Jesus on Money (21) - Someone Else

Parallelism is a poetic form that is common in Hebrew poetry. An idea is repeated in a slightly different form with the same message. Jesus used this method when interpreting the parable of the Shrewd Manager.

Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon,
who will commit to your trust the true riches?
And if you have not been faithful with another man’s wealth,
who will give you what is your own (Luke 16:11-12)?

The message of these two verses is the same. If we have not been faithful with unrighteous wealth, God will not trust us with true wealth.

The important thing is how Jesus described unrighteous wealth. In verse 11, he called it “unrighteous mammon”. In verse 12, he referred to it as “another man’s wealth”. Jesus is saying that “unrighteous wealth” really belongs to another person. The person with unrighteous wealth actually controls something that belongs to someone else.

The only faithful solution is to return that wealth to that other person. Often the “other person” will be unknown. However, if the other person has lost his wealth, he will most likely be poor. Therefore, the second best solution is to return the unrighteous wealth to the poor. This might not hit the right person, but at least it would go to “another person” who may have lost their wealth to someone else.