And he called him, and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of you? give an account of your stewardship; for you may be no longer steward.
All Commentaries on Luke 16:2 Go To Luke 16
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
And he called him, and said unto him,. . . give an account of thy stewardship, i.e. of how much thou hast received and how thou hast expended it, for thou mayest be no longer steward.
So Christ saith, unto every one in the hour of death, "Give an account of thy stewardship. Give an account of thy life, of thy goods, and of thy talents, whether thou hast used them to promote the glory of God and the salvation of thyself and thy fellow-men."
Climacus relates that a monk, who was afterwards abbot, saw in a dream, the first night he entered the monastery, certain men who demanded of him the payment of one hundred pounds of gold. Whereupon for the space of three years he gave himself up to obedience and mortification, and at the end of that time was told that ten pounds had been subtracted from his debt. For thirteen years longer he continued to practise still greater austerities, and then messengers were sent from God to say that all his debt was forgiven. The same writer has also something terrible to say about the abbot Stephen, who had for forty years lived a holy life of fasting and prayer. This Prayer of Manasseh , the day before he died, fell into a trance, and was heard as if in colloquy with an unseen Judges , denying at one time the accusations against him, at another time pleading guilty to the charges, and praying for mercy. Terrible indeed was the spectacle of this invisible and stern judgment.
