I’ve been thinking a lot about how to finish well for our good and God’s glory. To finish well, we need to embrace stewardship. The concept of stewardship is defined as the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care. For the Christian, we can refine this definition as the management of God’s resources – time, talent, treasure, and creation – according to His purposes. Christians know that the resources we have – money, giftings, talents, property, etc. – are not our own, but we are stewarding them for God.
In the new edition of the book The Secret: What Great Leaders Know and Do, Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller write about the fictional President and CEO Jeff Brown. As Jeff is mentoring Debbie Brewster, he goes over the firm’s values. One of them is “Practice Stewardship”. Among the things Jeff writes about this value are:
“I believe that all the things we have at our disposal are on loan. We can’t take them with us, but we can use them while we’re here on Earth. I also believe that we are accountable for all that has been entrusted to us – our time, talents, financial resources and relationships.“
R.C. Sproul, in his book Five Things Every Christian Needs to Grow, writes that whatever God makes, He owns. What we own in this life, we own as stewards who have been given gifts from God Himself. God has loaned these things to us and expects us to manage them in a way that will honor and glorify Him.
Sproul writes that the Bible clearly commands Christians to give and to practice good stewardship, and that giving should be an act of worship. He tells us that we are to give ourselves to God as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1). This means we are to give our time, our energy, and our very selves to Him as acts of worship and gratitude.
As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace. 1 Peter 4:10
We can see from the above that biblical stewardship includes more than our finances, but it is often money that most think of when they hear of stewardship. Sproul tells us that at the center of the biblical concept of stewardship is the tithe, which was instituted as law in the Old Testament.
Every tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the trees, is the Lord’s; it is holy to the Lord. Leviticus 27:30
The word tithe means “tenth.” The basic principle was that every person was to return one tenth of his increase to the Lord on an annual basis. Many do not believe that the tithe applies today, and studies show that only four percent of professing Evangelicals tithe. I have heard it say that if Old Testament believers were to give a tithe of ten percent, we who live on the other side of the cross should give so much more.
Sproul writes that Christian ministry depends on Christian giving. A failure to tithe, limits Christian ministries. A question you may have is where should we give our offerings to God? Some say that they should be given completely to your local church. Although I believe that the lion’s share of our giving should be to the local church, we do give to other ministries. Here is our giving philosophy that Tammy developed, in order of priority:
- The local church
- Missionaries sent out from our church
- Parachurch workers sent out from our church
- Ministries such as Ligonier, Gospel Coalition and Truth for Life
- Helping the poor
I’m fortunate to have a pension from the organization I spent my entire career at, and with a 401K and social security, we are blessed. The major groups that we would give towards would be supporting our church and church plant, evangelism, discipleship, discipleship materials and helping the poor.
How does this compare to your giving philosophy?
