Luke 16 Round Two: Jesus Explains Multiple Layers of Hell

A story about a “dishonest rascal” shouldn’t teach us about godly wisdom—yet Jesus turns that expectation on its head. We open Luke 16 and sit with two parables that won’t let us look at money, mercy, or eternity the same way again. First up is the shrewd manager: a man facing the end of his job who acts decisively to secure future welcome. Jesus doesn’t celebrate his wastefulness; He highlights his foresight. The lesson is bracing and practical—use worldly resources to love people, not impress them; invest in relationships that outlast your bank balance; refuse to let money be your master when it was made to be your servant.

From there, we widen the lens with the rich man and Lazarus—a picture that surfaces hard truths about comfort, compassion, and the choices that calcify into destinies. We talk about how first-century listeners would have heard “Abraham’s side,” why many scholars see a pre-resurrection distinction between paradise and torment, and how Jesus’ point cuts to the core: indifference at the gate today becomes a chasm tomorrow. Even more surprising is the claim that if we ignore Moses and the prophets, a miracle won’t change us. Spectacle can stir curiosity, but Scripture forms conviction. That’s why we keep opening the text and letting it search us.

This conversation doubles as a practical guide to stewardship and an invitation to hope. Faithfulness with little becomes training for responsibility with much. Generosity becomes a quiet apologetic. And the Word keeps doing what it does best—revealing the heart of God and reshaping ours. If you’re ready to rethink how you handle money, how you read the Bible, and how you measure a life well spent, press play. Then share the episode with a friend, subscribe for more daily chapters in Luke, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway so others can join the journey.

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The More We Dig. The More We Find.

Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT).
Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Luke 16 Setup
• 2:20 Why These Parables Challenge Us
• 5:18 The Shrewd Manager Read & Recap
• 8:22 Shrewdness, Generosity, and Real Lesson
• 10:30 Faithful With Little, Mastered By None
• 13:20 Law, Heart, and Lasting Authority
• 15:20 Rich Man and Lazarus Read-Through
• 18:30 Hell, Paradise, and Two Realms

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast. Every day, we take one chapter of the Bible, dig deeper, and discover that the more we dig, the more we find. You can find out more at the BibleBreakdown.com. Now let's grow in God's Word together. Well, hello, everybody. Welcome back to your tour through the Gospel of Luke. Today, Luke chapter 16. And I'm gonna tell you something. I'm a little excited about this one, and I'm a little nervous about this one because Jesus is gonna tell two parables. And if you remember, parables are stories to help us grapple with complex spiritual principles. But these two parables Jesus is gonna tell in this chapter give me more fits and create more headaches for me as a pastor because they're just not easily explained. So I'm gonna give you a couple of ideas about these and then I'm gonna encourage you to go do some further study on your own. And I'll try to give you some resources on these before we get done. Before we go any further, my name is Pastor Brandon, and I am your friendly neighborhood Bible tour guide as we walk through God's word together. Kind of the mental image I have is you and I sitting across a coffee table. We both have our Bibles open. I've got my coffee, you've got your coffee or your tea or your water, your soda, whatever it is you're drinking. And we're just having a good time, just geeking out, just enjoying the Bible, because one of the things I have learned from studying the Bible all my life is the more you dig, the more you find. The Bible's amazing and it's awesome, but you got to dig to find all the good stuff. And I love the gospel of Luke because Luke was, I mean, he was trained as a doctor, but he is like the modern equivalent of an investigative journalist. He says all the way back in chapter one, and then we can see Acts chapter one, which is kind of like Luke part two, where he says a guy named Theopolis commissioned him to go into the Judean countryside and to investigate the stories about Jesus and report back. And this is the report back that he has done. And these are amazing stories. And I wonder if, you know, who he was talking to, rather, as he's telling us these stories, he's writing them down. Where were these disciples at the time? Were they other people? We don't know. But we know that in the end, it wasn't Theopolis that commissioned Luke, it was the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit inspired the gospel writer Luke to write these stories down so that we can know the ministry and the life of Jesus. And it's absolutely powerful. So here we go. We're gonna get into two parables. Jesus is gonna tell about one called the Shrewd Manager, and then the one that gives me so many fits as well is the one about the rich man and Lazarus. So let's jump into this. I'm gonna read each one completely, and then I'm gonna break down some of the things that Jesus is talking about. So here we go. Verse one, which is the first parable of the shrewd manager, he says, Jesus told this story to his disciples. There was a certain rich man who had a manager handling his affairs. One day a report came that the manager was wasting his employer's