Bryan Craddock - Bargaining

With money being tight, all of us are looking for good bargains. When we hear the word “bargain,” most of us probably think of finding a good sale price. We are used to walking into a store, seeing a price, and simply deciding whether or not to pay it. The only time we really engage in active bargaining may be at a garage sale or when we go to purchase a car. In many other parts of the world that kind of active bargaining is a part of normal everyday life.

My first opportunity to travel overseas was back in the summer of 2001. Calvary’s elders sent me to Kazakhstan, a huge Central Asian country that borders Russia to the north and China to the east. I was supposed to tour around the country and visit children’s summer camps with one of our missionaries.

On my second day in the country we were driving to a children’s camp on the outskirts of Almaty, the country’s largest city. At one intersection a Kazakh police officer standing in the middle of the road waved us over to the side. His uniform resembled the old Soviet military uniforms. Our driver pulled over, stepped out of the car to speak with him, and a vigorous discussion began.

The policeman claimed we were speeding. He didn’t have a high-tech radar gun. He hadn’t followed us to check our speed. There weren’t any aircraft or other officers patrolling to radio ahead to him. He just arbitrarily concluded that we were speeding. But in countries like that it’s not necessarily wise to disagree with the authorities.

So what was he going to do about it? Policemen there don’t write tickets. They just set a fine on the spot. We couldn’t leave until the fine was settled. I think he asked for 5,000 tenge. At that time that was about 35 dollars. So our driver began to bargain, “5,000 tenge is too much, I wasn’t really speeding.”  “Yes you were, 5,000 tenge or I take you to jail.” “How about 500 tenge?”  “No, that’s not enough.” “OK. 1,000?” “Still not enough.” “How about 2,000?” “OK. 2,000 tenge.” Our driver came back to the car, got some cash, paid the policeman, and we headed on our way—no tickets, courts, or judges, simply bargaining, and I’m sure the policeman had an extra nice dinner with his family that night.

People around the world go through this kind of process every time they shop. They bargain with government and the law. They even bargain when they get married. In many places, when a young man wants a wife, he or his family even have to go bargain with the woman’s family over a dowry—a gift to the family.

Bargaining like this is strange to most of us here in the United States. It can grate against our cultural understanding of honesty. Nevertheless, it is a reality of life in many places now, and it was also the way of life in Bible times. The Old Testament book of Proverbs says, “‘Bad, bad,’ says the buyer, But when he goes his way, then he boasts” (Prov 20:14). The Bible never approves of dishonesty, but the shrewdness and discernment involved in bargaining is highly respected. It’s a mindset that should characterize our lives as we handle our finances, and more importantly, as we think about life.

Jesus on Bargaining

Perhaps the best biblical example of this shrewd bargaining mindset is found in a story that Jesus told. It’s recorded for us in Luke 16.

Now He was also saying to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and this manager was reported to him as squandering his possessions. And he called him and said to him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an accounting of your management, for you can no longer be manager.' 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; I am ashamed to beg. 'I know what I shall do, so that when I am removed from the management people will welcome me into their homes.' And he summoned each one of his master's debtors, and he began saying to the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' And he said, 'A hundred measures of oil.' And he said to him, 'Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.' Then he said to another, 'And how much do you owe?' And he said, 'A hundred measures of wheat.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, and write eighty.' And his master praised the unrighteous manager because he had acted shrewdly… (Luke 16:1-8).

This morning as we consider this passage we’ll unfold the details of this story and then see why Jesus told it, and what lesson we need to take away from it.

It was common in the ancient world for wealthy people to have someone to manage their estate. This person was called an oikonomos, literally the ruler of the house. We might call this person an administrator, manager, superintendent, or steward. He was the person in charge of managing the family business. Sometimes the person would be a slave like Joseph was back in the book of Genesis. His brother’s sold him into slavery in Egypt, but he was so faithful in serving his master Potiphar that Potiphar put Joseph in charge of all the business matters of his household.

In this story that Jesus told, the manager isn’t a slave. He is an employee. But he hasn’t been faithful. He has squandered the possessions of this rich man, but Jesus doesn’t say how it happened. Perhaps he was lazy, poorly managing the fields so that they didn’t produce what they should have. He could have been stealing from his master. All we know is that the rich man hears some bad reports from someone and he is going to fire this manager.

The manager’s final instructions are to pull together all the records and give a final account of where things stand. He doesn’t argue. He knows that he’s caught. He seems to just accept it, but meanwhile his mind kicks into gear. How can he work this situation to his own advantage?  How can he provide for himself in the future?

Then he lands on an idea. He decides to go back to all the people who have debts with his master and to cut great deals for them. With one man, he knocks 50 percent off his bill. With another, he knocks off 20 percent. These were huge debts, so these people were receiving an incredible deal. They would be deeply grateful to the manager. Of course, his plan was to take advantage of their gratitude later to get food and shelter for himself.

