Luke 16:19-31

It is very important to remember that this parable follows without any breal whatever the Parable of the Unwise Namager. As a consequence, the context in this passage is the same as in our last parable. Here, Jesus is taking His teaching another step forward for His listeners, the Parisees and teachers of the law. At the end of the last parable, they had sneered at Him, and He reminded them of how they manipulated the Law concerning divorce for their own profit, and began another parable…

Lazarus was poor and destitute; he had nothing in this world other than severe hunger and sores. The rich man was loaded and lived the life of luxury and plenty. Lazarus begged at the rich man’s gate but received nothing. As the story goes, they both died…

Lazarus was gathered to Abraham’s side, while the rich man went to torment. There was a great chasm between them, but the rich man could see Abraham and Lazarus in the distance; who was the beggar now? The upshot of the story is that there is no way to send aid to the tormented rich man, and Lazarus will not be going back from the dead to warn his brothers to change their ways. There is great justice in this, for the rich man had been blessed with much in his lifetime and now felt the torment Lazarus had felt during his life; their roles had been reversed and the scales of justice were even. The rich man and his brothers had all been able to follow the teachings of Moses and the prophets (the Scriptures) but were living in negligent disregard of them. If they would not listen to the Scriptures, they won’t listen to anyone, and the brothers’ fates will be just like that of the rich man.

I must add that we should resist the temptation to take this as teaching about heaven and hell, and thus miss the point. This is a parable, not an historical account; it is not a teaching about heaven and hell.

The rich man represents lovers of money and wealth, such as the Pharisees and teachers of the law. They might have a grand time in this life; wealth, position, power, influence and self-righteousness, but in the end, they will come to ruin for their folly. As in the last parable, the very part the Pharisees sneered at, they refused to use the assets they had been given for God’s purposes. There were desperate needs all around them and they ignored those needs, and basked in luxury, which is to say that they could not be trusted with “little”.

In the Kingdom, we will be co-heirs with Christ to everything. If we cannot be trusted with “little” in this life, we won’t be trusted with “much” in the Kingdom: This is the warning Jesus is giving to those Pharisees and teachers of the law.