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Biblical Principles Of Stewardship - Part 1

Author: ZigfredDiaz
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The definition of Parables is that they are earthly stories with heavenly meaning. Jesus Christ often speaks in parables and everytime he does this, he is trying to teach us a lesson.

Mathew 25:14-27 talks about the parable of the talents. In this parable, Christ is trying to teach us the basic principles of Stewardship. Stewardship is a very important concept in the Bible. It is so important that Christ talked more about stewardship than any other topic except the Kingdom of God.

A steward is a person who manages and administrates what has been entrusted to him by another. As Christians and as human beings we are stewards as we are to manage what has been entrusted to us by God. In Genesis 1:28, when God first created man he gave him instructions that he should "have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." The New Testament is replete with verses reminding us that we are stewards of God's resources.

So what are the things that we should be stewards of ? We are to be stewards of our time, money, our abilities and our life. In the parable of the talents, the principles of stewardship that we can learn from Christ is as follows:

1.) THE PRINCIPLE OF OWNERSHIP - In verse 14 of the text, it shows to us that the Master is the absolute owner of all the servant's goods. The servants were merely entrusted with the goods.

In the same way we should realize that all that we have is not ours it is the Lord's and that we are only entrusted with it. Having this mindset is one of the most important principles of stewardship because only then if we think this way that we will be more responsible as stewards.

2.) PRINCIPLE OF ABILITY & DISCRETION - The amount of goods entrusted to each servant was determined solely by his ability and the discretion of the master (verse 15)

God has given us different abilities, gifts, economic status in life and other blessings. It is no accident that we are where we are right now. God surely has a purpose for all of us. Whatever God gives us depends on His discretion and our ability. Even if we think we have the ability, we cannot question God if He gives other more wealth or more abilities than us because it depends solely on His discretion. Our job is to develop our abilities and to make the best out of our lives.

3.) THE PRINCIPLE OF FREEDOM - Verses 16 to 18 tells us that each individual servant was given full freedom to decide on what to do with the goods given to him.

God gave us human beings a certain freedom as to how we are to go about fulfilling the purposes that he wants us to accomplish. He did not make us robots. He made us human beings. He gave us the ability to decide. He gave us free will. In order to make the best out of our lives we must freely act only within the given parameters according to his plan.

This is the first part of a two part series. Should you wish to view the article in its entirety, visit my blog.

About the Author

Are you interested in more articles about practical christian living ? Visit the blog of Zigfred Diaz where he writes about several important topics including about law, leadership, entrepreneurship, management, financs, investments, technology, internet marketing, blogging and theology.