Was this an honest thing to do? It’s hard to say. If the manager charged fair prices when he first made these deals with these individuals, then discounting their debts was a way of stealing from his employer. When he cut the oil from 100 measures to 50, he was really stealing 50 measures of oil that should have been paid back to his employer.

On the other hand, the manager probably marked up the price of everything in the first place. He probably intended to take a major cut on all of this for himself. Instead of charging 50 measures of oil originally, he charged 100 because he planned to take 50 for himself. If that’s what really happened, then these last minute bargains weren’t dishonest. He may have been giving away the mark-up he would never receive anyway.

Whichever scenario took place, the manager pulled together the revised records and brought them to his master. When the master realizes what has happened, he’s impressed. He can’t help but praise the manager for his shrewdness. Does that mean the rich man changed his mind about the manager? Did he decide to continue his employment? We don’t know. Jesus stops the story here, leaving us with an example of a man who knew how to drive a hard bargain.

The Reason for the Parable

Why would Jesus tell such a story? Why would he highlight the criminal actions of a dishonest man? We gain some insight when we examine his audience.

We read in verse 1 that Jesus told this story to his disciples, but others were listening in. In verse 14, Luke explains, “Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and were scoffing at Him.”

This parable was the last in a series of short stories that Jesus told. Back in chapter 15, Luke describes the setting in more detail: “Now all the tax collectors and the sinners were coming near Him to listen to Him. Both the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them’” (Luke 15:1-2).

Some people think that you have to clean your life up before you can come to God. That’s not too far off from the way the Pharisees looked at life. They were a religious group that placed a strong emphasis on following all the rules—and not just God’s rules. They went beyond God’s commands and developed very detailed traditions about how “spiritual” people were supposed to act. Often their rules focused on minute details of external behavior. In their strictness, they tended to stray away from the heart attitudes that God’s commandments were intended to cultivate.

This legalism led many of the Pharisees into hypocrisy and arrogance. They looked down on other people who had obvious sins. They didn’t understand God’s compassion. They didn’t know that God loves every person and wants to draw every person into a close relationship with himself. They didn’t know that Jesus came to seek out people like you and me with broken, sin-stained lives. They were disgusted that Jesus would be friendly with people from some very sinful backgrounds, so on this occasion Jesus tells a series of stories to show them how God looks at sinful people.

First, Jesus told the crowd of a shepherd with one hundred sheep. When just one wandered away, he went after it. When he found it, he rejoiced. Then Jesus told them about a woman who had ten valuable silver coins, but lost one. After a frantic search, she found it, and she was ecstatic. That’s how God feels about people who are far from him. He pursues them. That was a great encouragement to the people in the crowd that were far from God. The Pharisees, however, found Jesus describing an entirely different God than the one they had envisioned.

Then Jesus told a much more involved and pointed story—the story of the prodigal son who took his inheritance early and went out and squandered it in what Jesus called loose living. When the son humbled himself and came home his father rejoiced, but the other son in the family was jealous. He couldn’t see why his father would throw a party to welcome home his irresponsible brother.

The broken, sinful people gathered around Jesus could really identify with the prodigal son. They knew the feeling of having made wrong choices with steep consequences. But Jesus gave them hope. Just like the father in the story, their Heavenly Father was ready to welcome them back.

The jealous brother in the story portrayed the attitude of the Pharisees. They didn’t think it was fair for those who had ignored God’s truth and wasted their lives to be welcomed back to God. They felt that they had always done exactly what God wanted.

So after prodding the Pharisees with this story, Jesus told the parable about the dishonest manager. Although he was speaking to his disciples, he was still targeting the Pharisees, this time even more sharply than in the parable of the prodigal son.

Scholars tell us that many of the Pharisees were wealthy and actively involved in business. Even though the Old Testament prohibited Jews from lending money at interest to other Jews, the Pharisees had probably found ways to work around that. They were masters at finding loopholes in God’s law. Even though they boasted in their own righteousness, they were very much like the dishonest manager of the story.

Just like the rich man calling his manager to give an account, Jesus’ story to the Pharisees served the same purpose. How had they used the resources God had entrusted to them—not just money, but time and even knowledge? Had they been faithful to God? Had they been good managers? Had they been honest with people? Or had they used their ingenuity to find loopholes to justify their selfishness and greed? God doesn’t like it when people play games with Him—trying to look righteous on the outside while secretly disobeying Him at every turn.

