We all should long to hear the master say what he exclaims in Matthew 25:21: The Bible shows us in the parables of the Kingdom that faithful stewards who do the master’s will with the master’s resources can expect to be rewarded incompletely in this life, but fully in the next. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. We will all give account to the rightful owner as to how well we managed the things he has entrusted to us. Like the servants in the Parable of the Talents, we will be called to give an account of how we have administered everything we have been given, including our time, money, abilities, information, wisdom, relationships, and authority. We are called to exercise our dominion under the watchful eye of the Creator managing his creation in accord with the principles he has established. God has entrusted authority over the creation to us and we are not allowed to rule over it as we see fit. This is the maxim taught by the Parable of the Talents. We are all stewards of the resources, abilities and opportunities that God has entrusted to our care, and one day each one of us will be called to give an account for how we have managed what the Master has given us. While God has graciously entrusted us with the care, development, and enjoyment of everything he owns as his stewards, we are responsible to manage his holdings well and according to his desires and purposes.Ī steward is one who manages the possessions of another. We are called as God’s stewards to manage that which belongs to God. While we complain about our rights here on earth, the Bible constantly asks, What about your responsibilities? Owners have rights stewards have responsibilities. God owns everything we’re responsible for how we treat it and what we do with it. In explaining responsibility, Peel writes,Īlthough God gives us “all things richly to enjoy,” nothing is ours. Remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth. Stewardship is the commitment of one’s self and possessions to God’s service, recognizing that we do not have the right of control over our property or ourselves.Įchoing Deuteronomy 8:17, we might say: “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But Deuteronomy 8:18 counsels us to think otherwise: Therefore, stewardship expresses our obedience regarding the administration of everything God has placed under our control, which is all encompassing. God owns everything, we are simply managers or administrators acting on his behalf. This is the fundamental principle of biblical stewardship. It is clear that man was created to work and that work is the stewardship of all of the creation that God has given him. In the beginning of Genesis, God creates everything and puts Adam in the Garden to work it and to take care of it. The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. The psalmist begins the 24 th psalm with, Peel suggests that there are four important principles about biblical stewardship we must understand: His essay can help us build a framework to begin unpacking this biblical idea of stewardship. We believe it is where the concepts of faith, work and economics intersect.īill Peel over at The High Calling recently wrote an excellent essay entitled Leadership Is Stewardship. In a recent blog on stewardship we asked the question, “What does stewardship look like in our lives today?” Unfortunately many Christians today only associate the idea of stewardship with sermons they have heard about church budgets and building programs.īut for us at the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics, the idea of biblical stewardship is about something much more expansive. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service, you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense His own already. Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given you by God.
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