Tag: Small Business

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The real art of the deal.

Reading Time: 3 minutes 
“The rich man had to admire the dishonest rascal for being so shrewd. And it is true that the children of this world are more shrewd in dealing with the world around them than are the children of the light. Here’s the lesson: Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home.” Luke‬ ‭16:8-9‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Dishonest and shrewd, and Jesus tells a story about it? The culture, the world, is far better at being fast and effective when it comes to the art of the deal.

A rich man finds out his manager has been wasting his money. I guess the rich hate waste. The word for waste is diaskorpizó, to scatter. Or, over-scatter, effectively spreading finances to thin. The rich man felt he was losing control of his cash-flow or cash on hand. Of course he is. We find out the manager had a lot of unpaid invoices out there! Even in this barter-system of running a business, payments were overdue. Not good.

When the man is called on it, and finds out he’s going to be fired, he decides he too old to work hard and to proud to beg. It is then that he comes up with a plan. The plan is a decent plan. Call all the clients and offer them to pay now and get the debt cut nearly in half! It’s like a post-discount on deals already done. The owner gets his quick cash, the debtor is happy and maybe the manager gets a little love for brokering these deals.

Jesus says the rich owner finds this act, shrewd. However, the greek word is phronimós: sensible. To a wealthy business owner, shrewd is a compliment! It’s smart, savvy and makes sense. Why didn’t the manager think of this before he let the accounts get so far in arrears? Maybe that’s part of the point Jesus is making?

Jesus says it is interesting that the “sons of this age” (aión: a space of time, an age) are quicker at thinking on their feet, adaptive in crisis than the sons of the light (clearly referring to Jesus himself as THE light of the world). How can the kids of the Kingdom of God think and behave in a dimmer capacity than those of this world’s culture?

The New Living Translation uses the word, “dishonest,” about the manager’s decisions, but the greek word is not so harsh. The word is adikia: injustice or unjust. It closer to being improper or not appropriate for this man to do this with his “master’s” money. If it were straight up dishonest the business owner would have been mad, but in Jesus’ story the rich man epaineó: to praise or commend the manager. Remember, the manager in this story had not been technically fired yet, so he still had the authority to broker these kinds of deals with the debtors.

Jesus then says another one of his odd, scratch-your-head kind of sayings, ESV says it best, “make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.” “It fails” is a euphemism for DIED. What? Huh? How superbly crafty Jesus’ words become for all generations and cultures. Make and USE the friendships of the rich to benefit both the wealthy, by modeling generosity and grace teaching them, and to re-direct their money to the causes of the poor. The generosity portion of this story would be to the debtors of the rich man, the redirection to the poor would be the manager he fired because he would now be destitute and homeless. The manager must have been a renter 😬. Thus, when you die, both the rich and poor will celebrate your life because you behaved generously to both.

What a story to unravel and decode for everyday living! What do you see as an application for your life? I’d love to know.

Prayer

Dad,
My head is still spinning trying to decode this story that Jesus told his disciples. Luke puts it in here as one of the many stories of the rich and the myriad of cultural twists and word-plays that Jesus loved to tell. I can confirm and completely agree with this, your thoughts and ways are way above and beyond my own. These stories are like mysteries, splinters in my mind to unravel, understand and then try my best to live into or up to. Either way – genius. Raving reviews on this one God!

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Honesty IS the best policy!

Reading Time: 2 minutes 
“The Lord detests the use of dishonest scales, but he delights in accurate weights. Honesty guides good people; dishonesty destroys treacherous people.” Proverbs‬ ‭11:1, 3‬ ‭NLT‬‬

​Isn’t it interesting to think that the God of all creation is not just about truth, but also honesty.

Honesty is a characteristic of God? Truth has not only been divided and degraded it has also oddly been weaponized! But honesty, how is that going? Lying, or at least telling partial truth is crept into every part of our culture. Why? Because, people now want to play the games of hidden agendas and non-disclosures.

Honesty may invite more questions. Honesty may hurt feelings. Honesty may be embarrassing. The whole idea of dishonest scales in ancient times is like our modern day of “hidden fees.” And, back then it was common to rig the scale to make a little extra on the exchange especially taking advantage of the poor! The poor couldn’t do anything about it. They knew they were being cheated but risked being shut out from buying goods or food if they reported the owner.

Years back we had honesty in a lot of our work related phraseology. Honest day’s work. Honest pay. Honest wages. Honest business! Over taxation and complicated laws birthed a whole era of “under the table” and cash only earnings.

I also find it interesting that God is absolutely interested in the unseen, almost invisible behaviors of humans. Honesty and dishonesty is hard to spot, because it is built on trust. This is how reputations are made. This used to be how individuals and businesses would thrive. Hand shakes and humans that keep their word were valued and sought after. No one did business with “crooked” owners. Oftentimes, an owner or business became so dirty in their dealings that they ended up doing business with mafia and gangs just to keep their business afloat – but that comes with a horribly high price.

Bottom line, God HATES dishonesty because it’s is anti-God and it always takes advantage of the poor, the weak and the outcast. There are entire companies that PREY on senior citizens, on widows, on special needs people, even orphans! Whoa to these crooks, these politicians, these business cheats – God is watching and he will have his justice.

PRAYER

​Dad,
Even though I was a total creep in my youth when it comes to being honest, it now really gets me angry when I see people cheating or taking advantage of those who have no one watching out for them. I feel a sense of frustration with our government leaders who try to legislate care and protection for those at risk but end up creating horrible loopholes and drive the dishonesty even deeper and harder to spot and prove.

I feel like the church should be so much better at stepping in for the weak or disadvantaged, but we just don’t have our act together and folks just figure that’s what social or government services are now there to take care of. Government is horrible at care! Systems cannot love! Bureaucracy is not merciful or kind. Help us be better God.