The Pharisees weren’t the only ones living a double life. Jesus warned his disciples again and again to be careful that they didn’t fall into hypocrisy. In fact, it’s likely that one of the disciples present on this occasion was Judas Iscariot, the man who only a few weeks later would betray Jesus by helping the Jewish leaders find and arrest him. Judas was living a lie, pretending to be righteous while already pilfering money that people had given to support Jesus’ ministry.

Jesus told this parable to expose hypocrisy, particularly in regard to the use of money. All of us are managers of the money, possessions, abilities, time, and knowledge that God has entrusted to us. The parable forces us to ask, “Am I ready to give an account to God?”

The Lesson of the Parable

If we’re honest, we have to say that all of us will come up short when God asks us to give an account. We’ve all wasted what God has entrusted to us. So what now? What do you do when you find yourself in the shoes of this manager in the story? Jesus says to be shrewd. Act decisively to prepare for the future.

Jesus finished off his story by saying, “…for the sons of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own kind than the sons of light” (Luke 16:8). Smart business people act quickly to minimize their losses. That’s what we’re seeing today in the news as CEO’s walk away from failing companies with their “golden parachutes”—severance packages in the millions. That’s essentially what the manager in this story did. But when it comes to spiritual life and eternity, we are often slow to act.

What kind of shrewd action should we take? Jesus said, “And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by means of the wealth of unrighteousness, so that when it fails, they will receive you into the eternal dwellings” (Luke 16:9).

This is a surprising statement. There isn’t any indication elsewhere in the Bible that making good friends now will secure eternal life for us. I think Jesus is still using the imagery of the parable here. He is not saying that we can buy our way into heaven. He’s simply saying you need to take shrewd decisive action now to insure that you will spend eternity with God.

What kind of action are we talking about? The word Jesus often used in his teaching was “repent.” Repentance is more than just feeling bad about what you have done. The Amplified Bible gives a good explanation of the word. It describes repentance as having, “A change of mind which issues in regret for past sins and in a change of conduct for the better.” True repentance combines feeling and action.

I think repentance comes easier to those who have faced serious consequences for their sin. When you’ve experienced hardship and shame for what you’ve done, you either harden your heart or you repent. But for those who do a good job covering up their sin, it’s hard to see the need to repent. Their sins are not public. Their’s are sins of the heart. They may have even convinced themselves that they don’t really have any sin, but that’s not true. 1 John 1:8 says, “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.” 1 John 1:10 says, “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.”

So what kind of sins do “good people” have? Jesus shows us here that the way you use money is a very practical indicator of where your heart is. How you manage money shows people what’s important to you. Follow Jesus’ thought as he develops it in verses 10-12: He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much. Therefore if you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous wealth, who will entrust the true riches to you? And if you have not been faithful in the use of that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own?

First, we have what Jesus calls “a very little thing.” In the next line it becomes clear that he’s speaking about wealth. We see wealth as a big thing, but Jesus didn’t. There’s something much more important than wealth. We’ll talk about that in a moment. Jesus implies here that money is given to you to test you. How so? He says that this little thing, whatever wealth we have, actually belongs to someone else. It belongs to God. Psalm 24:1 says, “The earth is the LORD'S, and all it contains.” You and I are not possessors, only managers. So in order to be faithful managers, we have to use our wealth in ways that will please God.

Now look at Jesus’ statement in Luke 16:13. He says, “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other You cannot serve God and wealth.”

Here’s why this is so important. The way you approach money shows us whom you serve. Do you serve God or do you serve wealth? In effect, Jesus was saying here that many of the Pharisees were not serving God. Wealth was their master. Financial prosperity was their goal. God was just a tool to help them get there. Their true love was wealth. Their manipulative approach to religion actually showed hatred and disdain for God. That was sin of the highest magnitude. The First Commandment is, “You shall have no other gods before me.” When money is your master, you are committing the sin of idolatry.

But when you truly love God, you will use your money differently. Your use of money will reflect God’s compassion for people. You will give to meet their needs. Your use of money will line up with God’s heart, seeking those who are lost and drawing people back to Him. That is faithfulness with the “little things.” And God rewards the faithful use of the comparatively insignificant wealth of this world with true riches.

What are those true riches? Eternal life. An inheritance in God’s kingdom. Praise from God for your faithfulness. Heavenly rewards that will last forever. An unhindered relationship with God. Once you receive these things, they are yours forever. They can never be taken away.

Conclusion

If you are shrewd, you will recognize your sinfulness. You will recognize that a day is coming when God is going to make you give an account for all that you’ve ever done, said, and even thought. You will recognize that you need to do something to make sure that you will spend eternity enjoying God rather than suffering in hell.

Now’s the time to bargain. God offers to pay all of the spiritual debt that you’ve built up from sinning. Jesus made that possible when he died on the cross and rose from the dead. What does it cost you? Humility. Repentance. Belief and devotion. The stakes are high, but there’s no better deal.