Stewardship in Its Larger Aspects: Accountability to God

THE crime of the ages is the base prostitution of money. Covetousness is one of man's fiercest foes. More suffering has come to the human race through the curse of gold than per­haps through any other source. It has inspired the most dastardly and villainous deeds in the history of the world. Empires have been wrecked, nations ruined, continents have been plunged into the most bloody and devastating wars, families and individuals have engaged in the bitterest feuds and quarrels, not because of penury and pinching poverty but because of a wrongful, wicked abuse of money. Covetous­ness, "the sin we are afraid to mention," is one of the most deadening and damning sins men­tioned in the Bible. One of the Ten Command­ments deals with it exclusively; and this marks it as one of the fiercest foes of a man's life.

The sin of covetousness will not go unpun­ished. Divine displeasure was visited upon Achan because he coveted and grasped the wedge of gold and the Babylonish garment. It fell upon Gehazi, who ran after Naaman and, with lying words, received two talents of silver and two changes of raiment, and the leprosy of Naaman came upon him. Death smote Ananias and Sapphira, who kept back part of the price. That's the sin I am talking about. There are thousands who are withholding and using God's money systematically and habitually. The eighth commandment does not say, "Thou shalt not steal—except from the Lord." Ah, we must each stand before the judgment seat of Christ for our gettings and our givings, our accumula­tions and our expenditures, our motives and our methods. These are all to be brought under the searching scrutiny of Him whose eyes are "as a flame of fire."

May I interject a word here about the rela­tion of spirituality to money? I realize that to many the money question is a delicate theme. That gross and filthy metal that we call money, that we pretend to despise in seasons of spir­itual exaltation, is to be eschewed. Our spiritual sensibilities are so delicate that we are prone to soar above so sordid a subject. When a preacher speaks on money, he is bound to be criticized by some who clamor for the "gospel." But if the money question is not included in the gospel, then Jesus spent a large portion of His time preaching and teaching something be­sides the gospel, and a large portion of the New Testament deals with a theme foreign to the gospel. Applied Christianity demands the dis­cussion of the money question. It is often the acid test of all our profession.

We might suppose the greatest spiritual Teacher of the ages would confine Himself to discourses on faith, hope, and love. It comes as a distinct surprise to many to learn how much Jesus had to say on the right or wrong use of property or money. It was the theme of the ma­jority of His addresses and parables. One verse in every six in Matthew, Mark, and Luke are on money, we are told, as are also sixteen of the twenty-nine major parables.

What Jesus Thought and Said About Money

It is immaterial what men think, but it is of greatest consequence to know what Jesus thought and said about money. Just scan swiftly the mountain peaks of His teaching. Begin with the world's greatest sermon, in Mat­thew 6:19-34. Catch the phrases, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth," "No man can serve two masters," "Take no thought . . . what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink," "Seek ye first the kingdom . . . ; and all these things shall be added." In Matthew 19:16-22 we find the interview with the rich young ruler. Note the words: "Sell that thou hast," "give to the poor," "come and follow me."

The trouble was that the young man did not regard himself as steward, but as owner. Had he had the true vision, it would not have been hard to part with the Lord's money. God put Abraham to the test, but would not let him carry it out. Christ put the young ruler to the test, and he failed. If he had started to carry it out, Jesus doubtless would have stopped him. He did not want his money; He wanted to save his soul. "How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!" (Mark 10:23).

When Jesus had finished talking to the young ruler, Peter asked, "What shall we have?" and Jesus assured him of an hundredfold of ma­terial necessities, and eternal life. (Matt. 19: 27-29.) Then in Matthew 20 is the parable of the householder; in Matthew 21, the vineyard and the unfaithful husbandmen; and in Mat­thew 22, the Pharisees seek to entangle Him on taxes and tithes. He replies, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." Thus Christ recognizes the right of the state to tax the citizen. The connection is clear and logical that He refers to tithing in the same sentence, when touching our relationship to God.

In Matthew 23 Jesus pronounces the woe on the literalist tithers who so grossly violate the whole spirit of tithing. In Matthew 25 is the parable of the talents. The Master repeats the principle again and again, that God has placed these talents in trust, and we are responsible to Him. In Mark 12 Jesus sat over against the treasury and drew the lesson of the widow and the two mites. Giving money—a part of our religious life—watched over by Christ! What a thought! Then in Luke 12:15 is this: "Beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he pos-sesseth." And next in chapter 12 is the parable of the rich fool, and the question, "Then whose shall those things be?"

