lord? This is why I took the NKJV to show how that word can be rendered "wise" to "shrewd". In my mind to understand this story, the key is v.14, that is why I included it here.

We must note the reaction of the Pharisees to this story, they recognized that it was about them, how they behave. Thus, this is another story against the Pharisee! The Lord was saying, this is  what they do. But to the disciples, this is exactly what you must not do. This boils down to ethics. The unjust steward used his influence to save himself from being mistreated when he is put out of stewardship. He did this by stealing more from his master, giving more away his master's possessions for his own advantage. Jesus is telling us the opposite, that we should be faithful to our work even if we are serving an unrighteous master. In this story, both the master and the steward had the same value and ethics. But for the Lord, it should not be so - we do not have the right to steal from our masters even if our master is unjust - in this case our employers. We do not steal from our employers even if the source of their possessions came from unrighteous means.  See v. 11-13. We do not follow the shrewd ethics of this servant, in fact, we do the opposite. We are to be faithful with another man's richest. The servant loved mammon and by his actions hated his master, who himself might be unrighteous. The Lord is saying to us, do not love mammon, but rather love God, for in loving God, we will put His principles first, ie honest and true dealing, we will not steal from our neighbor but will be faithful to what has been entrusted to us. That is our ethics - so, to answer the question, NO, the Lord is not commending, rather, he was describing the Pharisees' love for money that destroys ethics.