money. So the employer called him in and said, Hey, what's this I hear about you? Get your report in order because you are going to be fired. The manager thought to himself, Oh, now what? My boss has fired me. I don't have the strength to dig ditches and I'm too proud to beg. Ah, I know how I'll ensure that I'll have plenty of friends who will give me a home and I'm fired. So he invited each person who owed him money to his employer to come and discuss the situation. He asked the first one, How much do you owe him? The man replied, I owe him 800 gallons of olive oil, which, by the way, a lot of olive oil. So the manager told him, take the bill and quickly write it to 400 gallons. And how much do you owe my employer? He asked the next man. I owe him a thousand bushels of wheat. Once again, that's a lot of bread, was the reply. Here, the manager said, take this bill and change it to 800 bushels. The rich man had to admire the dishonest rascal for being so shrewd. And it is true that the children of this world are more shrewd in dealing with the world around them than are the children of light. Here's the lesson: Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your possessions are gone, you will be welcomed into your eternal home. Pause. So there's been some discrepancy over time where you ever heard the phrase doing a little evil for a greater good? People have gotten that phrase from this parable where they think that what Jesus is saying is it's okay to cheat people as long as it's for a greater good. That is not at all what is going on here. First of all, if you notice, Jesus is not promoting what this, as it has the NLT calls, this rascal. We need to bring that word back. Isn't that an amazing word? That he's not promoting what this rascal did. He is saying that this rascal learned how to be shrewd. And what is shrewd about this is it was often considered to be an act of benevolence to forgive someone of a debt. It was it was something that you were, it was expected of you to do if you were a rich employer. And it was also considered to be a sign of your benevolence, a sign of how awesome you were if you did it. So what this shrewd manager was doing is he was making everybody happy as he went out the door. So he wasn't actually cheating this uh employer because this employer needed to do these kinds of things anyway. So what he was doing is he was making his employer look good on the way out, and he was also helping out those that owed as well. And so, what the the manager, the the owner rather, what he is doing is he is saying, I admire this rascal because on his way out, he could have just told him they forgive all of it. He could have like wrecked me and he could have wrecked them, but instead he made all of us look good on the way out. You know why? Now I want to try to be good to him, I'm gonna try to help him. So actually, the shrewd rascal, he ended up making everybody happy, even though it was going to make him look bad, so that when he needed help, these people would help him again. And what Jesus says is, I'm gonna read it to you again. He said, here's the lesson. Use your worldly resources, use what you have to benefit others and make friends. Then when your resources are gone, they will welcome you into an eternal home. In other words, use your worldly resources into to help other people for an eternal benefit. So Jesus is saying, use your worldly resources to help others so that maybe you can reach others for an eternal gain. Then he says this, and this I love this from Jesus. He says in verse 10, if you are faithful in the little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won't be honest with greater responsibilities. And if you are untrust that's a that's a hard word. If you are untrustworthy about worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven? And if you are not faithful with other people's things, why should you be trusted with things of your own? No one can serve two masters, for you will either hate one and love the other. You will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and be enslaved to money. So once again, Jesus is saying is that you need to see money as a tool, not as an idol. If you use money, whether it's little or it's great, for the best you possibly can and to honor God, then God's gonna be able to give you more. God's gonna be able to trust you more. I think that God is not ever gonna give you something that will destroy you. Now, you can get it on your own, you can do that, and God won't stop you many times. But why would God bless you with something that's that will destroy you? And so he's saying, Be honest, do the best you can with a little so you can be entrusted with more. But you gotta decide why you're going to do these things. Verse 14 says, The Pharisees who dearly love their money heard all of this and scoffed at him. Then he said to them, You like to appear righteous in public, but God knows your hearts. And what this world honors is detestable in the sight of God. Until John the Baptist, the law of Moses and the messages of the prophets were your guise. But now the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone is eager to get in. But that doesn't mean that the law has lost its force. It's easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the smallest point of God's law to be overturned. For example, a man who divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery. And anyone who marries this woman divorced from her husband commits adultery. And so what Jesus is doing is he's talking about how the law speaks life and it speaks