The Economy of God and The Stewardship of Men:
Exegetical and Lexical Word Studies

Commentary on Select Verses

Alford (NT for Eng. Readers, 1:171) says that to give them food “answers to the description of the workman that need not be ashamed in 2Tim. 2:15.” Farrar (Luke, 230) comments on the phrase, “give them their portion of food” by quoting Acts 20:28, “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God.” The last phrase is from the verb poimainein, which means to shepherd, to tend or feed the flock.

For the phrase “portion of food,” Earle (Word Meanings, 1:239) notes the following:

This is one word in Greek, sitometrion (only here in New Testament [NT]). Sitos literally means 'wheat' and metrion 'measure.' So the compound indicates 'a measured allowance of food' or simply 'food allowance.'

It is interesting to note that the word sitometrion is found in the Old Testament [OT], where it is used of Joseph (Gen. 47:12, 14, LXX).

The word oikonomos is defined in its use here as “a dispensator (Vulg.) or villains, a superior slave left in charge of a household and estate” (Plummer, Luke, 332).

Witness Lee (L-S Luke, 36:305) describes who a steward is and what his function needs to be:

After a sinner becomes a believer, he needs to serve the Lord as a prudent steward….The steward here illustrates how the believers saved by the love and grace of the Triune God are the Lord's stewards to whom He has committed His possessions.

In a further comment on this parable, Lee (Ibid., 306) says,

In this parable we do not see salvation; we see the prudence of a steward….After we have been received into the house of God we should become stewards,…stewards serving God in His house…in the church.

Lias (1Cor., 49) describes the function of a steward when he says, “The ministers of Christ are to nourish their people on the knowledge of the truths of His Gospel, a knowledge (2:10-16) revealed only to the spiritual.”

Witness Lee (L-S 1Cor., 34:297-298) comments on the steward described in 1 Corinthians 4:

The focus of this chapter is…the steward of God's mysteries (those who dispense) the household supply to its members….In the New Testament a steward is one who serves and takes care of the dispensing of God to His family. God has a very large family, and His desire is to dispense Himself into all the members of His family.

Lee (Ibid., 34:298) describes the function of a steward in Bible days:

A steward in a (wealthy) family in ancient times…was responsible to care for the dispensing of the means of life—food, clothing, and other necessities—to the members of the family.

What was Paul's ministry? His ministry was “a stewardship, a service, that dispenses the riches of Christ into the saints, the members of the Body, and into the church, the Body as a whole” (Ibid., 34:299).

Earle (Word Meanings, 4:59-600) feels that the word “stewardship” is a better translation here than the word “dispensation.” He says, “Today the term 'dispensation' usually refers to a period of time, and so its use here is misleading. The proper translation is 'stewardship' which implies a 'dispensing.'”

Lias (1Cor., 90) gives some important quotations on the meaning of “stewardship” in the NT:

Woodward, “This perpetual circulation [water cycle] is constantly promoted by a dispensation of water promiscuously to all parts of the earth.”

Latimer, “I pray you, what is to be looked for in a dispensation? This surely—that he is found faithful, and that he truly dispense and lay out the goods of the Lord.”

Lee (L-S 1Cor., 46:407) describes the significance of the book of 1 Corinthians when he says,

The book of 1 Corinthians was not written to help lost sinners be saved but to help saved believers to grow, to build with precious materials, to care for the Lord's members, and to run the race.

Ridderbos (Gal., 152) distinguishes the “guardians” from the “stewards.” He says,

By guardians and stewards those are meant who supervise the minor, and guard his possessions (which remains) in force only until the period stipulated by the father has elapsed.

Earle (Word Meanings, 4:205) gives this difference between the two: “Epitropos refers to a personal 'guardian,' oikonomos to a 'steward' of property.” Lenski (Gal., 194) answers the question as to who decides the conditions for one to become an heir. He says,

It is (the father) who made the testament, he who designated the heir, he from whom the inheritance comes, (and he who) fixes the time when the heir is to enter upon control of the inheritance.

In Ephesians, chapter one, it is clear that “God has purposed to have an economy” (Lee, Eph., 7:69). In this chapter is a “revelation of God's marvelous and excellent economy beginning from His choosing of us in eternity and reaching to the producing of the Body of Christ to express Himself for eternity” (Ibid., 19:163).

Moule (Ephesians, 50-51) comments on Ephesians 1:10 and describes the true steward of God. He says,

The eternal Son is the True Steward in the great House of the Father's spiritual church….The Father 'purposed' that His Son should be, in a supreme sense, the manifest Governor and Dispenser of the developed period of grace, of which 'glory' is but the outburst of flower.

The oikonomia, stewardship, described in the book of Ephesians refers, according to Westcott (Eph., 13), to “a distribution of Divine treasure which have been committed by God to chosen representatives, that they may be faithfully administered by them.” Earle (Word Meanings, 4:239) argues that although “the term 'dispensation' has been abused in recent times, it is difficult to find a satisfactory substitute. The necessary thing is to hold to its original meaning of 'a dispensing' which is what 'stewardship' really is.”

“To Paul was committed,” according to Earle (Word Meanings, 4:282), “the 'stewardship' of God's grace, that he might administer this grace to the Gentiles.” The word “photizein (to enlighten) is a natural word for public disclosure of what has been kept secret,” according to Robinson (Eph., 170). Moule remarks that “'The dispensation of the secret' is in effect, the world-wide distribution, through the steward of God, of the news and the blessings of the full Gospel, so long held in reserve” (Eph., 91).

Just who is the steward? Witness Lee (L-S Eph., 28:242) makes the assertion that “every apostle is a steward of God. As an apostle, Paul was a steward who dispensed the riches of God to His children.” Lee (Ibid., 28:245) further defines “stewardship” as distinguished from “economy”:

The stewardship is according to God's economy. With God it is a matter of economy; with us it is a matter of stewardship. All the saints, no matter how insignificant they may seem to be, have a stewardship according to God's economy. This means that every saint can infuse Christ into others.

Witness Lee (L-S Col., 11:89) addresses the need for God to have a stewardship. He says,

For the sake of the full expression of God, there is the need for the stewardship of god….Our Father has a great family, a divine household. Because our Father has such vast riches, there is the need in His household for many stewards to dispense these riches to His children. This dispensing is the stewardship.

Lee (Ibid., 11:90) points out those who are qualified to do this work of dispensing the riches to God's household:

God's family is especially rich in Christ as the all-inclusive and preeminent One….The riches of such a Christ…need to be dispensed into the members of God's family….Every saint can dispense the riches of Christ into others….The desire of God's heart is to dispense Himself into men. This is the central point of the whole Bible.

Moule (Col., 91) describes the function of steward in relation to God's household. He says,

It is almost needless to say that the NT use of the figure of stewardship has regard to the minister's duty to provide the household of God with the food of truth, and not to any supposed right or duty to reserve that food.

Paul seems to be saying here in Colossians, “In the house of God, which is the Church, I am steward, as it were dispensing to the whole family…the goods and the gifts of God my Lord” (Alford, Col., 3:1291).

Earle (Word Meanings, 5:78) discusses the translation for the word oikonomia:

This word oikonomia…clearly means 'stewardship.' The term 'dispensation' has come so generally to be used in a prophetic sense for a period of history that it fails completely to convey the correct idea here. The Christian's task today, as was Paul's in the first century, is a stewardship from God.

Witness Lee (L-S 1Tim., 1:2) describes the place of God's economy in 1 Timothy. He says,

First Timothy…speaks of God's dispensation, His New Testament economy concerning the church....God's dispensation is related to the great mystery of godliness, to the manifestation of God in the flesh, and to the church as both the house of the living God and the pillar and base of the truth.

Lee further says (Ibid., 1:5), “God's economy is to dispense Himself in Christ through the Spirit into His chosen people so that they may have the divine life and nature to be Christ's Body, the new man, the church, to express God in the universe.”

Bernard (Pastoral Epistles, 24) relates oikia, oikonomos, and oikonomia:

Here the Church is the oikia, its members oikeioi, the plan on which God the great oikonomos distributes His blessings, the oikonomia….The heretical myths would do far more to encourage idle enquiries about matters of no importance than to promote that divine dispensation whose sphere is faith, and not antiquarian curiosity.

Paul discusses here in Titus the qualifications of an elder. He mentions that “one of the qualifications of the elders…is that of 'being the overseer as a steward of God'” (Lee, 1Tim., 1:7). Bernard (Pastoral Epistles, 158) relates the overseer to the steward and says,

The commission of the episcopos (overseer) is, in the end, from God and not from man; he is God's steward, the steward of His mysteries (1Cor. 4:1) and of His manifold grace (1Pet. 4:10)….It is to God, not to man, that he is responsible for the due discharge of his office.

Commenting on Peter's word in 1 Peter 4:10, Lee (L-S 1Pet., 1:5) says, “We should be good stewards of what Peter calls varied grace, grace in different aspects and of different categories.” Continuing his discussion of stewardship in 1 Peter, Lee notes, “As good stewards, by the gift we have received we should minister to the church and the saints such grace, not merely doctrine or any vain thing” (Ibid., 27:245).

The exhortation by Peter (1Pet. 4:10) for ones to minister (diakoneo) as good stewards (oikonomos) certainly recalls the Lord's word to Peter to feed His sheep/lambs (John 21:15-17). Peter in his epistle shows what is involved in being God's stewards. The word is preached and regeneration results (1Pet. 1:23); the newborn is fed by the milk of the word (2:2); and each believer is built up into a spiritual house with others (2:5). This is God's stewardship.

Plumptre (Peter and Jude, 145) notes the same thing and points out that there were other echoes “of our Lord's teaching. Peter had heard the parable of the steward who 'wasted his lord's goods' (Luke 16:1-12) and his Lord's question, 'Who then is the faithful and wise steward (Luke 12:42)?'”

Blenkin (1Pet., 99) draws attention to the responsibility of all Christians to be God's stewards as Peter points out:

Here St Peter seems to regard every man as an oikonomos. As members of 'the household of God' each one is responsible for using what his Master has given him for the benefit of the household in accordance with God's 'household arrangements.'

Selwyn (1Pet., 218) agrees, “In the 'spiritual house' (2:5) each member has this responsibility of distribution.”

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