Clever and Faithful
By Anthony Casperson
7-12-25

I’m often amazed at the creativity showcased by certain video game players. Don’t misunderstand me, I can find interesting solutions from time to time—usually involving a stealthy, guerilla-tactics style—but the level of thought that some people utilize leaves me astounded when I witness it.

For instance, the way that a number of players of Baldur’s Gate III originally dealt with a difficult situation in a certain area of the early-to-middle part of the game. Sure, the developers have since patched out the ability to perform this action, but that just indicates how creative players can be. Even the developers who intended to reward creativity stood back saying, “I never thought of that one.”

When seasoned video gamers enter this specific circular area, surrounded by lava, which leads to nowhere except a lower area with a huge grated pipe, they quickly recognize this as an imminent boss fight. And with an enormous magically-enchanted hammer above the anvil-like pedestal in the center of the area, they know this boss will be anything but mini.

Lo and behold, after your character attempts to activate the forge, out comes a huge mechanical enemy. Who would’ve guessed that?

Myriad methods exist in taking out this metallic golem. Players can face it head on, chipping away at its hp until it finally falls. Its resistance to most damage types makes this even more of a slog than other creatures who are just big bags of hp. Another option is to study the creature, realize that it has a weakness to bludgeoning damage, and then switch to weapons that are more on the blunt and whacking side. However, party class makeup and loadout can make that difficult. My favorite method involves stacks and stacks of explosive barrels near the giant machine’s entrance area. Although, you have to make sure your characters are out of the blast radius—flying into lava is not ideal.

However, the method that the game developers meant to entice ingenious players with was to utilize the enormous hammer and anvil in the middle of the battle arena. (And guess what type of damage that hammer does.) The problem is that it can be difficult to lure the boss to sit on top of that anvil at the end of its turn, thus allowing a party member to pull the hammer’s controlling lever on their turn in the fight. The only time that the metal enemy doesn’t use its full amount of movement is when it comes into melee with one of the party members. So there are only a few ways to get it to stop on top of the anvil.

This is where incredibly creative individuals came in.

They would position one of their party members on the edge of the anvil in such a way that the character and the enemy would both be on it while engaged in melee combat. Then the character would place a health potion at their feet, attack the enemy from a distance to get its attention, and wait for the approaching enemy. It would walk directly to the character and take a swipe at them. However, that set of actions was nothing but a trap for the metal monster. Another party member would pull the lever, thus crushing both the enemy and their fellow hero. Oh, and also that health potion, which would break and be absorbed by the downed party member, bringing them back to life.

Rinse and repeat that a couple of times, and you’re left with one quickly defeated enemy. (And a highly traumatized party member who yo-yoed from death to life a few times.)

When I heard about this method to defeat that boss, I sat there slack-jawed. Who would ever have thought about that option? Their creativity seemed to supercede mine, for certain.

Some might wonder if these inventive players utilize that creativity for more productive situations. Do they have careers that require out of the box thinking? Could their ingenuity be used to help others in a method that’s smarter, while not being harder?

I don’t know the real answer to that question, but my honest thought is, “Probably not.” A large percentage of people who invent intriguing solutions in video games rarely utilize that creative thought outside of those games. Their thinking might often be outside of the box, but their creative solutions remain inside of a digital one. There’s a reason why they have the time to test out their creative hypotheses. (Don’t hear antagonism in that previous sentence. I too spend hours playing video games.)

It might surprise us to hear that creativity like this can be used only for certain situations, but not in others. Why would someone spend so much effort ingeniously seeking solutions that benefit no one but them—and even then, only for an instantaneously fleeting reward—when that same creativity could be used for something that’s for others and is more lasting?

While I don’t personally have an answer to that question, this idea is actually what Jesus talks about in our passage for this week’s blog in our summer series, “Mysteries of the Kingdom.”

In this week’s parable, found in Luke 16:1-13, we see Jesus talk about the good of creative cunning, but only when it’s used for faithfully serving the Kingdom of God.

This parable is one of the more difficult of Jesus’ stories to understand and apply. As a matter of fact, I thought about not including it at all in our series through Jesus’ parables. But if we don’t desire to seek the revealed mysteries of the kingdom in the difficult passages, then why are we even taking the time for this series? So, here we are, talking about it.

Anyone familiar with the parable in question might also wonder why I’m including verses 10-13 as well. However, reading those verses in conjunction with the parable helped me figure out the point of Jesus’ story. Just go with me here.

Our passage immediately follows last week’s parables. Jesus might even be talking to the same crowd as they discuss whether or not to join him in rejoicing over repentant sinners.

Regardless, we see that Jesus spoke this parable to his disciples. Not just the Twelve, but all of those sinners who had repented and wished to live according to the ethics of the kingdom. Thus, the story can only be applied to those of us who have obtained citizenship in the kingdom. Those outside of the party need not be concerned about living this way. And Jesus even mentions that many outside of the kingdom have already learned and applied this lesson to their lives, albeit for fleeting and selfish purposes.

Jesus tells the story that a rich man had a manager who embezzled much of his funds. When Jesus says that the manager wasted the man’s money, this is the same word used in the Parable of the Lost Son(s) when the younger son made it rain in the foreign land. (This is why I wonder if Jesus had directly continued from those words to these ones. Narrative creative tissue can tell us a lot.)

The rich man gives the prodigal manager his performance review. And it’s not good. He tells the embezzler that he’s fired. But there’s still a small timeframe where he has to settle the accounts and make available the transfer of information for his replacement.

Notice that the manager knows his remaining time is short in this world of the rich man’s finances. The fact that the manager knows how limited his time is in this role might seem like it’s just an insignificant detail to us. But it will be helpful to keep in mind when we come to the application later.

