Luke chapter 16 is one of the more difficult chapters in the Bible to understand, because in it Jesus seems to be commending a man who engages in dishonest conduct at someone else’s expense. Jesus tells the story of a manager who was about to be fired because he was wasting his employer’s resources decided to “make friends” for himself by giving key clients big discounts, thus improving his chances of getting employment after he was fired.
Instead of expressing righteous anger at the manager for offering unauthorised discounts, the employer commended the dishonest manager for his shrewd conduct. Perhaps in this context “commended” really means “could not help but admire the brazen conduct”, rather than meaning “approved”. But Jesus follows this up with some surprising advice in verse 9: “Use the money of injustice to make friends for yourselves, so that when it runs out they will welcome you into eternal homes.”
The subsequent verses make it clear that if we cannot be faithful with money we cannot be trusted with true riches, but the verse about using money (literally “mammon of unrighteousness”) to make friends remains a mystery. Most commentators think it means that we should use money wisely while we can, but that still does not address the uncomfortable implication that we should use God’s money to gain advantages for ourselves.