Question from Luke 16

Here is another question from the Live Question and Answer Night on September 29:

Luke 16:11 says, “So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?” What are these true riches? And Will this happen only after we get to heaven?

To try and answer the question, let me first set the scene. The context of this verse is the parable of the shrewd manager. A noted emphasis of verses 10 to 12 is that how we handle money is a reflection of our characters. God puts resources into our hands to train us to handle true riches.

Though we seem to put incredible value on money in our everyday lives, the Lord Jesus seems to be reminding us in verse 11 that money is not true riches. To answer the first part of the question, true riches are most likely spiritual blessing of services in God’s kingdom. And to answer the second part of the question, these true riches are future to us, and I think the sense is that we will encounter true riches in eternity.

To wrap up this question and answer, it should be underlined that the Lord Jesus is telling us that how we handle money has eternal consequences. If we play games with what God has given us now, it reveals a great deal about our characters, and will have consequences. We need to remember: how we operate with money matters for more than just today.