Stewardship

by Carol Supper

My mom faithfully attended church and took all 4 of us kids with her to the little white church on the corner of 147^th St. and California Ave. in the Chicago suburb of Posen, Illinois. From the time I was an infant until sometime during my college years, the Merrell family was present at Community Bible Church just about every time the doors were open. In fact, we often opened the doors!

At the age of 7 I accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of my life after hearing a message from two Evangelist brothers with the last name of Lindquist. I had been in Sunday School and church every Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night of my life, and on that particular evening it all made sense to me. 

So it is probably not surprising to any that the word “stewardship” was a part of my vocabulary from a very early age.  My understanding of that word, though, was very limited and remained quite obscure to me until a few years ago when a SGC Sunday School class had a guest teacher named Ned Kiser come and teach a quarter on that very word. I was quite surprised to discover that I really knew very little of Biblical Stewardship. 

Perhaps I should start at the beginning.

 

Growing up in the church, I was fluent in “Christian Speak,” and words such as omniscience, born again, redeemed, and stewardship rolled easily off my tongue. I was always surprised when somebody would ask what I was talking about. “Doesn’t everybody know about atonement, the Holy Ghost, and propitiation?!” The word “stewardship” was just another word that Christians used that meant “giving.” whether it was money, time or talents.

Fast forward 20 years--okay maybe 40 years--and I am sitting in the HOPE SS class learning that stewardship means a whole lot more than that. In fact, I would have preferred to stay ignorant so I wouldn’t have to be held responsible! 

Disclaimer: if you do not want to be held responsible for changing your behavior to match your knowledge, STOP reading right now! 

Okay, you can’t say I didn’t warn you!

To understand stewardship, you need to understand what a steward is. The Free Dictionary says a steward is “One who manages another's property, finances, or other affairs.”  Notice that it does not say, “One who manages his own property, finances…” Okay, so what does that mean? It means that we are only managers and not owners. The owner is the Lord! "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it." (Psalm 24:1) 

Now that we understand what stewardship actually means, ask yourself a question. “Would I hire ME to manage my finances, my time, my abilities?” I am so blessed and grateful that my property owner is gracious and merciful…otherwise I would have been fired a long time ago. 

How are you going to respond? Do you need to change your “managing style”? Maybe you need to spend more time reading the textbook that tells you how to please the owner. You probably already have a copy of this book (perhaps even many!). Open your Bible…it has all the direction you need. It clearly tells us how to manage all that the Lord has given us in such a way that will make him want to say, “Well done, good and faithful steward.” One passage to start with is Matthew 25:13-30.

Once you come to grips with what needs to change in your life, it's time to teach these principles to your kids.  Naturally, you will have a lot to explain with your words, but your example will speak the most loudly to them!