Stewardship and missions

Front matter

CHARLES A.COOK

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Preface

The great work of missions, now pressing upon the church, will never be adequately supported until God's people fully realize their privileges and obligations as Christian stewards. Missions cannot exist without stewardship. At the same time, there can be no true stewardship of personality or possessions that does not make Christian missions, at home and abroad, its supreme object. Stewardship and missions are therefore linked together by the Spirit of God, and what God hath joined together let not man put asunder.

The financial problems of the kingdom of God cannot be settled by limiting their discussion to the question of giving. The emphasis must be shifted from giving to stewardship. Giving will never be what it ought to be until it rests squarely on a stewardship basis. The privileges and responsibilities of Christian stewardship must be properly understood before giving will be dignified into a sacred service, regarded as an essential of a normal Christian life, and lifted above the multitude of ignoble influences of expediency, convenience, and selfishness that have confined it to the narrow and shallow channels of weakness and insufficiency.

8 Preface

When men see that they are stewards for God in all the relations of life into which they enter there will be larger and better giving, and the financial problems of the kingdom, which are now so perplexing, will be settled.

In preparing this book the author has freely used extracts from his booklet, entitled " Stewardship." Most of the book is, however, new. Much of the material was collected while the author was engaged in conducting a special campaign of education in the principles of Christian stewardship in his own denomination.

Chas. A. Cook.

Bloomfield, N. J.

Contents

Chapter Pagb

I. The Call to Study Stewardship . . ... n

II. Stewardship Defined 25

II

As between me and my fellow-men, what I hold belongs to me, and I have a right to defend my title to it; but as between me and God, it belongs to him ; and because of his ownership of all things, he has the right to determine to whom he will entrust his wealth, how long they shall retain it, the terms on which they shall hold it, the uses they shall make of it, and when and what kind of a settlement they shall make to him. If the landlord and the money-lender, whose titles to their property are relative only, have this right, how much more God, whose title is absolute. The tenant does not dictate to the landlord what crops he shall raise nor what rent he shall pay; neither does the borrower decide what interest he shall pay to the lender. A man has no more right to determine the terms and conditions of his stewardship than he has to determine the terms and conditions of his admission into the kingdom of heaven. This prerogative belongs to God, and in his Holy Word he has clearly set them forth.

— R. L. Davidson.

II

"Let a man so account of us, as of ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. Here, moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful " (i Cor. 4 : I, 2).

"According as each hath received a gift, ministering it among yourselves, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God" (1 Peter 4 : 10).

CHRISTIAN stewardship is more than a ques- Forcing the tion of Christian giving. The full require- m ments of stewardship cannot be met by the most excellent methods or systems of giving that may be devised by the individual or put into operation by the church. We shall never reach a solution of the financial problems of the kingdom of God by confining our attention to this one phase of stewardship. By forcing the plant we may gather the fruit the sooner and in goodly quantities, but the forced plant will never do so well again. What we need to do is carefully to cultivate the roots, giving time to the process, so that the plant shall be constantly and richly nourished, and then the fruit will not only be abundant, but there will be a never-failing supply. By pressing the question of giving and placing all

Getting

Down to

Foundations

A Definition

and

Illustration the emphasis there, without teaching the fundamental principles of Christian stewardship, we force the plant. By going back to those fundamental principles and rooting and grounding the people in them, we cultivate the roots and secure permanent and adequate results.

The whole problem of finances in connection with the Lord's work needs to be worked out on a new basis. We must get below the surface. We must get back to first principles. We must see the ground on which God has placed the whole matter of our obligation in the money affairs of his kingdom, and from that foundation we must build up the entire structure. It has been said that " the supreme need of the hour, next to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, is that the church should be set right in her theory of Christian giving." It would be a larger truth to say that the supreme need of the hour is that the church should come to an intelligent apprehension of her entire relation to the acquisition, possession, and use of money. We must get back of the question of giving. How can I discharge my obligations to God as his steward? is a far greater question than, How much of my income should I give to the Lord?

