The Mind of Christ – Shrewd

The Mind of Christ – Shrewd.

“Who is able to understand the mind of Lord Yahweh? Who is able to be His teacher? We, however, have the mind of Christ!” (1 Corinthians 2:16).

“We have…” (Greek, “echomen”), which means ‘are having,’ ‘are keeping,’ or ‘are holding;’ to have and to keep on having, an action in progress; a process that is now taking place; the present state is a continuing state. So the literal translation is, “We, however, are having the mind of Christ.” Through the Holy Spirit, we now are new creatures who were given the capacity to learn how to think like Jesus.

… the mind of Christ.” (Greek for mind is “nous,” which means the highest knowing faculty of the soul, the spirit and understanding behind all we think and do). Through the Holy Spirit, then…

We are being given the capacity to think the thoughts of the Anointed One;

We have the growing ability to reason, to be logical, and to think things through like Jesus;

We are being infused with the ability to understand God’s wisdom;

We are being equipped with the moral intelligence of the Lord;

We are being given access to the reasoning behind the actions of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit;

We are in the process of perceiving spiritual matters as Christ perceives them;

We have an increasing ability to understand life from God’s perspective;

We will be continually inspired to develop the divine common sense and street-smart shrewdness that Jesus was known for;

We are gaining insight into what truly matters according to the thinking of God;

We have a growing ability to reflect and ponder according to the will of Christ;

We enjoy an ongoing co-mingling of our mind with Christ’s mind, until the end, when the new will have completely replaced the old, and those two minds will be indistinguishable.

“The master commended the dishonest manager because he acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.” (read Jesus’ parable of the Shrewd Manager in Luke 16:1-9).

The Context of the Story. The disciples were the primary audience, as it states in verse 1. But there were also a number of Pharisees mixed into the crowd, since Jesus had just told a parable with them in mind, the Prodigal Son, and they are mentioned in verse 14. This particular parable is seen by commentators and scholars as one of the most difficult to understand. For Jesus to place a dishonest manager in the hero’s role has puzzled many a person. Would Jesus want to honor dishonesty?

The Mind of Christ. One main point of this parable was to offer a glimpse into how the Lord thinks, and so how His believers should likewise think. Christ-followers who are truly gaining the mind of Christ should grow in being clever, street-smart, crafty, shrewd. God honors those who are savvy for the Kingdom, who outsmart our opposition in the world. We should keep in mind that the mind of Christ is our resource for holy shrewdness, and not assume we are up to the task of anything resembling righteous craftiness. God asks His followers to be spiritually astute, and simply asks believers to use His astuteness, not ours.

The Storyline. The boss of the manager is undoubtedly a wealthy landowner who rents pieces of his property to tenants. For the most part, the rent was not paid with money, but instead from the produce of the land that is rented. Money can be exchanged, but produce from the land being rented is also accepted.

1. Without a doubt, the owner is an honorable character, wise in the running of his business, and generous, and merciful. He cared enough about his business to fire a wasteful manager. And when he confronted his manager about what he had heard, he didn’t do what the typical landowner would have done… scolded him, yelled at him, beat him, fined him, or jailed him. He did none of that. He simply said “You’re fired. Turn in your account records.” And that was the end of it.
2. The manager no doubt acknowledged the owner’s mercy and breathed a sigh of relief… it could have been worse.

The Manager. After being accused by the owner, it wasn’t clear in the story if the manager was actually guilty or not. The fact that he was silent and didn’t defend himself implies his guilt.

1. So the manager finds himself out of a job. What now? He won’t do manual labor, because he’s not physically strong enough. He’s too proud to beg, and it would bring him shame and rejection. So he uses his wits. He cleverly sets up a scheme that will come down to depending on the owner’s generosity and mercy. His owner’s strong character, he decides, is his only hope.
2. The conniving manager decides, without the owner’s permission, to reduce the debts of the renters, thereby hopefully gaining friends for himself who will take care of housing and personal expenses. He calls the tenants, the renters, in for private conferences, rewrites the contracts, and lo and behold, the tenants suddenly owe less than the original contract! He makes it appear that he persuaded the owner to reduce the rent, and so the manager will come out of this looking good to the tenants.
3. The tenants will no doubt celebrate their good fortune, all because of the apparent kindness and generosity of the owner and manager! Everyone in the community soon know about this and are all celebrating the goodness of the owner. This is all news to the owner.