In Luke 16 is found the parable of the un­just steward. That is the climactic key. Steward! and God's ownership! How can we make such a survey without being profoundly impressed that concerning this monetary question there is not only peril but abundant guidance and help?

In order to escape the snares of gold we need the potent protection of God's grace through the security of this stewardship-relationship with God. Especially is this true in these last days of rampant covetousness. References on stewardship shine through the Bible from Gene­sis to Revelation, strung like a veritable milky way across its pages—1,565 of them. So I have no apology to offer for thus leading your minds for a little time into this financial phase of the question of stewardship.

Rightly understood and practiced, tithing is an act of worship as essential as prayer and praise. Worship is the giving of self to God. Money is in a sense a part of self, representing brain and brawn. "What shall I render unto the Lord?" asks the psalmist. Praise, adoration, worship, heart, life and money is the answer. Such an acknowledgment is no less an act of worship. The Chinese Christians call the tithes "fragrant money." Incense, with its rising col­umn of aromatic smoke, has ever been a symbol of devotion. "And the Lord smelled a sweet savour."

True, the essential point is not the tithe, but the tither; not the gift, but the giver; not the money, but the man; not the possessions, but the possessor. Profession is not enough. Reality must go with the profession. Consecration needs to be carefully watched to see whether it be reality or sham. And the tithe is the most tangi­ble, personal, practical, proportionate, and pow­erful way of acknowledging the ownership of God and the stewardship of man devised since the creation of the world.

Spirituality Not Communism, at Pentecost

This was not communism or socialism, not a leveling up or down. The core of communism is "ourselves"; the heart of stewardship is "oth­ers." They are as far apart as the poles, as dis­similar as day and night. Socialism is a false and phantom philosophy of life. Here is the bitter­ness of it—it dwells in a Utopia of half-truths. It proclaims noble ideals of equality, fraternity, and justice—without God. But in actual experi­ence it falls before the relentless fact that men are selfish, suspicious, covetous—and with no power of self-regeneration. But stewardship ac­knowledges God as sovereign owner of prop­erty and means. It affirms possession under Him to be the challenge to faithful administra­tion. While claiming no rights of ownership, we cannot honestly perform the duty of trustee­ship by transferring administration to the col­lective body of society. The individual himself, and no other, is responsible to God.

Stewardship was gloriously real in the time of the early rain. Under the latter rain steward­ship is destined again to come to its appointed place. When the Holy Spirit came down at Pentecost to dwell in men, He assumed the charge and control of their whole lives. There was to be nothing that was not under His in­spiration and leading. So it follows of necessity that the disciples' possessions and property, and their expenditures of money, were subjected to His rule. Their income and expenditure were controlled by the Holy Spirit, and governed by this principle. It would not be a full and ade­quate salvation that did not provide deliver­ance from the malign power of money.

The lesson of Pentecost is the assurance that when the Holy Spirit comes in His fullness into the heart, earthly possessions lose first place, and money is valued only as a means of proving our love to God and doing service to our fellow men. God and I are partners and coworkers. Words are abundant, cheap, easy. But as we exercise faith by resting on the Sabbath, the rebellious world's busiest day, and as we pay our tithe into the Lord's treasury in the same spirit, we are likewise exercising the same faith. We cannot serve God and money, but we can serve God with our money. The complaint as to the tremendous need of more money for God's work today is simply an evidence of the limited measure in which the power of the Holy Spirit is known among us.

Possession Not Ownership

Let us now turn back from the strictly money phase to a review of the mighty principles that form the foundation stones of stewardship. Think once more of God's ownership. The world is the Lord's, because He formed it. Without His perpetual upholding it would crash to chaos. God has proprietary rights, therefore, in all the things of man. It is true that man possesses; but possession is not owner­ship. Tithing indicates whether we acknowl­edge that we are only trustees or pose as owners.

Vital energy in whatever form—physical, mental, moral, or spiritual—is a trust from God. Apart from Him we can do nothing. We cannot produce or earn anything without the Creator's continual cooperation. Every person coming into the world is a debtor to God and dependent upon His benefactions. We are liv­ing on God's time, doing business on God's capital, furnished on condition that He is to re­ceive one tenth, He being the preferred Creditor, and His part coming first. Hence tith­ing is an acknowledgment of God's ownership on God's own terms. This perpetual proviso is fundamentally right and will be binding as long as man endures. Such is the true Christian philosophy of money or property. If I become delinquent I violate my trust and become an embezzler, a defaulter, forfeiting my right of copartnership with God. Woe betide the one who violates such a trust!

