“And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided him.”
King James Version (KJV)
16:12 If ye have not been faithful in that which was another's - None of these temporal things are yours: you are only stewards of them, not proprietors: God is the proprietor of all; he lodges them in your hands for a season: but still they are his property. Rich men, understand and consider this. If your steward uses any part of your estate (so called in the language of men) any farther or any otherwise than you direct, he is a knave: he has neither conscience nor honour. Neither have you either one or the other, if you use any part of that estate, which is in truth God's, not yours, any otherwise than he directs. That which is your own - Heaven, which when you have it, will be your own for ever.
16:13 And you cannot be faithful to God, if you trim between God and the world, if you do not serve him alone. #Mt 6:24|.
16:15 And he said to them, Ye are they who justify yourselves before men - The sense of the whole passage is, that pride, wherewith you justify yourselves, feeds covetousness, derides the Gospel, #Lu 16:14|, and destroys the law, #Lu 16:18|. All which is illustrated by a terrible example. Ye justify yourselves before men - Ye think yourselves righteous, and persuade others to think you so.
16:16 The law and the prophets were in force until John: from that time the Gospel takes place; and humble upright men receive it with inexpressible earnestness. #Mt 11:13|.
Lu 16:14 The Pharisees . . . derided him. They understood the parable as an attack on covetousness and, like the worldly wise, thought his doctrine foolish.