This is Chuck Rapp with Multiply, a podcast to provide a word of encouragement for village church planters and leaders.
Today we continue our series on steward leadership. One author defines a steward as “someone who manages resources belonging to another person in order to achieve the owner’s objectives.” In our context, we are managing resources provided by the Lord for our Village Church Planting work.
The parable of the Unjust Steward is found in Luke 16:1-13. I encourage you to pause and read it. At first glance, this story may seem somewhat confusing. Why would the master commend the unjust steward because he acted shrewdly? (this is in verse 8) We will address this in my next episode.
In this podcast and the two that will follow, we will explore three themes that I see in this story.
* Stewards must give an account.
* The shrewdness of the steward and the commendation from his master
* The criticality of faithfulness in both small things and in our stewardship of finances
As we begin, I believe it is also significant that this parable immediately follows the parable of the prodigal son who squandered his father’s wealth. We should also consider the context for this teaching; Jesus is speaking to both his disciples and also the Pharisees or the religious leaders of that day. (We see this at the beginning of chapter 15.)
We read the following in chapter 16, verses 1 and 2. “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’ We recognize the “rich man” as Father God.
He is holding accountable the unjust steward who saw his master’s resources as a means for his own personal enjoyment and advancement. Verse 1 says that he “wasted” the rich man’s resources. Some translations say that he “squandered” them. The principle is that our Father holds us accountable to be faithful stewards. Jesus wants His followers to be just and righteous stewards.
Let’s look again at Jesus’s audience. One group was the Pharisees, and he was chastising them for not stewarding well the blessings and responsibilities as God’s chosen people.
Another audience was his disciples, his followers (see verse 1), including us today. If we understand the principle that everything we own is a gift from God, then we realize that God is the owner of everything that we are and everything that we possess and that we are His stewards. As such, we are to use the Master’s resources to further the Master’s goals.
In our next episode, we will continue our study of steward leadership, looking at the steward’s shrewdness.
This has been a word of encouragement for Village Church Planters and leaders.