Such an acknowledgment of the sovereign dominion of God becomes a tremendous spir­itual compulsion, and life, the operation of a principle and a privilege marking its enlarge­ment, for I consciously take God into partner­ship in the whole of life. It is a continual con­fession of my limitation and dependence, and His loving care is continually before me. Thus tithing becomes, as it should be, basically an af­fair of the heart, whereas stewardship makes of life a sacred calling. I am God's man and He is my God, which is the true new covenant rela­tionship.

Man a Steward, Not a Trustee

Trusteeship as a term in this connection is too cold and formal. At best it is only sugges­tive. A trustee administers the estate of a dead or absentee testator. His service is controlled by legal checks and requirements. Jesus uses the Oriental term "steward," not only a trustee and a servant, but a friend. A steward is the interpreter of the mind of his living, loving Lord. And one of the steward's privileges is to share what he helps produce. This appellation connoted the whole Christian attitude toward property, income, wages, and wealth.

"Steward" is from the Greek oikonomos, from which we derive the word "economist." Stewardship is not an office of servility, but a confidential relation of trust. A steward is re­sponsible for administering the interests of his chief partner in his absence. He is not a mere servant. It is our joyous privilege to rise from the plane of legal servantship to friendship. Abraham, who rendered tithes, was "called the Friend of God," whereas a servant "knoweth not what his lord doeth."

As to the propriety of God's claim to the tithe, an analogy from secular life may be per­mitted. We are familiar with, and give assent to, the ethics of human obligations. It is a rule of honor among all men to render payment of sufficient value for the use of money or property owned by another. Such is the basic law of our economic system. The State levies taxes, the lender exacts interest, the landlord collects rent. These are all paid in acknowledgment of another's ownership, and are reminders of our obligation and the limitation of our rights and authority. These are all recognized as legiti­mate.

But above government, society, corporate bodies, or individuals, stands God. And God's ownership, implying man's stewardship, car­ries with it solemn responsibility and accounta­bility. And to Him there is positive, personal, periodic, primary duty that we acknowledge first in the payment of tithe. God does not need our tithes. All ten tenths He can take as He pleases. But the practice of the principle is needed by man. God wants not our money but our affection, our confidence, and our trust in our divine, loving Partner.

Tithe Established for Man's Benefit

God never establishes any arbitrary law or institution—spiritual, moral, mental, or physi­cal—that is not for the benefit of man. The tithe is no exception. It is not for God's benefit, but for our own. If it had not been for our char­acter development, God would not have or dained it. As we know, "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27). Likewise, the tithe was made for man, and not man for the tithe. God's laws come into being with the things to which they apply. They are the result of the relationship created.

Stewardship was operative the instant Adam was created a "living soul" by his Maker. So it was not rooted in expressed legal enactment. If there had been no third party Adam would still have been answerable to God. It will bear repeating that all God's laws are for the spir­itual and temporal happiness and well-being of His creatures. Every "thou shalt" has back of it a basic need for doing just what is commanded. God's laws do not create duties, they define them. Thus every moral law was a necessity be­fore its enactment. Such is the eternal founda­tion of stewardship.

Now just a few words in conclusion about the application of the principle of stewardship. It applies to the nine tenths as well as to the one tenth. The paying of the tithe does not give us license to use the rest as we see fit. It involves our getting, holding, and spending ac­cording to the will of God. Furnishing the governing motive both in getting and in giving, stewardship touches every use of money. This is where stewardship is so much deeper than tithing, as it is usually understood, for it covers the whole life. It requires the fullest consecra­tion in rendering to God His own, doing in ev­ery part of life what Christ would have us do, recognizing His ownership and lordship at all times. This is applied righteousness and a demonstration of faith.

