Bible Study “The Dishonest Manager”
Share: Your highs (something that made you happy) and lows (something that made you sad) this week with others around you or write them down.
We simply have to choose. Will we do as God desires us to do, or will we cheat God (and ourselves) by ignoring what God expects of us? Will we give to God what is rightly God’s? What are we doing to work toward serving God more fully?
Today's passage describes poor choices. To help decide what a bad choice looks like and what a good choice looks like, here are some examples.
• You go to a fast food place, order a sandwich and there is a little bin full of ketchup packets. How many is a good number to take? Two or three, because you really like ketchup, or a whole pocket full to take home and use at home? (Good choice or Bad choice? Why?)
• You are walking home, and there are some really pretty flowers by the sidewalk at someone's home. You pick a few to take home to your mother. (Good choice or Bad choice? Why?)
• You go to the library and there are little pencils and pieces of paper to take notes on where to find books. You stick a batch of the pencils in your pocket. (Good choice or Bad choice? Why?)
• Can you think of a choice like these?
Opening Prayer: Gracious God, we thank you for helping us make good choices. Help us to keep in mind those things the good choices. Amen
Please open your Bibles to Luke 16:1-13 and read or read the scriptures below.
Luke 16:1-13
The Parable of the Shrewd Manager
16 Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 2 So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’
3 “The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg— 4 I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’
5 “So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’
6 “‘Nine hundred gallons[a] of olive oil,’ he replied.
“The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.’
7 “Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’
“‘A thousand bushels[b] of wheat,’ he replied.
“He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’
8 “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. 9 I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.
10 “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. 11 So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? 12 And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?
13 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
Reflection Questions:
Luke 16: 1-4
• Describe the two people in this story. (A rich man who had a manager he thought he could trust. The manager who has been doing such poor work that the man is going to fire him.)
• What is the manager worried about? (Finding a way to survive without this job.)
Luke 5-7
• What does the manager decide to do? (Get on the good side of all the people who owe his boss.)
• How does he do that? (He cuts each bill in half or a portion of the total so people will be grateful to him.)
Luke 8-9
• What does the rich man say about his manager's plan? (He notices that the manager is pretty clever.)
• I wonder why the rich man thought this was a clever plan? (That the manager was able to collect a portion of what was owed, which was more than what he had collected which was nothing.)
Luke 10-13
• What does Jesus say about a person who is "faithful in very little" and who is "dishonest in very little?" (What you do with "very little" will show how you will act with a lot.)
• What does Jesus say, in verse 12, about taking care of stuff that does not belong to us? (If we cannot take care of those things, how could we be trusted with something of our own?)
• What does Jesus means that "no slave can serve two masters?" (They will have to make a choice between two things.)
• We are not slaves, so what does this story say to us? (We, too, have to make choices. What influences our choices?)
• Do you think Jesus is saying that it is wrong to be wealthy? Why? Why not? (It is about making choices: which is more important: God — or making a ton of money?)
Click here for the young learner’s lesson
Videos (Click on url)
Lumo Project Gospel of Luke 16:1-18 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KODw_5Em1NQ
Song
This little light of mine - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au5kbFG3iC4
Activities:
Rewrite the parable for today. Who would the people in the story be and what would the debts be? What kind of person is the rich man? What kind of person is the manager? Etc.
Journal: (Try and keep a journal for each Sunday for a year) write or draw in your journals: “Here are some choices I am making to serve God.”
Also write a letter to yourself, from Jesus, in which Jesus tells you that something you are not proud of is forgiven and you don't have to do that anymore or worry about it anymore.
Getting Closure:
Do you know a person who has lots of money and is generous with it doing things they think are what God wants. Think about ways in which you can be generous with whatever you have.
Thinking about your sin and come up with strategies next time you are tempted to do something bad.
• What might the first step be? (Could be stop and notice. Say Oops.)
• What can you do once you noticed you have blown it? (Tell God you are sorry and mean it.)
• Then what could you do? (Celebrate! You have been forgiven.)
• And then? (Be on the lookout to try to keep it from happening again.)
Honesty Clock: Draw a large clock with 12, 3, 6, 9 on the clock and write or draw a picture beside those 4 times of the day when you might be tempted or have the CHOICE to do the “right thing”. (Examples: 12 noon – to share a part of their lunch or to thank the teacher for something; 3:00 – to be honest about homework or being kind to someone on the bus or cleaning your home, etc; 6:00 – help prepare dinner, set the table or clean up after dinner; 9:00 – read your Bible and go to bed with prayer, etc) Write Luke 16:10 on the middle of the clock.
Honesty Acrostic (a poem, word puzzle or other composition in which certain letters in each line form a word or words): Draw $ signs around the edge of a paper and write words of HONESTY acrostic for choices that YOU will have to be HONEST about your life. Write Luke 16:10 on your paper.
The Dishonest Manager Crossword: https://sermons4kids.com/parable_dishonest_manager_crossword.htm
The Dishonest Manager Fill in the Blank: https://sermons4kids.com/parable_dishonest_manager_cloze.htm?fromSermonId=641
Word Search: https://thewordsearch.com/puzzle/4051463/the-dishonest-manager/
Prayer: Thank you for good choices people make; help us to make good choices, too. Amen.
