Sabbath: Stewards After Eden
Image © Pacific Press from GoodSalt.com
Read for This Week’s Study: Isa. 22:14-18; 1 Cor. 4:1-2; Col. 2:2-3; Eph. 6:13-17; 2 Cor. 5:10.
Memory Text: “On the contrary, we speak as those approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please people but God, who tests our hearts” (1 Thess. 2:4, NIV).
Adam and Eve’s first job involved stewardship. The garden and all creation were given to them to care for, to enjoy, and to have dominion over (Gen. 2:15), even though they owned none of it. Instead, they were stewards of what the Lord had entrusted to them.
This week we will look more closely at the definition of a steward but after the Fall, after our first parents were driven from Eden. That is, we also are stewards, but we are stewards in an environment quite different from the one Adam and Eve first enjoyed.
What is stewardship? Certain Bible characters reveal what a steward is by how they lived. Other scriptures define it more clearly. When we become God’s stewards, our focus on the world and its materialistic values changes to a focus on the Creator and His mission. As with Adam and Eve, God entrusts to us responsibilities of divine origin. Since the Fall in Eden, however, the task of stewardship has changed, because, along with the responsibilities of caring for the material world, we are also entrusted to be good stewards of spiritual truths.
Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, February 3.
(49)
What are we stewards of? What stewardship possession are we entrusted to?
It is certainly true that there is a scene in which neither we nor Adam and Eve “own” anything. The cattle on a thousand hills are the Lord’s.
I worry, however, that the wording of this lesson will be understood by some people as a political statement about whether the economic system in the United States (or/and the rest of “the West”) is flawed.
I wonder whether anyone else has a similar concern.
As an 'outsider' to the United States, I would say that the political system and the economic system is grossly flawed, as is the rest of the world. Any man made system is flawed and we can only have hope that Jesus will come soon and take us away from this world to a world where He has a perfect system in all things.
In the meantime, let's be faithful to God as He has entrusted to us what we have, large or small and do what He expects us to do so we will be ready to go and live with Him!
Adam and Eve are to care for, to enjoy and to have dominion over God's creation at the Garden of Eden. Likewise today, we are to be stewards over God's creation too! Creation like, trees, human beings, etc.... Are we looking after the trees as God expects us to or we just sell the trees to the loggers? For those who have more than what they have (God's blessings), are they care (share) for those in need or not? Also, are we looking after our own bodies as we are the temple of God? or we just do anything we like to our bodies. Just a contribution to our study this week!
"When we become God’s stewards, our focus on the world and its materialistic values changes to a focus on the Creator and His mission." - for me this remains key.
The very word stewardship means we don't own anything,thus we have to know what the owner needs us to do with HIS properties HE entrusted to us.From our bodies to our properties.
God's has a culture of entrusting His children with some responsibility and task on His behalf. Here are a few examples:
Cain: 'where is your brother!' Cain was supposed to look after his brother (Gen 4:9)
Abraham:Genesis 12:1
Moses: Exodus 3:10-13
Joshua: Joshua 1:2
Aa
Gideon: