Stewardship involves understanding that we are managers of God's resources, not owners. The sermon defines stewards using Greek terms and highlights biblical examples like Eleazar, Joseph, David's stewards, and Herod's steward, emphasizing their trusted positions. Jesus' parable of the unjust steward in Luke 16 illustrates wise management of resources, contrasting earthly 'mammon' with true, eternal riches from God. While tithing was an Old Testament practice for supporting Levites and religious feasts, it is not a New Testament command, and true Christian stewardship focuses on faithfulness with all possessions, contentment with food and raiment, and avoiding the pursuit of earthly riches.
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Our study is on stewardship. Section one, stewards, not owners. Number one, definitions. We have two words from which we get our word steward in the New Testament. A, oeconomos. which is spelled O-I-K-O-N-O-M-O-S. And this comes from the word Oikos, O-I-K-O-S, which means a house, and the word nimble, which means to arrange.
So he is a house arranger. B, the word epitropos. And this comes from, that's E-P-I-T-R-O-P-O-S. This comes from epi, E-P-I, which means over, and truppo, which is a common word for means or for goods, anything, any kind of possessions. So it means one who is over the goods or over the means. C, hence, one who looks after another person affairs. Number two, some stewards in the Bible, eh?
Eleazar, Genesis fifteen two. Eleazar was Abraham's steward. He probably is the one who was sent in the twenty-fourth of Genesis to get a bride for Isaac. Stewards were very highly trusted. They were men who were responsible for another man's goods, and they recognized this. D. Joseph's steward in Genesis forty-three. When his brothers came back the second time, the steward took them into the house and said, Fear not, I had your money.
he was looking after Joseph's house. To see Joseph himself, because Joseph was a steward. He was in a position similar to that of prime minister, and yet he was taken care of all of the affairs of Egypt in the name of the pharaoh. And that D... David's stewards, mentioned in First Chronicles twenty-eight and one, he apparently had a number of them. His stewards were responsible to see that various things were done in the kingdom.
He, a man named Chouza, C-H-U-Z-A. In Luke eight and three, he was Herod's steward. His wife Joanna was one of the Lord's disciples. We don't know about Susa, except that he was a steward for Herod. And then S, in Galatians four, two, he speaks about tutors and governors. He says that a child is no better off than a slave. until he reaches his majority because he is under tutors and governors.
Now the word governors is exactly the same as the word steward. Tutor is a word that has to do with a person who cares for the child, teaches him and looks after him and so on. So you have a tutor over the person and then you have a governor over the goods. So the word governor In Galatians four two is the same as the word stewards. Number three, our Lord's teaching about stewards. Luke sixteen, verses one to fifteen. I want to read this because we will refer to it a number of times in this study.
And he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich man which had a steward, and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods. And he called him and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of thee? Give an account of thy stewardship, for thou mayest no longer be steward. Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do, for my Lord takeeth away from me the stewardship? I cannot dig, to beg I am ashamed. I am resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship they may receive me into their houses. So he called every one of his Lord's debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much oest thou unto my Lord?
And he said unto him, And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty. Then said unto another, And how much oest thou? And he said unto him, And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscores. And the Lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely. Notice this is the little letter L. This isn't the Lord Jesus that commanded him. He never commends anybody for being a crook. But his master heard about it, and he commanded him because he had done wisely. He hadn't done right, but he had done a very wise thing. For the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of life.
And I say unto you, make to yourselves friends of or with. The revised version says, Make yourselves friends with the mammon of unrighteousness, that when ye fail, or when it shall fail, they may receive you, these friends that you have made, may receive you into everlasting habitation. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much. And he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. If therefore you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, Who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man, who shall give you that which is your own?
No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. And the Pharisees also who were covetous heard all these things and made you right at him. And he said unto them, You are they which justify yourselves before men. But God knoweth your heart, for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God. Now that story is the basis for a great deal of what we know about this subject of stewardship. Now under the setting number three, our Lord's teaching about stewards, A, appointed by the owner.
B, must give account to owner. C, may waste or steal. D may also act wisely. There's one thing he may not do, he may not own it. It belongs to the owner. Now, number four, our Lord's teaching about riches from this same section, A, And you'll be able to use the diddle mark under the headings because one column of these, A, C, E, and G, are going to be about mammon.
Mammon is least. B, true riches are much. These are direct quotes, least and much. the. Mammon is another man's. That is, it belongs to another man. True riches are your own. E. Mammon is an idol. This was one of the Roman gods. They had a God for everything, and Mammon was an idol.
And being too interested in mammon or in money is idolatry f true riches are from God the true God g mammon is unrighteousness or unrighteous excuse me it's called unrighteous mammon and h true riches are for everlasting. I should give some thought to these contrasts because this is what our Lord Himself said about possessions.
