Luke 16:7
“Then he said to another, ‘How much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred cors of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’”
What does Luke 16:7 mean?
In this parable, a manager who's about to lose his job is reducing what people owe to his master, hoping they'll help him out later when he's unemployed. A cor is a large unit of measure, so a hundred cors of wheat represents a substantial debt, and cutting it to eighty is genuinely significant. The manager is essentially bribing people with his boss's money to ensure his own survival once he's fired. Jesus tells this story not to praise dishonesty, but to point out something uncomfortable: people in the world are often more creative, urgent, and shrewd about securing their earthly future than believers are about spiritual priorities. It's a wake-up call about where we invest our energy and cleverness, not an endorsement of cheating anyone.