By Earl Neff

In a culture and world where everything seems to be about self and our own determination of what is right, stewardship seems to be a lost word or concept. I’m afraid that for a lot of Christians it may be a foreign concept or reality in their thinking. But as Christians, it should be a foundational truth that we live by and that guides us in our decisions.

As in any subject to be defined and understood we must go back to the beginning in the Book of Genesis to reset our Biblical understanding of the matter. Gen. 1 tells us “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” It continues to describe how God spoke and created all living creatures and plant life, light, and darkness and established morning and evening as days. Then in verses 26-28 it says “Let us make man in our image and in our likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air and the livestock, and overall the earth and the creatures. “And God blessed them and said be fruitful and multiply fill the earth and subdue it.”

In Genesis 2:1-3 we see how God models for us how to steward or manage our time in ruling the earth. God did his work of creating in six days and on the seventh day he rested. He blessed it and called it holy.

Chapter 3 becomes the saddest story of how the first man and woman failed to steward the very words of God in reaching out and taking the forbidden fruit and plunged the whole creation into a natural state of decline and brokenness.

When you approach the word of God as the absolute source of truth and explanation of life and its meaning then it becomes obvious that God is the source or the owner of everything, and we have been given a sacred trust of being His stewards of the earth and all living creatures.

There are many words to describe stewardship: management, supervision, administration, guidance, control, direction, care, and regulation. Stewardship means supervising or taking care of something. It is to utilize or manage all the resources God provides for the glory of God and the betterment of his creation.

So as humans, and especially as Christians, we should be examples of what it means to be a caretaker and manager of the natural resources and of all living things. We are responsible to God for the well-being of the world around us and will give an account to him for our work. We also should be examples of how to live in the healthy rhythm of work and rest. And most of all his Words in how to live.

God commissioned us to rule over and subdue the natural world. To me, this also establishes the need for Christians to be involved in every area of society to manage or govern it. To subdue something implies that left to itself it would decline in its full potential or effectiveness. If we define the opposite of stewardship, it becomes very obvious as to the reality of the nature of a world under the law of sin and its curse. Words like neglect, carelessness, negligence, disorganized, corruption, malpractice, inefficient, misconduct, waste, squandering, and lawlessness. This defines everything we see increasing in our society and shouts to us the desperate need for Biblical Stewardship to shine through us Christians in every area of our society.

We see many examples of stewardship or governing in the Old Testament. Job is a model of stewardship as a man very blessed by God with wealth and many children as he was tested and lost everything, and yet remained faithful to God. He even said to his faithless wife, “should we not accept both good and evil from God.” Joseph was appointed as steward over all of Egypt to manage the food supply to survive a 7-year drought. Daniel and his 3 friends were elevated over all the affairs of the king. These men were all elevated because of their excellent spirit and faithfulness in how they lived in honoring God as the giver of life and their responsibility to Him as faithful stewards.

Jesus obviously becomes the most faithful steward and spoke often of living as stewards of both our time, gifts, and talents. Peter speaks of Biblical Stewardship in 1 Pt. 4:10-11 when he writes, “Based on the gift each one has received, use it to serve others, as good managers of the varied grace of God. If anyone speaks, it should be as one who speaks God’s words; if anyone serves, it should be from the strength God provides, so that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ in everything. To him belong the glory and power forever and ever, Amen.” Paul speaks of being a faithful steward of the Gospel that had been entrusted to him.

The best words we could ever hope to hear from our Lord when we meet him are, “…’Well done good and faithful servant… enter into the joy of your Lord (Mt 25:23).’” Even in the end stewardship will be what is celebrated. Pray that we are a church that is full of faithful stewards.

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