The following is an article by Christian Sullivan, a friend of Elisha’s Riddle who originally wrote this piece for a group of Christian investors. It begins by looking at the famous parable from Matthew 25 and has implications that go way beyond finances . . .
14 Again, heaven’s kingdom realm is like the wealthy man who went on a long journey and summoned all his trusted servants and assigned his financial management over to them. 15 Before he left on his journey, he entrusted a bag of five thousand gold coins to one of his servants, to another a bag of two thousand gold coins, and to the third a bag of one thousand gold coins, each according to his ability to manage.
16 “The one entrusted with five thousand gold coins immediately went out and traded with the money, and he doubled his investment. 17 In the same way, the one who was entrusted with two thousand gold coins traded with the sum and likewise doubled his investment. 18 But the one who had been entrusted with one thousand gold coins dug a hole in the ground and buried his master’s money.
19 “After much time had passed, the master returned to settle accounts with his servants. 20 The one who was entrusted with five thousand gold coins came and brought ten thousand, saying, ‘See, I have doubled your money.’
21 “Commending his servant, the master replied, ‘You have done well, and proven yourself to be my loyal and trustworthy servant. Because you have been a faithful steward to manage a small sum, now I will put you in charge of much, much more. You will experience the delight of your master, who will say to you, “Come celebrate with me!”’
22 “Then the one who had been entrusted with two thousand gold coins came in and said, ‘See, my master, I have doubled what you have entrusted to me.’
23 “Commending his servant, the master replied, ‘You have done well, and proven yourself to be my loyal and trustworthy servant. Because you were faithful to manage a small sum, now I will put you in charge of much, much more. You will experience the delight of your master, who will say to you, “Come celebrate with me!”’
24 “Then the one who had been entrusted with one thousand gold coins came to his master and said, ‘Look, sir. I know that you are a hard man to please and you’re a shrewd and ruthless businessman who grows rich on the backs of others. 25 I was afraid of you, so I went and hid your money and buried it in the ground. But here it is—take it, it’s yours.’
26 “Angered by what he heard, the master said to him, ‘You’re an untrustworthy and lazy servant! If you knew I was a shrewd and ruthless business man who always makes a profit, why didn’t you deposit my money in the bank? 27 Then I would have received it all back with interest when I returned 28 But because you were unfaithful, I will take the one thousand gold coins and give them to the one who has ten thousand. 29 For the one who has will be given more, until he overflows with abundance. And the one with hardly anything, even what little he has will be taken from him.’
30“Then the master said to his other servants, ‘Now, throw that good-for-nothing servant far away from me into the outer darkness, where there will be great misery and anguish!’”
(Matthew 25:14-30 TPT)
It’s funny how Jesus is teaching us some principles here about stocks and investing. I think it’s because investing falls under a bigger category that plays an important role in our lives as believers…
Stewardship.
From the very beginning (literally) God **entrusted** us (humanity, people, you and me, His children) with watching over AND maintaining (or stewarding) His creation. When you go to Genesis 2, you see a few interesting things regarding this.
5 When no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not yet caused it to rain upon the earth and there was no man to till the ground,
6 But there went up a mist (fog, vapor) from the land and watered the whole surface of the ground—
7 Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath or spirit of life, and man became a living being.
8 And the Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden (delight); and there He put the man whom He had formed (framed, constituted).
9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight or to be desired—good (suitable, pleasant) for food; the tree of life also in the center of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of (the difference between) good and evil and blessing and calamity.
(Genesis 2:5-9 AMPC)
I always found it so intriguing that in verse 5 the “conditions” upon the plants/herbs/field “springing up” were that God had not caused it to rain, AND “there was no man to till the ground.” So literally in the next two verses (6 & 7) we see that God sets in motion these two conditions for the “springing up” of what is essentially creation here on earth. He makes it rain, and He creates man.
So then we see that God plants the Garden of Eden, and He “plants” man into the garden. Verse 15 says:
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.*
(Genesis 2:15 AMPC)
So why does he put Adam into the garden? To “work it and keep it.” This is what I believe stewardship comes down to. This is what I believe everything that we steward in 2021 boils down to. I mean shoot, this is what purpose and meaning comes down to if you ask me. Being a human being and being a child of God should be synonymous with being a steward!