uh with authority, and how that continues to hold sway even in the new covenant. We we don't follow the letter of the law anymore, but we follow the principles of the law, such as one of the principles in the law is thou shalt not, Old King James English, commit adultery. If you do, there's repercussions for those things. All right, this next section is the one that I'm gonna try to, I'm gonna explain a little bit, but then I'm gonna encourage you to do some of your own study with this. Here we go, verse 19. Jesus said, There was a certain rich man who was splendidly clothed in purple and in fine linen, and who lived each day in luxury. At his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, who was covered with sores. As Lazarus lay there longing for scraps from the rich man's table, dogs would come and lick his open source. That's disgusting. Finally, the poor man died and was carried by the angels to sit beside Abraham at the heavenly banquet. A rich man also died, three rich man also died and was buried. And he went to the place of the dead. There in torment he saw Abraham in far distance with Lazarus at his side. The rich man shouted, Father Abraham, have some pity. Send Lazarus over here to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in these flames. But Abraham said to him, Son, remember that during your lifetime you had everything you wanted, and Lazarus had nothing. But now he is here being comforted, and you are in anguish. And besides, there is a great chasm separating us. No one can cross over to you from here, and no one can cross over to us from there. Then the rich man said, Please, Father Abraham, at least send someone to my father's home, for I have five brothers, and I want them I want him to warn them that they don't end up in this place of torment. But Abraham said, Moses and the prophets have warned them, your brothers can read what he wrote. But the rich man replied, No, Father Abraham, but if someone is sent to them from the dead, then they will repent of their sins and turn to God. But Abraham said, If they won't listen to Moses and the prophets, they won't be persuaded, even if someone rises from the dead. Now, what in the world is going on? Well, once again, Jesus is telling a parable. It is a story intended to illustrate a complex spiritual principle. Now you can see more of this in Ephesians chapter 3 through 5, and you can see this in 1 Peter, also 2 Peter, and in the Gospel of Jude and in different places. I actually did a blog entry. You can go to brandoncannon.com where we talk about the idea of what hell is and go in and do some further research on that. Also recommend to you to look up people such as John Lennox, Frank Turek, Jay Warner Wallace, and people like that, apologetics, and you can get further information on what hell is and also what it's not. And what Jesus is talking about here is what many scholars to believe to be the state of hell before the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Okay, now I want to disclaimer real quick. A lot of what we cover in this particular podcast series is what I would consider to be Christianity 101. These are just a little bit under the layer, the first layer of what it is to be a Christian and in Christian theology. This is going to get into Christian in 301. Okay, so kind of walk with me here. And if this is too much for you, then just throw it away. Don't mess with it right now. We'll get back to it another time. But something to kind of give you an idea that is this the spirit world is more real than the world we're living in right now. Because the spirit world exists both in our dimension and in a dimension of its own. There are angels and demons all around us right now. You just can't see them because your eyes are not open to the spirit world. When people see angels, when people see demons, when people see different things, then that's because something has now opened their eyes so that they can see what's going on in that other dimension. What Jesus is talking about is the Bible tells us that it is appointed unto man once to die. After that is the judgment. After that, you are judged whether or not you are righteous or you are unrighteous. And what we know is that we are made righteous through the blood of Jesus. And so what happened is in this situation, this is before the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus. And what many scholars can conclude from reading the Old Testament and other places that when someone would die, whether they were righteous or unrighteous, and here's another thing that heaven is not technically above us and hell is not technically below us. These are different dimensions. Now, because God in his sovereignty lets us understand the Bible and spiritual and physical reality from the context of where we are, he uses above us and below us to help us understand it. But the spirit world, it doesn't work in the same way ours does. So dimensions are different and locations are different. And so, not necessarily below or above, but wherever hell is, before the resurrection of Jesus, everybody would go to the place called hell. However, hell does not necessarily mean a place of torment. There are compartments of hell. One is exactly what you would think of. The Old Testament calls it Sheol, S-H-E-O-L, Sheol, a place of torment and punishment for the sins that you have committed. The other is what's called paradise. It was a place for those who died and were righteous, but yet they could not go to heaven because Jesus had to pay the price to purify the things in heaven, because sin