Should we emphasize a metaphor?
In my last article I wrote how I believe Christians need to take stewardship seriously. It is easy to assume that we know exactly what is meant when we encounter the word stewardship but often these assumptions present more barriers than aids to our understanding. In this article we will examine a common hurdle you will face as you open your Bibles to study: the fact that stewardship is a metaphor in scripture.
No one passage
Early in studying stewardship you find there is no single Bible passage where a concise or comprehensive overview of the topic is provided. If you were studying Spiritual Gifts and turned to 1 Corinthians 12, Paul is tremendously helpful as he starts right into the section with, “Now concerning spiritual gifts…”. It’s not the only passage on spiritual gifts in the New Testament, but you are left in no doubt about what will be covered in the text following.
You will have to read a lot of the New Testament to find all the references that there are to stewards and stewardship. Don’t let that discourage you though. As you read, you will discover just how much of a Christian’s life is considered in stewardship terms. Once you have started to understand what stewardship is you can then start to see how individuals in Biblical narratives lived out stewardship in their lives. That is a whole other fascinating study.
A metaphor Jesus used
You first encounter stewards and stewardship in the parables of Jesus. Parables like those in Matthew 24, Luke 16, Luke 19, and others. Some speak of stewards and stewardship explicitly. In others you have to infer the position and actions based on the narrative.
What we discover in these parables is that Jesus never had to explain what a steward was to his audience. They were familiar with it. It was a regular and known part of their culture and society. Jesus used it as a metaphor to add power to the point he was making in his parables.
Wilfred Tooley points out that it is one of two metaphors used by Jesus that is continued and developed by other apostles in their writings. It is used to aid the early church in understanding its ministry and leadership. (The other metaphor that the apostles took forward from Jesus’ teaching is that of a shepherd.)
Are we making too much of it?
Given that one of the purposes of Legacy Ministries Canada is to teach Biblical stewardship, you can imagine that our answer to this question is, ‘No.’ However, the question should be asked. It needs to be asked because there have been many occasions where metaphors can be extrapolated too far and error taught as a result.
We do not believe that teaching Biblical stewardship from the metaphor makes too much of it. The metaphor makes the subject matter sticky. You can attach what is being taught to the underlying metaphor and suddenly it makes more sense.
The key is to use the metaphor to the correct extent without taking its application into error.
So why major on a metaphor?
As we consider stewardship today it may feel like we place the metaphor at too high a level. Part of the reason for this is that we don’t frequently have roles in our western society and culture with the title of ‘steward’ and the responsibility of ‘stewardship.’ This was however common in Jesus’ day and culture. We emphasize this metaphor because without fully understanding it we will not fully understand what it means to be a steward.
For us to fully grasp the impact of the metaphor as we find it used in Scripture, we first need to understand more about what a steward was in the times when the Bible was written. That is our topic for next time.
