Gain More Than You Lose Series

GAIN MORE THAN YOU LOSE (LUKE 16:1-12)

I searched the web for what makes a good hire and what makes a bad hire to the following quotes:

“A good hire is hard to find.”

“Making a good hire is important, keeping a good hire is far more important.”

“The cost of making a good hire is high; the cost of making a bad hire is even greater.”

“A bad hire is the worse mistake managers can make.”

“A bad hire is worse than no hire.” (the most popular on the Internet)

A management company (Right Management) surveyed 444 human-resource professionals to determine how much it costs a company to replace an employee that doesn’t work out, including the cost of recruitment, training, severance, and lost productivity. Fifteen percent say it is equal to the employee’s annual salary, a high 42 percent claim it costs them two times the annual salary, a lower 26 percent answer to three times annual salary, a surprising 6 percent maintain it is four times, and a shocking 11 percent insist it is five times! (USA Today 7/25/06, “High Cost of a Bad Hire”)

No parable of Jesus is more controversial to tackle and more difficult to understand than the parable of the unjust steward, and critics of the Bible have a field day pointing to the apparent contradiction and questioning the propriety of the metaphor. The target group in Jesus’ parable was the Pharisees even though the parable is addressed to the disciples. He used a dishonest crook not to teach His disciples to learn from the world’s dishonesty but to learn despite his dishonesty; not to learn from him, but to learn about him.

What makes a person a good employee? Is there hope for the unemployed or the retrenched? Why are good habits essential in the marketplace and in life?

The Industry Quotient: Don’t Be Inept on the Job

16:1 Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 2 So he called him in and asked him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.' (Luke 16:1-2)

A site foreman had ten very lazy men working for him, so one day he decided to trick them into doing some work for a change. ”I’ve got a really easy job today for the laziest one among you,” he announced. “Will the laziest man please put his hand up?”

Nine hands went up.

“Why didn’t you put your hand up?” he asked the tenth man.

“Too much trouble,” came the reply.

Orville Dewey said, “Labor is man’s great function, He is nothing, he can do nothing, he can achieve nothing, fulfill nothing without working.”

The Greek word for “manager” or “steward” (v 1) has been translated elsewhere in the NIV as the “city's director of public works” (Rom 16:23), “trustee” (Gal 4:2), and “those who have been given a trust” (1 Cor 4:2). The manager in the parable was not a servant belonging to his master who came cheap or was inexpensive; he was hired and paid handsomely for his services. The hireling was often compared mistakenly with Joseph, who was a slave and not an employee (Gen 37:36), so Joseph’s services were free and his master did not have to pay extra for his work.

The steward was fired not because of corruption, embezzlement, fraud, or theft. He wasn’t cooking the books or lining his own pocket. He was not accused of wrongdoing but of wasting his employer’s possession, and resources – of being careless, spendthrift, and wasteful. The Greek word for “wasting” (v 1) is the same word applied to the prodigal who “squandered his wealth” in wild living (Luke 15:13). Worse, the steward never did something about it nor did he have an answer for it. Maybe he thought the employer wouldn’t miss the money. The employer was rich, but he was not a bank, and even if he could afford to absorb the loss, he wouldn’t want to maintain the payroll. The owner had to revamp or end the business or cut the manager and trim the payroll. At this point, he was not thinking of profit but of stopping the bleeding.

The manager had a Washington or Sacramento big-government spend-spend or tax-tax mentality, spending the money of others and socking the bill to the taxpayers - or the owner in this case. In today’s term he was guilty of poor management and bad decision-making, but not of shoddy business practices or white-collar crime. He did not commit a crime or he would have been arrested, charged, and jailed. Still, the man was clueless, naïve, and oblivious to the problem. The Greek word “accused” (v 1) is used on no other person and nowhere else in the Bible. He did not bring up the mistakes or missteps to the employer; the owner had to “call him in” (v 2). “Give” (v 2) is an imperative. The manager had nothing to say and nobody to blame. The rich man had to let him go; he was losing money on the manager who had no clue on how to repair the damage, repay the debt, or recover the loss. The hiring was a disaster. The manager was paid good money to make more money, not to cause trouble or post losses for his employer.