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What is a
steward?
"By New Testament times the office of steward is clearly defined as
the manager of a household, to whom the head of the house has
entrusted the management of his affairs, the care of receipts and
expenditures, and the duty of dealing out the proper portion to
every servant and even to the children not yet of age".
What do Christians mean by stewardship?
Two descriptions of a personal relationship with God are
particularly appropriate:
1. Creator-creature, which concentrates attention upon
responsibility, honesty and accountability.
2. Redeemer-redeemed, which focuses attention upon grace, costliness
and response. Both relationships need to be stressed if there is to
be a balanced and Christian view of stewardship.
How is stewardship defined in relationship to God as creator?
When God created
humans, they were given dominion over the earth – dominion in the
sense of responsibility and not in the sense of domination or
exploitation. God created humans as stewards of the world's
resources which they were to develop and share with one another in
justice, gratitude and love. This stewardship refers to the way
people conduct their lives, their being in the world. Money is part
of holistic stewardship. Other parts include the use we make of the
talents God has given us and the time we devote to their use in
God's service.
How is stewardship defined in terms of our sacrificial response
to Christ's sacrifice for us?
This is exemplified by Paul's challenge to the Christians at
Rome to offer themselves as a living sacrifice to God (Romans 12:
1), which itself follows his teaching (chapters 1 to 8) about the
basis - the grace of God - on which salvation rests. Men and women
may feel able to step out of the crowd and offer themselves to
Christ, not because of what they are but for what He has done for
them. The example of many congregations, where this relationship is
offered as the heart of the Gospel, is evidence of its
effectiveness.
What would our preaching on money look like if we were to return
to the patterns of the early Church?
We would begin by
questioning the existing order of wealth and poverty. We would no
longer take it for granted that whatever we have has been given by
God. We would help believers to place not only the management of
their wealth, but their acquisition of it, under the judgment of
God's Word.
We should consider the following advice from Jerome to a friend and
whether or not it should be the sort of advice heard from our
pulpits today:
"Others may build
churches....I do not blame those who do these things; I do not
repudiate them. Everyone must follow their own judgment. However,
your duty is of a different kind. It is yours to clothe Christ in
the poor, to visit Him in the sick, to feed Him in the hungry, to
shelter Him in the homeless." (Epistle 130: 14)
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