The earth is the LORD'S, and all it contains, the world, and those who dwell in it (Psa 24:1).In a recent comment someone noted that "It's not 'my' property. It's not 'your' property. It belongs to God." The comment was in context of whether or not he would be fine with having strangers come into his home against his will and take whatever they wanted and he'd be required to give them whatever they wanted. It was an argument about illegal immigration. As such, I questioned his position. "In your understanding of truth in general and Christianity in particular, the concept of 'private property' is not allowed?"
This post is not about the illegal immigration arguments or about his comments (or mine). This is about the thought process of "It belongs to God." Given the quote from Psalm 24 (a repeated statement in Scripture, in fact), it is clear that in reality it all belongs to God. We often tell parents, "Your kids are on loan from God." It is a biblical and Christian fact. Still, what does it mean?
You see, I've known lots of people who rented apartments or cars or whatever other things you might think of and, because "It doesn't belong to me", they did nothing to take care of it. Indeed, many trashed these things. Why not? It wasn't theirs. Why should they care? And that's not an uncommon perspective. I need to take care of those things that belong to me, but those things that don't belong to me aren't my responsibility.
That is not the biblical perspective. Take, for instance, the parable of the talents. (Please don't get caught up in the coincidence that the New Testament word for a particular piece of money is the same as an English word for a marked innate ability.) The master gave servants varying money to manage. Stop! Whose money was it? It was given to the servants, but it belonged to the master. Now, going on, the first two doubled their money and were rewarded. The last one did not. He simply returned the money he got. And he was punished.
Now we have two facts in front of us. 1) God owns everything. Whatever we have is on loan. 2) We cannot mistreat what we have. We are required to take care of what we have even though it doesn't belong to us. It's called "stewardship". So ... what now? What does that look like? I've seen arguments in both directions. Do we take steps to protect what we have because that is good stewardship? Or do we simply let whatever happens happen because that's faith? Is it good stewardship to leave your door unlocked when you go away on vacation because someone might want to get in and take what they need, or is it good stewardship to lock the doors and ask a neighbor to keep an eye on it because that is good stewardship? Is it poor stewardship to develop a career instead of going to the mission field? Is it poor stewardship to get into so much debt that you can't get out easily because God may want you to move on at some point? What does good stewardship look like?
(Contrary to the opinions of some, I do not have all the answers.)
10 comments:
(Contrary to the opinions of some, I do not have all the answers.)
Nor do I.
:)
I had not considered the "it all belongs to God" from this perspective.
Stan,
I have no answers, just more thoughts. I read your post and what immediately came to mind was one huge difference between the renter in your example and the issue of stewardship, love. Cue Tina Turner, 3...2...1, "What's love got to do with it?" Perhaps there is a different view of what taking care of something looks like if you love the Owner with all you heart, mind, soul and strength. Perhaps it's not so much a stand alone question, "What does good stewardship look like?", but a single question based on a proposition, "What does good stewardship look like, for one who loves God with all his/her heart, mind, soul, strength?"
I'm thinking for the atheist a good steward might possibly be someone who does what he/she feels like is his/her reasonable responsibility based on the perceived degree of importance (no overarching absolute moral imperative).
I'm thinking for someone like a Janist a good steward might possibly be someone who does absolutely nothing, for moving, breathing, etc. might destroy some microbial life form.
For the Biblical-Christian, however, perhaps a good steward would be someone who understands everything is God's, understands that God has given him/her a determined portion of those belongings to manage, and bases his/her view of management on an all consuming love of the Owner.
Haven't thought through any specifics but i'm pretty sure thankfulness, protection, production, wisdom, defense and blessing would be part of the deal.
Again, no answers, just some ramblings as I think. Thanks for post and the opportunity to roll the idea around.
Dan, I'd be interested on what perspective you did consider (since this post is basically a big question).
And Jeremy, I understand "What's love got to do with it?", but what's Tina Turner got to do with it? (Joking, just joking.)
The perspective of the renter as it pertains to how we treat things that are not ours. I always say that everything belongs to God, but I treat everything that I own as if it is mine.
One thing I will add on this however, I'm not sure of it's relevance to the matter at hand. I have for years now been... no felt, reluctant to call things mine in my thoughts-it is entirely impractical for the purposes of communication to avoid the word mine. In my mind I refer to my children as the children that God has placed in my care. Or the house in which I reside as the house that has been provided to me by God.
I also try to hold loosely to God's provisions lest they become a stumbling block for me. I wish that was as easily done as said.
Battery's low, bye.
What about Aretha?
She's involved as well. If you wanted to cover stewardship without having to even bring up the fact that it is all God's, Her words would take care of all of the "religions".
R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
Thanks, Danny. Makes sense.
Great, Mike, now we have Tina andAretha involved. Any others?
I'm sure Sting has something...
Mike, you are right...Sting did have something to say, albeit during his Police days, when he talked to Roxanne about the way she was treating her body. Lots of Stewardship principles in that song...maybe.
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