The Owner. He sees that he has no choice but accept the manager’s crooked dealings. He can’t go back on what they assumed was his word and change the new contracts. He realizes that the manager has outfoxed him, painted him into a corner, and he has no choice but to accept the new situation.

1. So the owner applauds the shrewdness of the manager, not for his dishonesty, but for his clever scheme. The outmaneuvered owner felt compelled to give the astute manager credit for coming up with such an ingenious plan.
2. On the other hand, it looks like he didn’t give the manager back his job. The manager may have been clever, but the owner has the last laugh.

The Mind of Jesus. He criticized his followers for not being clever or shrewd in matters pertaining to the Kingdom. He said that the nonbelievers are more clever in their world than the believers are in theirs. Where is your instinct for growing in the faith, for your spiritual self-preservation, Jesus is saying. I want you to be clever in the ways of my world, He is saying. Jesus begs that His followers would keep their spiritual wits about them. As an aside, He also said that a wise investment of your money is to invest in people. Make friends with your money, and they will take care of you when the chips are down. Care for the poor, spend your money on the needy, and they will be the first to welcome you into heaven.

“He (the manager) knew how to look after himself. Streetwise people can be smarter than law-abiding citizens – On constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. I want you to be smart in the same way, but for what is right, using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you’ll live, really live, and not complacently just get by on good behavior.” (Eugene Peterson’s version of the main point, MSG).

Questions in the Follow-Up:

1. If a crooked businessman can hatch a scheme like this and in the end rely on the generosity of the owner, how much more should a child of the light cleverly depend on God’s mercy for his/her salvation and sanctification? But a mere human cannot outsmart God, right? On the other hand, the generous owner ended up accepting the manager’s plan in his crisis, so how much more will a righteous God help us when in a crisis?
2. A common theme in many of Jesus’ parables is the spiritual foolishness of self-righteousness. This particular parable seems to bring up our need to be shrewd in spiritual matters in order to advance in the Kingdom; to outsmart the Enemy for the preservation of our faith; to be street-wise, as opposed to naïve and gullible, in matters of the Kingdom. How does self-righteousness make us lose our spiritual edge, and work against our creative survival in the spiritual realm?
3. Jesus seems to imply that this dishonest but savvy business manager has qualities that can be translated to our spiritual welfare. What are some examples?
4. If we are to keep our spiritual wits about us according to the mind of Christ within, could the Beatitudes (Matthew 5) be what spiritual wits looks like, maybe even the secret to biblical cleverness in the eyes of Jesus? In the Beatitudes, Jesus seems to turn the tables on what many would think shrewdness looks like. Each Beatitude seems to point to how a child of the light gets ahead in the kingdom, and are actually clever ways to outthink the world.

• Blessed are the poor in spirit, the spiritually bankrupt, the lowly and the vulnerable, those who are running on empty;
• Blessed are those who mourn, who are sorrowful in grief, in repentance, and in brokenness for this world of suffering and death;
• Blessed are the meek, the gentle, the unassuming, those who have their power under the control of the Master;
• Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, who intensely desire goodness and virtue, who crave for God’s character in themselves and also in the world;
• Blessed are the merciful, who are always poised to care in a helpful way, to show lovingkindness and compassion, who put their love into action;
• Blessed are the pure in heart, who are genuinely unspotted by the world, who live unsullied lives, who sincerely and single-mindedly focus on the one thing needful;
• Blessed are the peacemakers, who reconcile those with conflicts, who spread contentment, who help others to flourish, who develop conditions for wholeness;
• Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, who are treated badly for doing the right thing, who are abused and falsely accused because of their faith and goodness.

For those who want to be spiritually savvy, clever, shrewd, and street-smart, the only resource available is the mind of Christ within. “We have the wit of Christ!” (the Wycliffe Version of the Bible).

“If dishonest people use all their ingenuity to promote their material welfare, so ought the people of God to use their energies to further their spiritual welfare.” (study notes in the RSV).