What The Bible Teaches About Stewardship - Part 1
February 3, 2008
The definition of Parables is that they are earthly stories with heavenly meaning. Jesus Christ often speaks in parables and everytime he does this, he is trying to teach us a lesson.
The parable of the talents in Mathew 25:14-27 reveals Christ’s teaching on the principles of Stewardship. Stewardship is an important topic in the Bible. It’s importance is highlighted by the fact that Christ talked more about stewardship than any other topic except the Kingdom of God.
A steward is a person who manages and administrates what has been entrusted to him by another. As Christians and as human beings we are stewards as we are to manage what has been entrusted to us by God. In Genesis 1:28, when God first created man he gave him instructions that he should “have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” The New Testament is replete with verses reminding us that we are stewards of God’s resources.
So what are the things that we should be stewards of ? We are to be stewards of our time, money, our abilities and our life. In the parable of the talents, the principles of stewardship that we can learn from Christ is as follows:
1.) THE PRINCIPLE OF OWNERSHIP - In verse 14 of the text, it shows to us that the Master is the absolute owner of all the servant’s goods. The servants were merely entrusted with the goods.
In the same way we should realize that all that we have is not ours it is the Lord’s and that we are only entrusted with it. Having this mindset is one of the most important principles of stewardship because only then if we think this way that we will be more responsible as stewards.
2.) ABILITY & DISCRETION - In verse 15, the determination as to how much goods was entrusted to each servant was determined on the basis of the ability of each servant and the master’s discretion.
God has given us different abilities, gifts, economic status in life and other blessings. It is no accident that we are where we are right now. God surely has a purpose for all of us. Whatever God gives us depends on His discretion and our ability. Even if we think we have the ability, we cannot question God if He gives other more wealth or more abilities than us because it depends solely on His discretion. Our job is to develop our abilities and to make the best out of our lives.
3.) FREEDOM - In verses 16 to 18 we can find that each servant was given full freedom on what to do with the goods entrusted to him.
As human beings God gave us a certain freedom as to how we are to fulfill the purpose that he wants us to accomplish. Certainly He did not intend make us robots. We were given freedom of choice. To make the best out of our lives we must act freely only within the boundaries of His instructions and plan.
This is part 1 of a 2 part series. Should you wish to view the entire article please visit my blog.
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