Faithful Stewards
In March 2024, a US aerospace corporation failed a safety audit conducted by the Federal Aviation Administration. The audit came on the heels of multiple safety incidents, including a flight that had experienced a dangerous drop in cabin pressure when a door-plug panel on the jet had torn away. A spokesman for the company acknowledged that the failures were due to instructions for employees being difficult to understand and altered too often, resulting in them not faithfully adhering to approved procedures.
Paul told the church at Corinth that they should view him and other leaders as faithful and approved “servants of Christ” and declared that he’d been “entrusted” with being a steward for God (1 Corinthians 4:1-2). Stewards in Paul’s day were entrusted with overseeing the management and distribution of household resources. Above everything else, a fundamental requirement for those given these responsibilities was faithfulness. Paul labeled himself as a steward who “[worked] hard with [his] own hands” to live out his responsibilities (v. 12)—carefully using what God had given him, especially the wisdom He’d been given and the mysteries of the gospel (vv. 1-2).
As Jesus provides, let’s strive to be faithful stewards, adhering to His approved and flawless standard in our spiritual practices, work duties, and personal relationships.
By Marvin Williams - Our Daily Bread Ministries
1 Corinthians 4:1-2, 8-13
The Nature of True Apostleship
4 This, then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed. 2 Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.
8 Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! You have begun to reign—and that without us! How I wish that you really had begun to reign so that we also might reign with you! 9 For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like those condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to human beings. 10 We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! 11 To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. 12 We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; 13 when we are slandered, we answer kindly. We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world—right up to this moment.