The manager also considers what this firing means to him. He too weak to dig ditches and too ashamed to beg for money. Financial management is really the only thing he knows how to do. But who would hire him after word of his frivolous embezzlement got out?

And this is where his incredible creativity came in.

He’d already been caught cooking the books for his own favor. So, why not cook just a little bit more? But for the benefit of other people, which he could then leverage for his own personal benefit as well. A longer-term solution, if you will. It’s a little back-scratching for these debtors, at the rich man’s expense.

Since he has control of the receipts, all he needs are the debtors who’d written down the amounts owed in their own hands. And so, he calls the debtors one by one, telling them to officially amend the prices owed to the rich man. The percentages between the debtors were different, but the approximate monetary amount was the same reduction.

Was this action ethical? No. But was it legal? Kinda. Technically.

With the written account by the hand of the debtor and the official seal of the rich man’s agent both placed on the document, no court of law could be certain if the amendments were performed with the rich man’s consent. Thus, the newly minted amounts would have to be kept.

This action would, in turn, cause the debtors to think favorably about the manager. They might even hire him for their own finances, out of thankfulness of what he’d saved them. And the rich man would be unlikely to seek retribution from the manager, because if he did, any possibility of this reduction of debt coming from the grace of the rich man would go out the window. He’d look like nothing but a greedy moneygrubber, instead of a benevolent philanthropist that others might be more willing to do business with.

Because of the dishonest manager’s cunning shrewdness, the rich man commends him. And it seems like Jesus does too. But that makes us question Jesus here. Is he really calling out an unrighteous embezzler as the hero of this parable? Is Jesus okay with us stealing money from the rich, as long as we’re really crafty in how we go about it?

No.

It’s not the embezzlement that causes Jesus to commend the manager—or the children of this world who shrewdly interact with their surrounding culture. Rather, it’s the fact that when the manager knew his time was short, he threw his entire self into his purpose. Every ounce of energy and creativity focused on the one goal of his true master: money for himself.

When people find their goal and higher life’s purpose in jeopardy of being lost, they will do everything in their power to make it happen. Right down to the last second of that ticking clock.

Remember earlier, when I said that the manager’s knowledge of his limited time would be important? This is why. We followers of Jesus know that our time on this planet is short. Ticking by every second. And we have a goal in the expansion of the Kingdom of God. Both the continuance of its spread in us—making us more and more like the God we serve—and the growth throughout other sinners in need of repentance.

We children of light have a goal and limited time to achieve it. Yet, many among us refuse to throw our all behind its pursuit. We don’t use our creativity to figure out the way to build bridges for eternal purposes. More often than not, everything we make is considered as cheap knockoffs that have stickers of the cross plastered all over it. We fail to shrewdly utilize the resources of this world for the objectives of the next.

The films we make batter people over the head with saccharine crosses, instead of letting the beauty of cinematography tell a story that displays the virtues of redemption, godly love, and grace in the face of opposition. Businesses we build have to use images and words that showcase our Christianity—as if that’s enough of a witness to the world to alleviate guilt for not telling them anything else about our faith—instead of letting our values of hard work and an honest product build trust so that others might ask what makes this business different.

So many other example of using everything we have to build for the kingdom could be listed, if we had the time. But we don’t do any of them. Instead, we fall into the same sinful trap as those who are children of this world.

Money and other resources become an idol to us. A master to rule over us. A slave driver that chides any pursuit other than the idea of one more dollar with a whip.

Verses 10-13 show Jesus flow right into this issue. Not only should we followers of his be creatively cunning in our use of the resources of this world, but we should also remember to be faithful to the kingdom with them. If we’re faithful to the kingdom with the smaller things, like the use of our resources for his glory and the repentance of our fellow sinners, then we have proven ourselves to be capable of being faithful with more. More responsibility. More resources. More ability to bring God glory.

What Jesus says in these four verses shows us the part of the unrighteous manager that he has a problem with. The man had been unfaithful with his master’s resources. That was why he deserved to be fired. While the shrewdness of the man’s later creativity is commended, his unfaithfulness is not.

Jesus calls his followers to be both clever and faithful in our pursuit of the kingdom’s goals.

If we don’t do that, then we’re trying to serve two masters. One with the resources of this earthly existence. And the other with whatever we have left. And the fact of the matter is that when a person has spilt goals, one will always suffer at the hands of the other. Resources siphoned off one pursuit to feed another.

But we followers of Jesus should put the Kingdom of God first. Make his goals be ours. And then put every ounce of our purpose toward it. That doesn’t mean that we’re of no earthly good. No, Jesus speaks to the contrary in verse 9. He commands us to make friends for ourselves by means of the resources of this world, so that when those rescourses fail—which they will—then we can find favor in those people with whom we built bridges. And the favor will be more than just for this present existence. It’ll be eternal. The longest of long-term strategies.

We followers of Jesus must keep all of this aligned properly in our lives. Jesus summarizes it even better in Matthew 10:16 when he says that his followers should “be as shrewd as serpents, but as innocent as doves.”

Clever and faithful.

Let us use our resources for the kingdom. Our time. Our money. Our abilities and skills. For some, this means we should seek “secular” jobs so that we can provide for those who feed us spiritually. It could also mean that we should seek employment that doesn’t demand every waking second, so that we can devote time to personal spiritual growth.

There are so many other ways we can ingeniously use our all for the kingdom. More than I can imagine on my own. That’s part of the creativity called for in this parable. As long as we remain faithful to God through it, find the shrewd manner to use the resources available to you in this limited time and use them for the kingdom.

And I promise, you will never find your creative solution patched out by the Designer.