Written by Stephen Rohrer

 

Imagine you are the owner of a great estate. Perhaps an English lord like Earl Grantham in Downton Abbey. You and your family own vast resources – towns and villages, homes and great houses, farms and lands. Managing such diverse holdings creates a web of complexities. You and your family have relationships with tenants that have continued for several hundred years. Many people rely on you for their livelihood and homes. But the pressures of estate taxes, inflation, and maintenance make your cash flow constantly precarious. Keeping all these factors in proper balance is an exceedingly difficult job.

Unfortunately, after decades of service, the steward of your estate announces his retirement to a snug cottage with a brick-walled garden full of flowers, herbs, and fruit trees. It gladdens your heart to see him enter the wonderful phase of gardening and grandparenting, but, unavoidably, he leaves you with a significant problem. Who will be your new steward?

As you begin drafting a job description, you search for one word to describe the most essential trait of a steward. What comes to your mind?

“Infallible” – one who makes no mistakes. That would be nice. Very nice indeed. But a cloud appears in your mind. Are there not brilliant men who make no mistakes in executing their plan, but their plan is to achieve their own selfish ends?

It is a good word but maybe there is another that captures a missing element.

“Multi-tasker” . . . “Competent” . . . “Meticulous”. . . One by one you sort through adjectives that are all important, but none of them are quite the thing.

Suddenly, you vaguely remember something the Apostle Paul said about stewards. You reach for the leatherbound heirloom on your desk that your great-grandfather the 5th Earl left to you. Sifting through the epistles, you finally find it in the first letter to the Corinthians. This is it. The very thing.

In the powerful and majestic phrasing of the ancient King James Version, you read, “Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.” (I Cor. 4:2).

This – this is what you need most. A man who knows his duty and is faithful to it. He does his work meticulously and competently. But even if he makes small mistakes, he is honest. He is faithful to the trust put in him.

Now, few of us are English lords looking for estate managers, but as Christians we serve a Lord and Master who calls us to be stewards of all that He has put in our care. 1 Peter 4:10-11 explains:

 “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace:  whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

In other words, everything we have (resources, talents, physical abilities, authority, . . . everything) falls under stewardship.

Let’s return to our search—our hunt—for a steward. If you were to hire someone to steward an estate in this scenario, your steward would be managing resources.

What does faithful stewardship look like with resources? It looks like managing them well to meet several objectives in a correct order of priority.

We will look at these through the lens of this scenario first and then give the biblical “translation” to our real-life situation at the end.

 

Objective #1: The Master’s Share

In our search for an estate steward, you would first want to make sure that your steward was giving you, the owner, your due. As the lord of the estate, you deserve a share of the revenues of the estate for yourself. This should come off the top as a first objective.

 

Objective #2: Prepare for the Future

Secondly, you would want your steward to faithfully set aside a percentage of the revenues for both expected future expenses on the estate, but also enough to be prepared for emergencies. You do not want the estate run into debt by lack of saving. This should also include investing either into outside businesses or back into estate ventures. A key objective of the estate is to continue as a viable, productive, growing household for generations to come. That makes this the second most important priority.

 

Objective #3: Keeping the Lights On

The third objective you would want a faithful steward to balance is paying all the current expenses. This would include things like food and fuel, tires for the vehicles and saddles for the horses. If your steward does not faithfully pay your suppliers and vendors, not only could the literal lights be turned off, but it also brings discredit to your name.

 

Objective #4: Show Generosity

Fourthly, you want a steward who can faithfully dispense a percentage of the revenues to charity on your behalf. This steward would need to have discernment not to give resources where it would do harm or encourage laziness. But on the other hand, the steward needs to give generously where there is great need or a blessing to be bestowed in your name.

 

Objective #5: To Order, Beautify, and Enjoy the Estate

The last objective you would want a steward to keep in mind is to make the estate as lovely and praiseworthy as possible and then to enjoy the bounty of the estate. This is both for your enjoyment and glory, as the owner, but also for the enjoyment of everyone (guests, family, or employees) who interacts with the estate. This is a tricky one and often where much confusion exists.

 

In the next blog post in this series, we will look at ditches where the estate steward in this scenario could get these objectives wrong.

 

 

All Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version (ESV) unless otherwise noted.