Charles Ellicott Commentary Luke 16:10

"He that is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much: and he that is unrighteous in a very little is unrighteous also in much." — Luke 16:10 (ASV)

He that is faithful in that which is least . . .—The context shows that by “that which is least” is meant what people call wealth, which to most of them seems the greatest, highest good. To be faithful in that is to acknowledge that we have it as stewards, not as possessors, and will have to give an account of our stewardship.

The word of warning was meant, we may believe, especially for the disciples. Coming, for the most part, from the poorer classes, they thought they were in no danger of worshipping mammon. They are told, probably with special reference to the traitor Judas, that the love of money can operate on a narrow as well as on a wide scale, and that wrongdoing in the one case tests character no less perfectly than in the other. This interpretation seems truer to the meaning of “much” than to understand “much” as simply the higher wealth of the kingdom of God, which is generically different from the former, although this higher wealth may also be included in the wider operation of the laws thus asserted.