did not originate on earth, sin originated in heaven. When Lucifer decided that he wanted to be greater than God, and so he sinned with pride, and he was cast out of heaven and he's cast down to the earth. And we find him showing up in Genesis chapter 3 when he tempts Adam and Eve in the garden. So sin actually began in heaven. And so when Jesus was had died, what many scholars believe is during the time of Jesus' death, he wasn't just laying there chilling, but he actually was performing as the high priest, and he went up to heaven because the Bible said that the tabernacle was made from the pattern that was in heaven, and he went up to heaven and he purified all the things with the blood of the righteous lamb once for all, and then he goes down into paradise, where the righteous dead have been waiting in comfort and in peace for the Messiah to come. And Jesus goes down there, he declares the Messiah is here, the things of heaven have been purified by the blood of the fully righteous Lamb, and he then brings people back up to heaven with him. That's why the Bible also says that we're going to get to at the end that when Jesus rose from the dead, that graves opened all around Jerusalem, and people saw the departed that had died. Now they're back and they're going up to heaven to be with Jesus forever. And so what Jesus is talking about here, I know it's getting deep, right? What Jesus is talking about here is that state before the resurrection when all people, Lazarus and the rich man, instead of going up to heaven, proverbially, they go down into hell, but in different compartments. That's where Abraham is having to call over to this rich man because there's a large chasm in between. And he's saying, I can't go to you, you can't come to me because I'm not in punishment. You are. And that was the difference in the different compartments of what we would call hell. One was a place of peace, one was a place of waiting for Jesus to come and to take them to heaven, and the other is a place of torment where they still are today. And it's a terrible, tragic thing. One of the saddest things about hell to me is you're never truly completely away from the knowledge of God. Because even the psalmist says this, where can I go to escape your presence? If I make my bed in hell, you are there. So one of the most tragic things in the world is people go to hell if they choose to pay for their own sins. But yet even there, our heavenly father hears them cry, hears them still curse his name, and is still unable to be connected back to them. It's a terrible, terrible thing for our heavenly father to have to realize. But Jesus is saying in that moment, is or in this moment, in this parable, he is saying, and this was nothing necessarily new to the people of the time. They would have understood about the idea of Abraham's bosom, as they would call it, Abraham's resting place. So that you know, one day when the Messiah would come, this would happen. So this wasn't entirely new to that Jewish audience, it's just new to us today, because now uh paradise is no longer there because now we go to heaven to be with Jesus, to that place of rest. But here's the last thing I want to say to you is this is this rich ruler who is now in hell, he asks Abraham, Would you send someone to go and tell them that this place really is real? Everything that had been foretold to us in the law, it really is real, and then they'll believe. And listen to what Jesus is saying, and he's using you know in this story Abraham to say this. He said, You've got the law, and you've got Moses, you've got the prophets, and they can read about it. And then the man in hell says, No, no, no, no. But if someone comes back from the dead, they will believe it. And Jesus is saying through the narrative of Abraham, no, if they won't believe Moses and the prophets, they won't even be persuaded by something supernatural. I think that's an amazing lesson for all of us. We can be so quick to try to convince people about the gospel from uh all these different experiences and encounters. And I love experiences and I love encounters. But what reaches people is the truth and the life that is found in God's word. That's why we do this right here is slowly exposing God's word so that we can find the life and we can find all that there is through God. Now, I know I just went kind of deep for you and I was talking fast. That's because this is just intended to expose you to realize there is so much more to God's word than we can imagine. It is deep and it is rich. That is why I say the deeper you dig, the more you find. I would encourage you to go onto my blog brandoncannon.com. You can search hell and you'll find more information about hell. And then further, I'm gonna try to add additional links so you can do some research yourself so that you can dig deeper into the idea of what they call Abraham's bosom, a place of paradise, and hell and the different compartments of hell. And the thing is, is that we are conjecturing these things. We have some really good ideas, but the Bible is not intended to speak on everything at all times. The Bible is to tell the story of God interacting with his creation so that we can get to heaven. And so a lot of these things, these theological ideas, are things we have really good ideas about, but we keep our mind and our focus on Jesus, and that because of Jesus, we don't ever have to go there. Instead, we can make our home in eternity with him. All right. I hope you had a good time today as we went to God's Word together. I will see you next time for Luke chapter 17.