Stewardship

Let’s talk stewardship! When some people see that word, they automatically think, “Oh, great. The preacher’s gonna start harping about money.” And, in response, I must answer like the Hertz car rental commercial, “Not exactly.”

The arenas of life that the subject of “stewardship” covers are endless. In fact, Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden was an issue of stewardship. Genesis 2:15 says, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” Yep, there it is—stewardship. Adam and Eve were given charge to manage the Garden that God had created and in which God had placed them for His glory.

The entire Christian life is about stewardship of all that God has given us. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians concerning our stewardship of the gospel that “it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy” or faithful. This principle of faithful stewardship permeates all of life, each sphere of the life that we’ve been given stewarded for the glory of God.

The idea of stewardship is the idea of a manager—managing something that has been entrusted to us, something that belongs to someone else. All that we have and all that we are is a gift of God’s grace. Psalm 24:1 says, “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.”

The stewarding (managing) of all aspects of life such as career, recreation, mind, body, material possessions, money, spiritual gifts, talents, and others are to be pursued and managed in light of and from the perspective of the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.

Over the next several weeks, we will be doing a series of articles on stewardship seeking to encourage us from God’s Word toward faithful stewardship with a special emphasis on the advancement of the kingdom of God through obedience to the Great Commandment and Great Commission.