Principle of Stewardship Includes More Than Money

The principle that personal consecration comes before purse consecration, self-consecra­tion before wealth consecration, is thus ex­pressed in the words of Scripture, "They . . . first gave their own selves to the Lord" (2 Cor. 8:5). The giving of money is no substitute for giving ourselves. Reserved seats in the king­dom are not on sale for cash. Peter said to Simon Magus, "Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money." Let us beware of the doctrine of Simon Magus. A liberal offer­ing of service or money illy covers a faulty and inadequate consecration. On the other hand, if we profess to give ourselves and then withhold our means we are dangerously near to being followers of Ananias and Sapphira, who kept back part of the price. Everything is a sacred trust to be held or used as God indicates. Here is the crucial point of stewardship. To the man who fails here it means failure in everything.

Think for a moment of "money getting." Man was made with an acquisitive faculty. Wherever civilization is established, the coining of money is one of the first steps in the ad­vance from barbarism to civilization. And the higher the civilization and the more widely in­dustrial it is, the more money becomes a neces­sity and the more widely it is circulated. The uncivilized manage to get along by bartering. But in civilized lands there is an ever-conscious necessity for money. And the tendency is to make "money getting" the universal occupa­tion. With multitudes it becomes the prime object for which they live.

Ours is pre-eminently a money-getting age, more so than in any previous period. There are greater money perils than at any previous time. Let us watch lest it become the ruling passion of the life, for through the love of money man becomes sordid, selfish, grasping, and indiffer­ent toward God. But the recognition of stew­ardship lifts life to an altogether different level. "Opportunity with ability makes duty." It in­volves honesty and justice in all dealings with our fellow men. There is no worthy steward­ship that does not include a man's relation to all other men. Where this is operative, no dis­honest dollars will be brought into God's store­house.

Moreover, recognition of the fact that God is over all will forestall bitterness and strife be­tween employers and employees. It will give a decided character to all business transactions. Life will not be divided into secular and sacred. Our business will be as sacred as we regard a prayer meeting, and will be conducted in the fear of God.

Again, ours is a wealth-accumulating age. There is a strangely paralyzing power about money. The tendency is to hoard and lock up from the service of God His gold and silver and to devote it to the aggrandizement of self. Another force then becomes master of the soul. The more men have the more they want, and extravagance follows in the wake of wealth, for the increase of riches multiplies our wants. There is, of course, a wide difference between our wants and our needs. Things regarded as luxuries when the salary is meager, become seeming necessities when the income is in­creased.

Money is the great creator of wants, chiefly artificial. Without money we are in actual want. With money we are in artificial want. We as stewards need to watch in this age of wild ex­penditure. Inexcusable extravagance—robbing God of His money, fostering selfishness and pride, and ministering to the lower instincts and appetites of our natures—is one of the sins of the time.

Economy Result of Stewardship for God

Stewardship leads to economy, which is vastly different from stinginess. "Time is money"; but money, unlike time, can be saved, whereas both can be spent, wisely or unwisely. There is equal disaster in covetous greed and prodigal waste. Stewards are representatives as well as servants. They will so live as to mani­fest the spirit of their Master. Their lives will be marked by freedom from ostentatious show. One tenth for God will never sanctify nine tenths used in self-indulgence. Money is the su­preme means the world has for gratifying its desires. But we are not to be "of the world." We are to show in our disposal of money that we are guided by an unworldly principle. We are to walk as they that have "crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts" (Gal. 5:24).

One of the most effective ways of manifest­ing and maintaining crucifixion of the flesh is

  never to use money to gratify it. Let us fill the life with the larger thoughts of the spiritual power of money. Our whole life may thus be strengthened by the way we deal with money. So, when the principles of stewardship are given mastery in the life, the soul is illumi­nated, the purpose is fixed, social pleasures are pruned of unwholesome features, the business life is conducted under the sway of the golden rule, and soul winning becomes the passion. Such are the bountiful blessings of God's provi­sions in a life of faith and faithfulness.

Truly it is a solemn thing to be a steward. Stewards are required to keep and to render ac­counts. Every bookkeeper faces the coming of the auditor. It is serious business to have and to handle the silver and the gold of the Creator of all things, the Judge of all the earth. If it is a crime for a cashier to embezzle the funds de­posited with him; if it is a crime for an executor of an estate to appropriate funds he holds as a trust for another; if it is an injustice for an em­ployer to hold back the wages of a fellow man, what about willful guilt of embezzlement as a steward of God? The terrible possibilities should solemnize our trust. But happy the words, which may be ours, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."

Such are some of the principles of man's stewardship and God's ownership. Wondrous relationship and partnership, and training school for character.