A steward is " a person entrusted with the management of estates or affairs not his own." A steward is a trustee. Stewardship is trusteeship. A steward administers what belongs to another. Of Abraham's faithful steward it is said, " All the goods of his master were in his hand." The possessions which the steward has are delegated possessions. They are committed to him in trust as the ten pounds were committed to the ten servants in the parable. " A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return. And he called his ten servants and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come" (Luke 19 : 12-13). ^ n tne use °^ those pounds the servants acted only as stewards. Not one of them thought of the pound which he had as his own. Each man at the accounting spoke of the money as the master's property, saying, " Thy pound." Even the unfaithful servant, who kept the pound laid away in a napkin, freely acknowledged his master's ownership of it. The pounds were not a gift, but a trust. The servants, therefore, were not owners, but stewards.

The great duty of the steward is to make the best The possible use of that which has been committed to rj) uty him, not for himself, but for the owner. He is to have the proprietor's interests and honor always in view. The question, " In what way can I best serve my master with what he has placed in my keeping? " should govern all his actions. Appropriation for his own use or benefit, of that which has been placed in his hand, except what is allowed for his necessary support, is robbery. " Will a man rob God?" (Mai. 3:8). "It is required in stewards that a man be found faithful " ( 1 Cor. 4:2).

The a steward is accountable for what has been com- Responsibility mitted to him. He is to manage, or administer it, in the interests of the owner. To forget this, and to appropriate and use what God has entrusted to him for himself, is no less a crime than for the cashier of a bank to appropriate its funds for his own use and pleasure. As in the parable of the pounds, the day of reckoning with the stewards will come. In that day judgment will be passed upon the ministry of the steward according to the measure in which he has faithfully managed the substance which has come into his hands in the interest of the owner. Whether he has held all property and wealth as a trust from God, or has called it his own ; whether he has wasted it in foolish expenditures, or has withheld it in vainglorious hoarding; whether he has, like Ananias, kept back part of the price, or has made a full surrender of both himself and the property committed to him by God; are questions that will enter into the final accounting to which every steward must come.

An^Office of " Stewardship may then be understood to mean the tenure of an office of high trust and responsibility in the^nterest of the one from whom the commission has been received, and for whose exclusive benefit it is administered. There is in this, first, the suggestion of occupancy. The steward is in full possession and control. He stands in the place of the owner, and is clothed with his rights and duties in his absence. Second, responsibility is implied.

High Trust

The steward is to care for the estate, keeping it in good order and condition, guarding it against all depredation and waste, and improving every opportunity for advancement and profit. Third, freedom of action is implied in order that the steward may administer his trust with fidelity, wisdom, and enterprise, which are essential to the proper discharge of the duties of his office. Fourth, there is accountability. The occupancy of the steward, though it may be long continued and uninterrupted, is, nevertheless, temporary. It must at some time come to an end. He is the servant of his Lord, holding his position as a tenant at will, ready at any time to surrender his trust, and give a full and just account of its administration to him from whom he received it. He must remember that he is not only the custodian of his Lord's property, he is also in some measure the guardian of his honor. If there be unfaithfulness, the estate will suffer loss; and if there be maladministration, the good name of the owner will be impeached " (E. M. Thresher).

Our stewardship is primarily a stewardship of the Stewardship gospel. In 1 Cor. 9 : 17 the Apostle Paul says, "A - mcusl ve stewardship of the gospel is committed unto me." In Eph. 3 : 2 he says, " If so be that ye have heard of the stewardship of that grace of God which was given me to you-ward." Every believer is a steward of the manifold grace of God. Not simply those who are called to be pastors, or evangelists, or missionaries, but all believers. This stewardship of the gospel is all-inclusive. It takes in all we are, all we do, all we have, and all we acquire. It has many parts. > There is the stewardship of personality, the stewardship of all the faculties and powers with which God has been pleased to endow us. We are to be good stewards of personality in order that we may be good stewards of the gospel. That is, we are to use the powers God has entrusted to us for the furthering of his cause and kingdom. There is

% the stewardship of time. Time is God-entrusted. We have no right to do as we please with it. We are to use it as a part of our one great stewardship of the manifold grace of God for the good of men.

//There is the stewardship of opportunity, and of privileges, and of every blessing that may come into our lives. With all these there is the stewardship

A* of property or wealth. These are all parts of the stewardship of the gospel which has been so definitely committed to the church and to every believer in the church.