Now, section number two, tithing. Some people make a great deal of tithing. One, practiced in the days of the patriarchs. Practiced in the day of the patriarchs. A, by Abraham. Genesis fourteen, twenty. Abraham gave tithes of all the spoil to Melchizedek the high priest of the Most High God. Jacob.
Jacob promised to tithe, but he forgot about it for twenty years. I don't know what he did about it after that. Number two, tithing was taught under the law. A? It was commanded. Leviticus twenty-seven, thirty to thirty-three. All the tithes of the land is the Lord's, he said.
You won't find anything like that in the New Testament at all. What you find in the New Testament is with the whole business of the Lord's. This is not true under the earthly nation of Israel, of the people of God, Israel. The tithe was his, was God. B, to support the Levites, Numbers eighteen. The Levites were a select class, one tribe, set apart for God, and they were supported by the tithe. And they, in turn, gave tithes of what they had, and this supported the priests.
Then the priests, in turn, gave it tithes, and this supported the high priests. I don't know what he did with his. Nothing he said about it. But this was why tithing was set up under the Jewish law. It was a means of supporting it. When the people failed, the Levites had to go back to work, went back to their farm. See, an additional tithe was to be eaten before God. When they had their annual feast, the Jews were to take a tenth of their profit and either bring the animals to Jerusalem to be slain or else sell them and bring the money and buy all these there if it was too far to bring them.
And this was just as important a tithe as the Levitical tithe. It was the means that God had for teaching them what he had done for them. They still could retain the other eight-tenths of it, except on the third year. On the third year, there was still an additional tithe, the third tithe. This was probably for the civil government. Anyway, this additional tithe was to be eaten. D, it was a part of the revivals. And I've given you two examples here. There was a revival under Hezekiah in Second Chronicle Thirty-One, and another one under Nehemiah, the twelfth chapter of the book that buried his name.
So when they were away from God, like Jacob, they forgot the tithes. And when they were revived, they revived the tithes along with the other things, such as keeping the Passover and fixing up the temple and all these things. Number three, followed carefully by ungodly religionists. I'm giving you one example from the Old Testament, two from the New. In Amos four, the prophet said, and prophet Amos said, come up to Bethel and transgress.
Bethel was the place where God had placed his name at the beginning, before Jerusalem was the center. Come up to Bethel and transgress. And come to Gilgal and mother flagger transgressions. bring your tithes and so on. Now, this was said in a sarcastic vein. This was a rebuke by the prophet, which shows that tithing has nothing to do with spirituality. They went through the form of tithing, although they were ungodly. It became a religious fetish.
the tithing of herbs. Matthew twenty-three, twenty-three. The Lord said, Woe unto you hypocrites! You tithe mint and amnest and coming. Now they'd have a little patch of this with a row about maybe four or five feet long of each of these herbs, and they'd split that off into ten very carefully and take off this little bit of mits and this little bit of anise, which is dill. And they take this to the Lord as though they were doing something. And the Lord says, all the time you're robbing the widows of their houses and you're blaspheming my name and you're doing all kinds of ungodly things while you feel that you've done something nice now and tithing your little garden.
And see, it led to boasting. Luke eighteen and twelve. You remember the Pharisees stood and prayed thus with himself, Lord, I thank thee that I am not his other man. I fast twice in the week. I give tithes of all that I possess. I'm not even as bad as this publican standing here, which showed as he's praying with his eyes open. He wasn't the least bit concerned about glorifying God. He was interested in going through a ceremony. I'm giving you this background because this is exactly what tithing is amounted to in a professing church today. Number four, it is not a New Testament teaching or practice.
A, never enjoined by our Lord. That is never, he never commanded it. The Lord never once said anything about tithing. Be never taught in the Epistles. It's mentioned in the Gospels, but it's always mentioned in a bad sense. It's never taught in the Epistles. See, preachers must quote Old Testament scriptures in order to support it.
Now, if you've ever heard a modern minister preach on tithing, you've heard him go to Malachi three, bring me in all the tithes into the storehouses, and prove me herewith that the Lord, I will open the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing that you shall not be able to receive. They ought to have that one framed. put it in the same glass windows. It comes up almost every Sunday because this is the lever that they use to get the money from unwilling people. You never heard a preacher take a New Testament text sometimes, because there aren't any.
You've got to go back to the Old Testament to get this. I mean, it's so far from stewardship that it isn't even remotely like it. Now, section number three, earthly blessings for Israel. One, the patriarchs were rich. I've given you four examples you can look up. A, Abraham. B, Isaac. C, Jacob. and D Jacob's sons.
