Forty-Fifth Street Baptist Church

The friendliest church from the parking lot to the pulpit

What Is Stewardship?

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Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!  Matthew 25:21:

Our theme for the month of November is Stewardship.  Unfortunately, the common thought in church is that stewardship is all about money and budgets and finances in general.  To reduce stewardship to only a discussion about money is an injustice.

Bill Peel of The High Calling recently wrote an essay entitled Leadership Is Stewardship. Peel suggests that there are four important principles about biblical stewardship we must understand:

  1. The principle of ownership. 

The 24th psalm states “The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.

This is the fundamental principle of biblical stewardship. God owns everything, we are simply managers or administrators acting on his behalf.

  1. The principle of responsibility. 

Although God gives us “all things richly to enjoy,” nothing is ours. Nothing really belongs to us. God owns everything; we’re responsible for how we treat it and what we do with it. While we complain about our rights here on earth, the Bible constantly asks, What about your responsibilities? Owners have rights; stewards have responsibilities.

  1. The principle of accountability.

A steward is one who manages the possessions of another. 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.

  1. The principle of reward. 

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.

Applying these principles to every aspect of our lives is the daily task for a believer.  We must develop a biblical worldview to fully operate in God’s purpose for our lives.  Once we learn that it all (including me) belongs to Him anyway, life is a lot more manageable.