The Our faithfulness in this stewardship hinges at the ivo-poin mone y point. The man who is true to God as his steward in the acquisition and use of wealth, who goes into business or wage-earning as God's steward, there definitely to adjust his daily activities to the great business of the kingdom of his Lord and Master Jesus Christ, will be faithful in his stewardship all along the line. He will be a faithful steward of personality, time, opportunity, and all else, for a man cannot be true to the resolve to be faithful in his stewardship of wealth in the interest of the gospel without being true in all these other respects. It is exceedingly important, therefore, that what is involved in the stewardship of wealth should be clearly understood. What is involved?

First, the recognition of the great truth of God's God's ownership of all things. God is owner. He alone is wners ip the absolute Proprietor of all things. Constantly is the divine ownership taught in the Scriptures. " And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lifted up mine hand unto the Lord the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth "(Gen. 14 : 22). ' Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come of thee. . . For all things come of thee and of thine own have we given thee" (1 Chron. 29 : 11-14). " The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof " (Ps. 24 : 1). "For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills " (Ps. 50 : 10). ' The silver is mine and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts" (Hag. 2:8). God allows man to use his possessions, but he never surrenders his ownership. We are not owners, for we brought nothing into this world, and we can take nothing out. What we use and enjoy was all here before we came. We do not create anything. We may gather more or less of material wealth around c

Owning the

Man and

His Earnings

Ever Stewards

Josiah Strong Quoted our own personality, but all we gather belongs to the great Creator of all things. As between each other men may be owners. We may have rights and titles to certain estates to which no one else has any rights or titles. But those rights and titles are simply an earthly, human arrangement between man and man. Between us and God, he is the owner.

God owns us. " Ye are not your own, for ye were bought with a price " (i Cor. 6 : 19, 20). This does not mean simply that our souls belong to God, but all that we are, hands and heart and head and all. Since we are his the product of our labor is his. The man who owned the slave owned what the slave earned. The slave did not own any of the product of his labor. It all belonged to the man who owned him. We belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. He has purchased us unto himself by the price of his own precious blood. Every dollar that w r e earn, therefore, belongs to him.

Since God is owner we can never be more than stewards, and we can never be less. We are always stewards. We can never get away from this great fundamental truth.

" Manifestly, if God has absolute ownership in us, we can have absolute ownership in nothing whatever. If we cannot lay claim to our own selves, how much less to that which we find in our hands. When we say that no man is the absolute owner of property to the value of one penny, we do not take the socialistic position that private property is theft.

Because of our individual trusts, for which we are held personally responsible, we have individual rights touching property, and may have claims one against another; but, between God and the soul, the distinction of thine and mine is a snare. Does one-tenth belong to God? Then ten-tenths are his. He did not one-tenth create us and we nine-tenths create ourselves. He did not one-tenth redeem us and we nine-tenths redeem ourselves. If his claim to a part is good, his claim to the whole is equally good. His ownership in us is no joint affair. We are not in partnership with him. All we are and have is utterly his, and his only.

' When the Scriptures and reason speak of God's ownership in us they use the word in no accommodated sense. It means all that it can mean in a court of law. It means that, since our possessions are his property, they should be used in his service — not a fraction of them, but the whole. When the lord returned from the far country, to reckon with his servants to whom he had entrusted his goods, he demanded not simply a small portion of the increase, but held his servants accountable for both principle and interest — ' mine own with interest.' Every dollar that belongs to God must serve him " (Josiah Strong).

This is the starting-point in stewardship. It is at The Base this point that Christians everywhere need to get Survey* right. Everything relating to the holding and using of property of any kind must be looked at from this point of view. In civil engineering all measurements are from a base line, the accepted base line being the level of the sea. God's absolute ownership of all things is the true base for the proper survey of the whole territory of thought and action suggested by the words money, property, wealth. Every system of giving, and every plan of benevolence must be measured by this truth. The old flying-levels of mere experiment and expediency, according to which the church has worked so long and so generally, must be given up, and a return made to the ocean-level of the eternal truth that God is the owner of all things, and from this point we must measure our responsibilities and privileges and duties in our use of all the money that ever comes into our hands.

