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Introduction

There is little disagreement that our world is as close to self-destruction as it has ever been, humanity included. It is unnecessary to list the wars, political conflicts, diseases, ecological disasters, and the like; we are all too familiar with a daily rehearsal of our plight. What there is little or no agreement on is the way out. How will we, as the human race, (homo sapiens, or “the wise humans”) find our way out of our mutually shared predicament and into a world of wholeness and abundance that the Hebrews named shalom? Is there any wisdom available to us that can lead the way?

Jews and Christians have at their disposal a wisdom that is comprehensive enough to meet the challenges of our time. We understand this wisdom to be a gift from God as we have received it through the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. The only problem is that we have abandoned it long ago. At least we in the West have, who traded in our bountiful inheritance for a mess of meager pottage known as the consumerist society,1 and the promotion of the individual over the greater good for all.

This book is a challenge and an appeal. Its challenge is to reconnect with the ancient wisdom that first conceived of a world after God’s own heart. Its appeal is to take up the mission we pray so often, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” God’s will for God’s creation is not hidden or kept solely for the initiate. It is not beyond the ability of the lowliest disciple or too inconsequential for the highest. To rediscover and then implement our sapiential heritage is not only vital, it is our highest calling as humans, and the way out of our current and continuing crisis.

Joseph Blenkinsopp, in his Creation, Un-creation, Re-creation: A discursive commentary on Genesis 1-11, outlines the progression of God’s activity from the perspective of primordial time to the call of Abraham.2 With the desire of Adam and Eve “to be like God,” humanity was set on a course of self-destruction that ended with God being so sorry (“for it repenteth me that I had made them.” KJV) that God wiped out all but the necessary ingredients with which to start over, or re-create. From that first moment Noah emerged from the ark, God has been working to return creation, and certainly humanity, to God’s original purpose.

Primordial time has become our time: humanity is un-creating our world even as God is hard at work re-creating it. Until humans restore God’s original intention for partnership in maintaining the Earth, we will continue on our road to destruction.

The farther we get away from Modernism’s tendency to break down everything into its constituent parts, keeping them separate, and move toward seeing the entire universe as one integrated whole, the closer we get to understanding stewardship. The New Physics teaches us that everything is connected and has a relationship to everything else, however remote. Science is hard at work to find the organizing principle to explain how the universe works. Stewardship functions in that regard for Christianity. It is the organizing principle that shows how every other aspect of our faith fits together.

Separating out religion as a discrete part of life is a modern construct and is not the way the early church saw its place in the scheme of things. To ask if a person was religious, even up to the 16th century, was nonsensical. All of life was seen as invested with value and to be taken as a gift of God and used accordingly. Modern life is seen as a series of compartments that we enter one at a time: work, play, spirituality, exercise, family, and so on. So too in congregational life. Sundays (and perhaps Wednesday evenings) are for worship, Monday through Friday are for work, weekends are for family and hobbies. The problem is that when one enters one sphere, one leaves another behind. This complicates churches’ efforts to make stewardship a way of life that encompasses every aspect of our lives.

Today our churches struggle with meeting budgets, membership decline, ministry obligations, spiritual transformation, effective evangelism, competing commitments, rapid change, youth exodus, diminishing effectiveness, and the seeming irrelevance of its message. Individual Christians long for deeper connections to God and each other, significant ministry, solutions for our ecological and humanitarian crises, and relevant support through life’s vicissitudes.

It is my contention, and the thesis of this book, that stewardship, comprehensively understood and applied, will lead a congregation and individual Christians out of these problems and into mature and effective relationships and significant ministry. And, most importantly of all, it will restore the Earth, and its people, to peace and prosperity.

This is not a “quick fix” book on stewardship; it is much more than that. It is more of a permanent fix when properly understood.

Every pilot flies according to The Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge, that is, every pilot who wants to fly safely and most enjoyably. SCUBA divers dive with the knowledge they gained from NAUI or PADI certification instruction; not to do so puts their lives in peril. No explorer ventures forth without first gaining as much knowledge of the territory presently available; not doing so increases the risk of not returning. It behooves us as Christians who desire to walk closely with God to discover just where it is God is walking, or we may find ourselves pursuing irrelevant goals. Karl Barth famously advised young theologians “to take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible.”3 That’s another way of saying that how we look at the world should be as close to how God sees it as possible. For Christians (and Jews) this means paying close attention to our Bible.

