What a story! This is the strangest story Jesus ever told! At least it's the strangest one we have in the Bible! There are some other rather strange stories that appear in collections like the Gospel of Thomas. But they didn't make it into the Bible! Think about it! If we're reading this thing correctly, Jesus is telling us to imitate a crook! A downright scoundrel! He cheats on his employer. He lies to his business associates. And yet, says Jesus, here's somebody from whom we need to learn!

How could he do that? What are we missing, that the people in Jesus' world knew? How did they hear this story, and receive it with some sense of religious authority? Let's take a second look at it.

A Fortune 500 tycoon finds out that his administrator has mismanaged things horribly. He's squandered a…