All Life God's ownership of all things, and man's stewardship as a consequence of that ownership, are truths which have a most direct and solemn bearing upon the entire realm of human life and action. In everything man is a steward. There is a stewardship of life, of health, of strength physical and mental, of time, of social, educational, and religious privileges, and of opportunity to do good. Every gift of God and every blessing he bestows involves stewardship. The custody of money is only one department of the great stewardship into which man, as a rational and spiritual being, has been called. It is a solemn thing for a man to have his responsibility to God constantly increased by daily having committed to him the gifts of God's goodness and grace. But that is exactly the position into which every man is brought. We can no more evade the responsibility than we can live without receiving the gifts. We may indeed forget and ignore our stewardship; we may shut God out of our thoughts, and even deny his right to us, or to anything we have; but that will not free us from the responsibility that rests upon us. We shall be held accountable for all that has been committed to us. " For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required."

We do not expect the unregenerate and godless to recognize their stewardship, but surely those who have been born again, who have been enlightened by the Holy Spirit and who call Jesus Lord, will. For these carelessly to neglect their high calling as stewards of God, and to ignore the responsibilities which their stewardship involves, is practically to repudiate the teachings and authority of the word of God, to despise their exalted privileges as God's children, and to deny Christ's claim upon them as their Redeemer.

That the church of Christ has either been ignorant of its stewardship, or has forgotten the duties which stewardship involves, accounts for any lack of means to carry on God's work in the world, which now exists, or ever has existed in the past. For had God's people recognized and realized their stewardship, and lived and acted accordingly, seeking most faithfully to do with time and talent and substance

Christians Specially Responsible

Failure

Accounted

For just what he wanted them to do, receiving and using all things for him, there is no need in connection with God's work in the world but would have been fully supplied, and long ago Christ's Great Commission would have been fully carried out, and the gospel would have been preached to every creature. And even now, as soon as God's people everywhere recognize their stewardship, and act according to the principles, privileges, and responsibilities involved, just so soon will the great work which God has given his church to do in the world be hastened to completion, and the kingdom in its fulness and glory be ushered in and established on earth.

QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER IJ

Aim : To Understand the Meaning and Scope of the Fundamental Principles of Christian Stewardship

1. Why does not the subject of Christian giving by itself

cover all the financial problems of the kingdom?

2. Why is Christian stewardship a larger subject than

Christian giving?

3. Define and illustrate what it is to be a steward.

4. What is the principal duty of the steward?

5. What four things are necessarily involved in the lofty

service of stewardship?

6. What is the one great stewardship committed to all

believers?

7. Name some specific kinds of stewardship and shov\-

how these are parts of the stewardship of the gospel.

8. What is the pivot-point for our faithfulness in this

stewardship, and why?

9. What is the fundamental truth in the stewardship of wealth ?

10. How is God's ownership of all things proclaimed in

the Scriptures?

11. In what sense only are men owners?

12. What follows from the fact that God owns us?

13. Why can no compromise with the claim of God's

ownership be allowed?

14. What does this truth involve as to the service which

we and our possessions are to render?

15. How should the truth of God's ownership be regarded

in relation to all the money matters of the individual and of the church?

16. What bearing have the truths of this chapter upon all

life?

17. What would you say now is the scope of stewardship?

18. Why should Christians above all others recognize their

stewardship ?

Ill

This sense of stewardship is a great awakener of power. There was no power in Moses while he thought of his slow and stuttering tongue and forgot the entrusted message. But when he thought of the entrusted message, and put his tongue, such as it was, at God's disposition, and tried to deliver the message of Israel's release, Moses emerged from weakness into power, and became a force that Pharaoh and the world could not push aside. Paul Revere, feeling that he was charged by General Warren with a truth that must be told for the welfare of others, made his midnight ride and warned Concord and Lexington of the approach of the enemy, the sense of stewardship putting bravery and energy into the rider. All life takes on a new significance as soon as we realise that whatever we have is ours as a trust. —James G. K. McClure.

When men see that they may work in behalf of the kingdom by the way they run their factories, make laws, edit newspapers, pay wages, mine coal, plow fields, a great change will come over the life and thought of the world. The mechanic may be as necessary to the coming of the kingdom of God as the preacher ; and the merchant may yet play as important a place as the missionary.

— Samuel Z. Batten.

Ill

" Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, . . And thou say in thine heart, My power, and the might of mine hand, hath gotten me this wealth. But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God ; for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth" (Deut. 8 : n, 17, 18).