This is not as easy as it seems on first blush. In a previous book.4 I discussed how difficult it is to agree on biblical teaching. I suggested a method of interpreting the Bible called a canon within the Canon. This is an effort to approximate or summarize the essence of biblical teaching and compare portions of the Bible to it. Fortunately, for this study, promoting a specific interpretive model is not necessary. I suspect most parties to this discussion will agree with the larger points made, as most models arrive at the same conclusions. So why this book? Because, although most will agree with its understanding of stewardship, few actually incorporate these findings in the day-to-day operation of congregations or in their own lives. Stewardship is seen as a mere tool, not a way of life. This book is a challenge to make stewardship the controlling idea of congregational and individual life.

Those involved with other religions and their adherents soon discover that they all are concerned with the same thing: discovering and promoting the purpose of life. The differences are many and profound in how they go about this, but in the final analysis, they are pursuing their understanding of how to live properly in our world.

This is no less true of Christianity. If you are a Christian, you have a basic understanding of why you are here and what you should be doing with your life. Depending on your denomination or theological understanding, such issues as evangelism, sanctification, liberation, justice seeking, and the like compete for a Christian’s first allegiance. Just as with differing biblical interpretations, each one has its able defenders. What we need is a way to make them all essential without having them compete with one another. By broadly applying biblical stewardship principles, each is elevated and transformed.

One of the problems with stewardship as it is taught in our churches today is that it is a “program,” and one that is relegated to underwriting the annual budget. So biblical stewardship is undermined in two ways. One, it is seen as being about money, and two, it is just another part of the life of the church. Neither of these is healthy nor helpful. Until stewardship is regarded as a vital aspect of everything that touches the life of the church and individual Christians, we will limp along with mediocre impact on our world and ourselves. Ironically, when stewardship is seen comprehensively, that is, as a way of life, money will no longer be an issue.

One of the “givens” of Christian teaching is that the world is in need of redemption. Judaism teaches us that the world is in need of sanctification, that is, it needs to be regarded as set apart for God’s purposes, and appropriately considered. Whether you take a literal view of “The Fall,” or regard the Theory of Evolution as more to the point, most agree that the state of our world is dire. Humanity is consumed with hate for the “other,” and the planet is on its way to polluting itself to death. Our God, through Christ, is in the redemption business. The “good news of the gospel” is that all forms of oppression, of either individuals or the planet, are in the process of being overcome. When we pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” we are acknowledging our need for radical change in our world and our commitment to assist in this change. However, our work only begins with prayer; it ends with action.

A story is told of a recalcitrant man who continually resisted the urging of the local pastor to attend Sunday worship. The man was a very successful gardener, and his garden was the envy of all who passed by. One day the pastor stopped by to admire the garden and found the man working the ground. “My, what a beautiful garden the Lord has given you, brother.” “Well,” said the man, “You should have seen this ground when God had it all to himself!”

We will investigate the basis of why God calls upon us humans to partner with God in returning the world to its rightful state, shalom (universal wholeness). God will wave no magic wand over Earth. Only stewardship in its fullest expression can make the earth and us whole again.

1 “Consumerism describes a society in which many people formulate their goals in life partly through acquiring goods that they clearly do not need for subsistence or for traditional display. They become enmeshed in the process of acquisition — shopping — and take some of their identity from a [possession] of new items that they buy and exhibit.” Peter N. Stearns, Consumerism in World History (London: Routledge, 2006), p. ix.

2 Joseph Blenkinsopp, Creation, Un-creation, Re-creation: A discursive commentary on Genesis 1-11(London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2011).

3 Time Magazine, Friday, May 31, 1963.

4 I’m Right and You’re Wrong!: Why we disagree about the Bible and what to do about it, (Gonzales, Florida: Energion Publications, 2015).