Luke 16:5 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

So he called every one of his lord’s debtors. — The debtors might be either men who had bought their wheat and their oil at the hands of the steward; or, as the sequel renders more probable, tenants who, after the common custom of the East, paid their rent in kind. Who, we ask, are the “debtors,” in the interpretation of the parable? The Lord’s Prayer supplies the answer to that question. The “debtors” are those who have sinned against God, who have left undone the things which they were bound to do, who have made no return for the outward blessings they have received. The unfaithful Church or party tries to secure its position by working on the lower nature of those who have the sense of that burden upon them. It neither gives the sense of peace or pardon, nor asserts the righteous severity of God’s commandments. It keeps their consciences uneasy, and traffics in its absolutions.