T

HE acquisition of money is almost a universal Civilization

and Money necessity wherever civilization has become established. The uncivilized tribes do not use money. Whatever trade transactions they have with each other are carried on by barter, the exchanging of one commodity for another. The invention of a circulating medium of exchange has always been one of the first steps in the development from barbarism to civilization. The medium of exchange at first is very simple. The first American money was wampum. It consisted of small shells strung like beads. These shells were white and black, the white was the periwinkle and the black was the black part of the clam shell, and was double the value of the white. It was made into strings, groups of strings, and belts, and was one of the most complete money measures known among barbarous nations. In the early days of the colonies,

Advancing

Civilization

and Its Needs

Accumulation

Not

Thought Of

Why Money is Desired when coin money was scarce, wampum was adopted and used to great advantage in trading not only with the Indians, but among the colonists themselves. TJjxee beads of the black and six of the white were equal to a penny. In Central Africa strings of beads, coils of brass wire, or pieces of cotton are still used as money.

Where civilization has advanced, a simpler and more convenient medium of exchange becomes necessary. As men emerge from barbarism and become acquainted with the products and forces of the material universe, and begin to discover and to exercise their power over those forces, and to utilize the products of nature, the physical world about them begins to wear an industrial and commercial character, there arises the necessity for some new method of expressing values, and for better standards and more convenient forms of money.

The early use of money was chiefly to facilitate trade transactions. The vast accumulations of money that are so characteristic of this age were not thought of when money had a simpler meaning, and was so limited in its use and in its power.

As civilization advanced money became a greater necessity. With the introduction of the industrial arts money in the form of capital had to be invested, wages had to be paid, and money became necessary not only as a medium of exchange in trade, but also as an equivalent of man's labor. With this wider use of money there came an increased necessity to possess it. With the necessity came the desire to possess in ever-increasing intensity. Men began to want money not alone that they might thereby obtain the necessaries of life, but the acquisition of wealth for its own sake, simply that one might be rich, became the ambition of men in their money making. As a result, men have piled up enormous accumulations of wealth immeasurably beyond what they need for any personal beneficial use in any way.

More men are wealthy to-day than ever before. Our modern civilization with its manifold industrial and commercial operations, with its enormous exploitation of the resources of nature beyond anything that has characterized the past, has made it possible for more men to accumulate large wealth in these days than in any previous age. More men who started life as wage-earners have become millionaries within the past half-century than perhaps during any two or three centuries in the world's history.

It is in connection with the acquisition of property and wealth that the responsibilities of stewardship begin. We are dealing with this subject from the wrong end when we think, or act as though we so thought, that our stewardship has to do chiefly with our giving. Giving is not the first thing in stewardship, but the last. When we make an offering of that which has come into our hands, our stewardship ends. Our stewardship begins with our in-

Many

Wealthy

The

Beginning of Responsibility come. The moment we begin to earn wages, or derive profit from business, or receive an income from some profession, or in any way acquire wealth, that moment we become responsible as stewards. Xbi? se whose incomes are small are just as really responsible as stewards as those whose incomes are large. We may even go farther, and say, that the man who does not secure an income when he might, who does not use the faculties with which God has been pleased to endow him, and which belong to God, will be held accountable for his neglect and unfaithfulness. The servant who laid the pound away in a napkin and brought no returns to his master was condemned because he did not get. The steward is responsible for the opportunities that come to him to advance the interests of the one for whom he is steward. We are responsible to God for what he permits to come into our hands. He gives us the power and the opportunity to acquire wealth, and all that we acquire is his because we are his. Man's Men depend upon God in the acquisition of CP on God wea lth. No man can make any money without God's help and blessing. Men need to remember what God said to the children of Israel centuries ago, when through Moses there came to them this message, " Thou shalt remember the Lord thy God, for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth " (Deut. 8 : 18). The farmer may plow the field and sow the seed and afterward reap the harvest, but who does the work? Who sets the subtle forces of nature to work to germinate the seed and cause it to spring up and ripen into the harvest? How utterly powerless the farmer is without God. So too is the miner, the lumberman, the manufacturer, and the mechanic. Where will any of these find the materials with which to enrich themselves if they are left entirely to their own resources and do not touch anything that God has created?