Welcome to another episode of Apostolic Life in the 21st century.

Today we're going to be talking about something very strange that Jesus said.

And Dr. David K. Bernard is with us.

He is going to shed a little light on a parable that maybe raises

some eyebrows when you first read it. Dr. Bernard, we want to ask you today about Luke 16, which

includes what I consider to be Jesus' strangest parable. It's sometimes called the parable of the

unjust steward. So in this story, Jesus describes a steward,

or we might call him a household manager, who, if I'm reading the story correctly, he defrauds his boss.

And then so he defrauds him by, he goes to the man's, the people who are his debtors,

and he basically has them commit fraud, changing the loan documents.

And at the end of the story, then, we kind of expect Jesus to rebuke this guy, but Jesus says,

basically Jesus praises him. And then he says, I tell you, make friends of yourselves by means of

unrighteous wealth so that when it fails, they may receive you into

eternal dwellings. That's from the English standard version. Now, an initial reading of this story

seems to contradict this image that we have of Jesus as the paragon of honesty and truth.

What in the world is Jesus trying to say in this parable? It is a very interesting parable.

In some cases, you might consider a difficult saying of Jesus.

And I would just make an aside here.

Parables like this, sayings like this, actually are strong proofs of the authenticity of the New Testament.

Because some people say, well, the New Testament was written much later,

not by eyewitnesses, and it's fantasized, fables, making Jesus a hero, all these miracle stories

are just imaginary. Well, one of many arguments to the contrary is no, in that case, you would see this glowing narrative.

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