Does this mean that it was just a smart family? No, I think not. Number two, the Israelites were prominent riches. A, good crop. B, large families this is important to a farmer got his own hired hands raised right up there in the farm and they were an agricultural people it was also important that they might be able to perpetuate their name since they were earthly people with earthly blessings this was all very important sea lands that included houses The land was divided up with the houses and the vineyards and the fruit trees and the olive yards.
The lands were divided and they were promised that they would have more and more land. And D, silver and gold. Joshua twenty-two says they had much silver and gold. Only the disobedient were poor. Judges, too, it says they forsook the Lord and served Baal, and the spoilers spoiled them and distressed them. You can tell whether a Jew was godly enough by looking over his farm.
You can't tell this about a Christian today. Some of the most godly Christians I've ever known have had to leave. F. David never saw a righteous man hungry. He says so in Psalm thirty-seven. I have been young and now am I old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, or I see begging bread. A lot of Christians quote this as a guarantee that they're always going to have all they need. David could say that, but Paul never said it. Paul says, I know how to be hungry. Many, many godly Christians today are going hungry.
Gee, Jewish disciples still retained ownership. Remember, I've said to you a number of times that you have an overlap in the book of the Acts. The Old Testament economy is passing away. And the church is beginning, and there's an overlap there, especially in the first ten chapters of Acts. The disciples are still very much upon Jewish ground, and Ananias and Sapphire had money. They had property, and they sold the property, and then they lied about it. They said that they gave it all to the Lord and to the apostles.
And Peter said, as long as it was in your possession, wasn't it yours. It was your own. You could do what you wanted to with it. Sometimes Christians quote this and see, well, if there's a New Testament case, that says that our property is really our own. But what they're ignoring is that this is the transition period from Judaism to Christianity. There are no Gentiles saved until you get to the tenth chapter of the Acts. So you can't use a case like this. to prove ownership in the New Testament. Now let's take section four, spiritual blessings for the church. Earthly blessings for Israel, we saw.
No, spiritual blessings for the church. One, we already have them all. Ephesians one and three. God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens and in Christ. We already have them all. A in the heavenly sphere, B in Christ, never apart from Him, never separate from Him. C, a partial list of nine blessings in Ephesians You ought to get acquainted with them.
You ought to know what you have. Every Jew would want to look over his new farm, look through his house that God had given to him when he went into the land. Count his cattle. We should enjoy our blessings. We should possess them. D? Paul prayed that we might know and enjoy them. We studied the two prayers when we studied the subject of prayer. Ephesians one. And again Ephesians three. Number two, we are to expect only food and raiment.
First Timothy six, six and eight. You brought nothing into this world, he said, and it is certain you can take nothing out. Having food and raiment, let us be there with content. we are to expect only food and raiment. A, our Father knows, that is, he knows our need, Luke twelve. B, our brethren care. First John, three, seventeen, you have no right to call yourself one of the brethren.
if you don't care about your fellow Christians. Anyone who has this world's goods and shatters up his bowels of compassion, now dwelleth the love of God in him. Look at that passage there. See, we should learn, and underline that word, we should learn to be content through Christ. Philippians four, Paul said, I have learned. whatever state I am therewith, to be content. And then he said, I can do all things through Christ, which strengthen of me. Your covetous nature will make you dissatisfied, but you can learn by the Lord's help and by his wonderful example.
You can learn to be content. Here's an interesting thing, and I've made a note of this under subheading D. Paul was abounding while in prison. You remember Paul said, I know how to abound and I know how to suffer needs. And people say, well, you see, Paul was rich part of the time. But wait a minute. In the eighteenth verse, he says, I have all things and abound, having received of Epaphroditus, the things which were sent unto me from you. So he was abounding while he was in jail.
I don't know what he was doing when he was having a hard time. See, there's nothing in the Scripture to indicate that Paul had certain periods in his life when he lived in the chalet down by the seaside and enrolled in luxury and wore all the latest styles out of Rome. Nothing to indicate that at all. He simply meant that there were times when he had enough to eat. And he was abounding now, although he was in prison at the time. Number three, we do wrong to try to become rich in this life. We do wrong to try to become rich in this life.
A, Christ for visits. Matthew six. Now that's reason enough. You don't have to have the other three, but I'll give them to you anyway. Though many are hungry, read this little story in Second Kings seven, when the lepers discovered the food and they started hoarding it up and then they said, we're not doing well. There's too many other hungry people. We do not well to hoard this stuff. There are so many hungry. See, it makes living by faith difficult, almost impossible. Proverbs eighteen eleven, the rich man's wealth is his strong city and a high wall in his conceit.
People who live to make themselves rich are making living by faith very difficult, if not impossible. And D, we are so unlike our Lord on earth. Do you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ? How that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor. ye through his poverty might be rich.