Now, I know that the initial reaction to our purpose in life being “stewardship” doesn’t sound so exciting, and it’s easy to see this and think “so did God just create me to just ‘work the land’ the rest of my life?” But I think what is REALLY going on here, is that we should see this and think, “Wow, God gave me the **PRIVILEGE** of playing a vital part in His creation so much to the point where he **ENTRUSTED** me with it!”
He could’ve just started this project off without us, and created us somewhere else down the timeline once everything was up and running. Instead, He chose to involve us, his children, in it! It’s like if your dad just built a treehouse for you the moment he found out your mother was pregnant. Sure that would have been awesome to see once you were born and old enough and you’d probably enjoy it, but imagine if your dad instead just went to go buy all the supplies to build the treehouse, and waited for you to be born, and old enough for him to say, “Hey kid, the day is here! I want you to help me build a treehouse for you!” Can you imagine the irreplaceable, priceless moments that you’ll share with your dad with a project like that? Oh, and the best part is that the treehouse is for YOU! You get to enjoy it! All dad is asking is that you take care of it and give it some proper TLC.
God shows us time and time again that He loves relationship and loves to create bonds and develop intimacy with us. So we see stewardship, strangely enough, is less about labor and more about love, relationship, and drawing close to Him.
Stewardship is a part of understanding our identity in Him. You see, you can’t see yourself as a steward if you don’t see yourself as a son. Stewardship and sonship go hand in hand. In order to steward something, you have to be assigned by the owner of it. The opposite is also true. You can’t see yourself as a son of God and not automatically take on the role of a good steward. The title of sonship comes with the title and responsibility of stewardship because to be a son of God is to understand that he has given you the privilege and responsibility to play a part in the “work and keep” *stewarding* of the “springing up” of His creation.
To not make this so much longer than what it is, understanding this I think brings a better understanding of how to navigate our life, our finances, our relationships, and our actual plants and gardens that are begging us to be consistent with our watering and maintenance…[yeah that’s right I see that dying succulent you have in the kitchen. C’mon, it’s a succulent how did you let it die?! anyways…]
To bring this back to investing and Matthew 25, we see that with the three servants there are two attitudes represented towards the “stewarding” of the wealthy man’s wealth.
One attitude is the attitude of faithfulness. Faithfulness not in the sense of having faith that they were going to make huge gains, but faith in the wealthy man and who he is and their relationship with him.
The other is of course the attitude of unfaithfulness. The attitude of the unfaithful servant reminds me a lot of the attitude that the world sometimes tends to have toward God as being this “dictator” or being this “thing” that just wants to control your life and stress you out about following all these rules by threatening your life if you don’t do things his way. It also reminds me of Christians that I have met who carry this mentality that God is ready to strike them down with 100 bolts of lightning at any given moment because they wore denim to church.
Out of fear for the master, the servant thought it would be best to just hide the money and not do anything with it, but out of love for the master the other servants immediate response and attitude was to “work and keep” the master’s wealth so that it “sprung up”.
When we understand that we’re sons and stewards of God, it helps our relationship with even our “own” money because it helps us understand that, well…it’s not “our” money. Yeah we put in the work to “earn” it, but it’s all still God’s property in the end. You’re just stewarding it. That being said, to come back to a more practical financial application, in 2021 “digging a hole” to “hide” the money until the master comes back, can be equated to just keeping your money in your checking account or putting it in a piggy bank. As the wealthy man tells his unfaithful servant, the LEAST you can do is put it in the bank in a savings account that’s giving you 0.000000000000000001% interest. Now, that doesn’t mean go YOLO (“you only live once”) with your money, but approach your investing as a good steward, a good child, who has the trust of their father to make good decisions knowing that when he returns, he’ll see that you were able to make things happen with the little that he entrusted you, and “you will experience the delight of your master, who will say to you, “Come celebrate with me!”’
I pray that we get to experience the delight of our Father, the Garden of Eden, in celebration with him, as we embark on this journey!