Little Big Principle (Luke 16) (The Road Less Traveled)

The Road Less Traveled, written by M. Scott Peck is a book about traveling a less common spiritual road and finds its roots in the poem The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost.

The idea of the road less traveled is essentially being willing to embrace new thinking, new ideas, new ways of doing things and not just conforming to the crowd. In this blog we have suggested that there is a Road Well Traveled in Christian fund raising that is actually paved with secular marketing, advertising, and sales practices.

These are sprinkled with bible passages and then made Christians. The Road Less Traveled flows out of biblical principles and is often at odds with accepted practices in the church and Christians community. 

The Little/Big principle we examined last week is a classic example.

On the Road Well Traveled Luke 16, has an accepted meaning that provides some of paving stones such as:

• Stewardship, the theme of Luke 16, is about money, and we know God is concerned about money, so we better do a good job of accounting for what we do with it. If we want God to bless us with more financial resources then we should be incredibly careful with what we have.
• This parable shows that when we are faithful with small amounts of money, God will entrust us with greater amounts. If we can’t steward small amounts of money well, why would God entrust us with more? The implication of this teaching is that churches and ministries with larger budgets and growing financial resources have been faithful with the little things so God blesses them with more and better. You may say that isn’t true, but how many famous “model” churches in the US have small budgets? 
• Therefore, large ministry organizations and churches with big ABC’s (attendance, buildings, cash) are by definition successful and being blessed by God. Following their conclusions and drawing on support from Luke 16, the reason for their financial success and large stream of income, is God’s blessing on their faithfulness with the little things.
• It follows then that the practices of these churches in fund raising and income generation practices should be mimicked by others wishing to experience God’s blessing on their ministry. There is no need to consider those practices against biblical teaching as it is evident that they are “successful.” 

However, this should cause us to push the pause button and examine the source of this Road Well Traveled.

Could it be that American churches and ministry organizations are mimicking American social values where large successful enterprises (Amazon, Intel, Microsoft, NY Yankees, Disney, McDonalds, etc..) all have a large following (employees and consumers), vast facilities and great financial success and are held in high regard in our society as success stories.

Is it possible that we have taken a worldly and completely secular definition of success for evaluating our churches and ministry organizations? Have we taken Luke 16 and used it as a proof text to make this process Christian?

Looking at how this parable is interpreted shows that might be the case.

A parable is a vehicle for communicating spiritual truth and not meant to be taken literally.

• The parable of the sower, for instance, is not a teaching about farming principles even though it mentions good places and bad places to sow seed (Luke 8:1-15). 
• The parable of the good Samaritan is not about travel safety even though Jesus’ listeners who knew that road might feel warned (Luke 10:25-37).
• The parable of the lost sheep is not about sheep herding even though it might encourage a shepherd’s vigilance or persistent searching (Luke 15:1-17). You get the idea, and so did Jesus’ original listeners. They knew to listen for the spiritual truth in a parable.

For some reason, though, parables involving money are often taken literally as being only about money; this approach shows little regard for the spiritual truth the parable teaches.

It does, however, make for a convenient proof text to Christianize secular ideas. These parables that use money to make a spiritual point are viewed as if their primary goal were to teach financial management, accounting, solid business practices, and especially financial stewardship.

 After all, Luke 16:1-15 is entitled “the parable of the shrewd manager,” and it’s about a steward handling money.

The spiritual truth in the parable seems to be along another line. Stewarding money really is the most basic and easiest kind of stewardship, and if we can’t do that well, why would God entrust us with something more important—something like, for instance, taking good care of people and teaching His truth? This idea is what Jesus had on His mind in Luke 16:1-15. 

Jesus stated that if we can’t be trusted with money, then we can’t be trusted with true riches (vs. 11) —and I do not believe that true riches refers to more money.

Having not been faithful with material possessions (a practical point of the parable), the Pharisees had shown themselves unworthy of something more valuable, namely the gospel truth of God and His Son, Jesus Christ (the side-by-side spiritual lesson).

As individuals on the road well-traveled work to inspire people to give, they develop a growing base of financial resources for the church or ministry at the same time they enjoy an increase in the size of the budget.

Ironically, the stewardship of people and the stewardship of spiritual truth and proper doctrine are often ignored. I know I’m painting a stark picture, but I offer these observations as food for thought:

• Every church I’ve ever been part of has a finance and administrative team of some sort. A small Baptist church in Poland had one, and a big megachurch in California had one. Some form of a finance team is common in churches and ministry organizations.
• Fewer churches have a group overseeing human resources despite the statistically supported fact that large churches are extremely hard places to work. Frequently such churches experience a high degree of employee turnover and dissatisfaction among staff members. Burnout, exhaustion, and stress are commonplace in a megachurch. Stewarding people well is not characteristic of many megachurches. On one occasion I went out to the door to meet a mission’s pastor at a megachurch. When my wife asked me who I was meeting, I replied, “The future ex-missions pastor.” The church had gone through three in four years. 
• Similarly, very few churches/ministries have a group that oversees the teaching of that church or ministry. Every church and ministry would agree that God’s truth is the most important resource to steward, yet where is that stewardship evident in the actual life of the church or ministry?

Why is it that, on the Road Well Traveled, we exert so much effort and expand so much energy in financial stewardship, but often ignore stewarding the “true riches”? Has anyone ever even heard of an audit of the teaching ministries in a church?

The parable of the shrewd manager teaches that the people of God failed to be wise stewards of the responsibility God entrusted to them: He had called them to be a blessing to the nations, the image-bearers of God, and the means by which God would redeem the creation.

Yet in Jesus’ day—and possibly in some quarters today—the people of God loved money and, as a result, despised the things of God. To them, large amounts of money were a sign of God’s favor and blessing. As the Pharisees walked the road well-traveled, they sought to justify themselves when confronted about their riches. 

In contrast, The Road Less Traveled has an upside-down view of stewardship. Taking care of money is easy if you want to take care of it. Caring for the people entrusted to your church or ministry is so much more important and so much more difficult. After all, each of us knows that church would be a lot easier if there weren’t any people involved 😊.

Finally, the greatest gift and resource to be well stewarded is the message of the gospel of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, a truth set forth in Scripture, the written Word of God. The gospel, the Savior, the Bible—these are the true riches. 

That said, giving financial resources to God as an act of worship and stewarding those financial gifts are crucial to God’s kingdom work on this earth.

But responsibly stewarding money—the little—is at the same time a prerequisite for being entrusted with the true riches of people and the gospel, the big!