Fundamentally, What is Stewardship

 

Stewardship is about exercising our God-given dominion over His creation, reflecting the image of our creator God in His care, responsibility, maintenance, protection, and beautification of His creation.

 

Sometimes we think that the New Testament is not concerned with labor, industry, or productivity, but it is concerned only that we love each other and live by grace and not by works. But if we examine the parables and language of Jesus, we see an emphasis on the call to fruitfulness. Jesus calls His people to be fruitful not only in the multiplication of the species through propagation, but for the kingdom's sake. This is an expansion of the creation ordinance that His people are to be productive.

 

The second command given to Adam and Eve was to have dominion over the earth. God installed Adam and Eve as His vice-regents, those who were to rule in His stead over all of creation. It's not that God granted independent ownership of the planet to humankind. It remains His possession. But God called Adam and Eve to exercise authority over the animals, plants, seas, rivers, sky, and the environment. They were not to exercise authority like a reckless tyrant who has carte blanche to do anything he wants, for God didn't make Adam and Eve owners of the earth. He made them stewards of the earth, who were to act in His name and for His glory.

 

Immediately after giving this mandate, God created a lush and gorgeous garden and placed Adam and Eve in it (Gen. 2:15). He commanded them "to work it and keep it." This command to work and keep is key to understanding the responsibility that is given to human beings, which goes with the privileged status of being made in God's image and being given dominion over the earth.

 

At creation, the mandate that God gave to humanity was for people to reflect and mirror God's stewardship over this sphere of creation. This involves far more than religious enterprises or the church. It has to do with how we engage in scientific endeavors, how we do business, how we treat each other, how we treat animals, and how we treat the environment. That dominion over the earth is not a license to exploit, pillage, consume, or destroy the earth; it is a responsibility to exercise stewardship over our home by working and keeping it. Working and keeping one's home means preventing it from falling apart, keeping it orderly, maintaining it, preserving it, and making it beautiful. The whole science of ecology is rooted and grounded in this principle. God didn't say, "From now on, all of your food will fall to you out of heaven." He said, "You are to work with Me in being productive: dressing, tilling, planting, replenishing, and so on."

 

The next commandment that was given to Adam and Eve in the garden was to name the animals (Gen. 2:19). In its most elementary sense, this was the birth of science: learning to distinguish among species, kinds, and forms, and discerning reality as we examine it. This is also part of our stewardship—learning about the place where we live and caring about it. These principles are not simply for one's own house but for the entire planet.

Some are old enough to remember the astonishing achievement of twentieth-century Americans when the first astronauts were sent to the moon. Inevitably, part of that memory includes astronaut Neil Armstrong's first footsteps on the moon and when he spoke of a giant step for mankind. One could look at that human achievement simply in terms of human arrogance—or we could see it as a fulfillment of the mandate that God gave us to have dominion over creation.

Fundamentally, stewardship is about exercising our God-given dominion over His creation, reflecting the image of our creator God in His care, responsibility, maintenance, protection, and beautification of His creation. 

 

                                                                         The Board of Stewardship

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