Stewardship

Tim Keller died last month. That name may not mean much to you, but I’ve read many of his books.

He was author, pastor, and church planter in New York City. I’m currently reading his book Counterfeit Gods: the Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters. He has much to say about stewardship and what truly satisfies our souls.

Listen to one of the things he says about money:

“Money isn’t an idol. It just shows you where your idols are. An idol is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give.

“The human heart is an idol factory that takes good things like a successful career, love, material possessions, even family, and turns them into ultimate things. Our hearts deify them as the center of our lives, because, we think, they can give us significance and security, safety, and fulfillment, if we attain them. Everybody worships something. The only choice [we] get is what to worship.”

I like that phrase that our hearts are “idol factories.” We don’t need – or I shall speak for myself – I don’t need a gold-plated picture of a god to stop worshiping the true God revealed in the Bible. Keller’s book calls them empty promises of money, sex, and power. Yet what are common topics on television and social media? I could devote myself to anything, love it, worship it, and let it pick my priorities. Or I can devote myself to God above all other choices.

Along those lines, do you know the most half-quoted bible verse? At least I think it’s the most half-quoted verse, but I haven’t really done a scientific study. It’s First Timothy 6:10: The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.

The part that seems to get dropped the most is the first three words, the love of. It’s much more common to hear people quote just the second part, “money is the root of all kinds of evil.”

It’s the love of anything ahead of God that makes our hearts an idol factory.

So, let’s get this straight. Money is neutral, neither moral nor immoral. It’s how money is used that makes it good or evil. Loving money more than God, for instance, is using it for the sinful purpose of idolatry.

Stewardship, on the other hand, commits to the truth that God not only exists, but God has created everything and owns everything. We are his servants, looking after his possessions. We are entrusted with God’s things. We are trusted to love the things God loves, but never more than we love God himself.

There is so more beyond money. Money is helpful, but not an end in itself. That’s why Tim Keller says that Jesus Christ is the only hope that matters.

Money is neutral and can be used for good or bad. It’s like our hands. They can be used as fists to hurt or opened up to touch other people to help them. It’s not the hands that’s the problem, it’s the heart and mind in control of the hands.

Stewardship is our commitment to using money in Godly ways. We refuse to bow to a false idol and worship the true God.