And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon {c} of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting {d} habitations.

(c) This is not spoken of goods that are gotten wrongly, for God will have our bountifulness to the poor proceed and come from a good fountain: but he calls those things riches of iniquity which men use wickedly.

(d) That is, the poor Christians: for they are the inheritors of these habitations; Theophylact.

People's New Testament

16:9 And I say unto you. The parable has ended and Christ now makes the application.

Mammon of unrighteousness. Mammon is equivalent to money, or wealth; called the mammon of unrighteousness, not because it is acquired unrighteously, but because most use it unrighteously, treating it as their own, when they are only stewards. What is the use the Lord charges us to put it to? It is: Make to yourselves friends by means of the mammon of unrighteousness (riches), that when it shall fail (when you can use it no longer), they shall receive you into eternal tabernacles (heaven). It is strange that there is any difficulty over this passage, as translated clearly in the Revised Version. The only friends who can receive us into heaven are the Father and the Son. These are, then, the friends we must secure. During life our means must be so used as to please God and to lay up eternal treasure. If we use it as a trust of the Lord we will secure such a friend. Instead of hoarding we must make heavenly friends.

Wesley's Notes

16:9 And I say to you - Be good stewards even of the lowest talents wherewith God hath intrusted you. Mammon means riches or money. It is termed the mammon of unrighteousness, because of the manner wherein it is commonly either procured or employed. Make yourselves friends of this, by doing all possible good, particularly to the children of God: that when ye fail, when your flesh and your heart faileth, when this earthly tabernacle is dissolved, those of them who have gone before may receive, may welcome you into the everlasting habitations.

King James Translators' Notes

mammon: or, riches

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

9. Make . friends of-Turn to your advantage; that is, as the steward did, "by showing mercy to the poor" (Da 4:27; compare Lu 12:33; 14:13, 14).

mammon of unrighteousness-treacherous, precarious. (See on [1678]Mt 6:24).

ye fail-in respect of life.

they may receive you-not generally, "ye may be received" (as Lu 6:38, "shall men give"), but "those ye have relieved may rise up as witnesses for you" at the great day. Then, like the steward, when turned out of one home shall ye secure another; but better than he, a heavenly for an earthly, an everlasting for a temporary habitation. Money is not here made the key to heaven, more than "the deeds done in the body" in general, according to which, as a test of character-but not by the merit of which-men are to be judged (2Co 5:10, and see Mt 25:34-40).

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

16:1-12 Whatever we have, the property of it is God's; we have only the use of it, according to the direction of our great Lord, and for his honour. This steward wasted his lord's goods. And we are all liable to the same charge; we have not made due improvement of what God has trusted us with. The steward cannot deny it; he must make up his accounts, and be gone. This may teach us that death will come, and deprive us of the opportunities we now have. The steward will make friends of his lord's debtors or tenants, by striking off a considerable part of their debt to his lord. The lord referred to in this parable commended not the fraud, but the policy of the steward. In that respect alone is it so noticed. Worldly men, in the choice of their object, are foolish; but in their activity, and perseverance, they are often wiser than believers. The unjust steward is not set before us as an example in cheating his master, or to justify any dishonesty, but to point out the careful ways of worldly men. It would be well if the children of light would learn wisdom from the men of the world, and would as earnestly pursue their better object. The true riches signify spiritual blessings; and if a man spends upon himself, or hoards up what God has trusted to him, as to outward things, what evidence can he have, that he is an heir of God through Christ? The riches of this world are deceitful and uncertain. Let us be convinced that those are truly rich, and very rich, who are rich in faith, and rich toward God, rich in Christ, in the promises; let us then lay up our treasure in heaven, and expect our portion from thence.