Stewardship & Generosity
Stewardship is a relatively easy concept. It simply means being entrusted with someone else’s stuff. That’s it in a nutshell, but let’s unpack it a little more.
The Bible is filled with illustrations of what stewardship looks like. One prominent example is Joseph (Genesis 39-41), who after being sold into slavery, became a servant in Potiphar’s house. As a servant, he was entrusted to steward specific tasks and responsibilities on behalf of Potiphar. By God’s favor, he became Potiphar’s head servant—stewarding everything Potiphar owned. After being falsely accused and thrown into prison, Joseph experienced a similar increase in responsibility (stewardship) within Pharaoh’s prison. And after interpreting Pharaoh’s dream, Joseph was entrusted with ruling over the entire nation of Egypt on behalf of Pharaoh¾a massive stewardship responsibility.
Meanwhile, Pharaoh himself was a steward, having been established by God to rule over Egypt (Romans 13:1). In other words, stewardship is often expressed on multiple levels, as we see in this historical account: God → Pharaoh → Joseph → Potiphar and others. A modern-day example would be God entrusting a married couple with a house and that couple entrusting a particular bedroom to a child: God → Parents → Child. The critical point here is that all stewardship begins with God.
Scripture teaches that God owns everything (Psalm 24:1), and everything includes, well… everything. Not just all our stuff but our lives, bodies, abilities, time, etc. This means that every single moment of our existence is an act of stewardship. Every decision we make, however significant or insignificant, involves things that belong to God. In scripture, we find three key principles of stewardship:
Authority – Stewardship involves authority, delegated and real. When God entrusts us with something, He gives us authority over it and the right to make decisions. For example, God has entrusted us with the ability to speak. This means we get to decide which words come out of our mouths. However, this decision is not without oversight, leading to the second principle.
Responsibility – Because stewardship involves authority, it must also involve responsibility because the right to make decisions is always accompanied by accountability for those decisions. Since we have authority over our words, we are accountable to God for those words (Matthew 12:35-37). And how we answer is not without consequence, which introduces the third principle.
Faithfulness – Because stewardship is a responsibility, that responsibility can be carried out faithfully or unfaithfully. To be faithful means to be trustworthy and obedient to handle an entrusted thing in a way that promotes trust from its owner. Faithful stewardship results in greater authority and responsibility (greater stewardship), whereas unfaithful stewardship results in a loss of authority and responsibility (less stewardship).
The parable Jesus shares in Luke 19:11-27 highlights all three of these principles. In this story, a ruler entrusts 10 of his servants with a lot of money each, empowering them to make decisions regarding the money (authority). Then he leaves on a trip. When he returns, he requires each servant to give an account of the money he entrusted to them (responsibility). The servants who do well are entrusted with even greater authority and responsibility, and those who do poorly are stripped of the authority and responsibility they have (faithfulness). In Matthew 25:14-30, Jesus tells a different but similar parable reinforcing the same principles.
This is stewardship.
There are numerous options for what we do with the things entrusted to us by God. One of those options is to give something away, which could look like contributing our money, sharing our abilities, or donating our time. While giving can take many forms, it is generally considered an act of generosity when characterized by abundance or sacrifice and when aimed at blessing others. As an expression of stewardship, scripture reveals some key principles of generosity:
Generosity gives freely and readily from the heart.
Generosity is evidence of God’s gracious transformation of the giver.
Generosity brings great reward.
In the words of former Alliance pastor and planned giving professional Ken Furl, “You can give without being generous, but you cannot be generous without giving.”
This is generosity.