The Everlasting Gospel Bible Study Series
To understand God’s plan and purposes in the world, we need to understand the concept of what the Bible calls stewardship. In Greek, the word oikonomia is translated into the King James Version three times as stewardship and four times as dispensation. In other grammatical forms, the same word is translated, steward. The root of the word is oikos, which means a dwelling or a household. It refers to the administration of a household or an estate. When translated dispensation, the word relates to God’s economy of both truth and time (see 1 Corinthians 9:17; Ephesians 3:2; Colossians 1:25; Ephesians 1:10).
By economy, we mean the administration or management of man’s most precious resources needed to fulfill God’s plan: Truth and Time.
The administration of God’s creation was a dispensation given to man. In Genesis chapter one, God reveals to us His purpose for creating man. As a steward of God’s earth, he was to be a progenitor of God’s image and a propagator of His glory. Man was to multiply and replenish the earth (progenitor). He was also to have dominion over all of creation and expand that dominion through his progeny to the glory of God (propagator). These are the two primary responsibilities man was created to fulfill.
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Genesis 1:26, 28
Man was created to steward the earth on behalf of God. The word steward simply means to manage or govern. Man was an overseer to God’s creation. He was God’s representative on earth. He was to (1) multiply and replenish the earth and (2) subdue and exercise dominion over God’s creation. David wrote of this stewardship in Psalm 8:
O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!
Psalm 8
Genesis chapter two repeats the story of the creation of man, reiterating and emphasizing his role as a steward. Adam’s responsibility began in the Garden of Eden:
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed…And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
Genesis 2:7-8, 15
God gave Adam the stewardship of creation. God placed him in the garden as a starting point. The garden was where God’s presence on earth was manifest. Adam was given the stewardship of the garden, not only to cultivate its physical beauty but to maintain its spiritual significance. Eden was where God met with man.
Eden was only the beginning. God commanded Adam and Eve to multiply and replenish the earth, thereby increasing the capacity for glorifying God throughout the earth through Adam’s own progeny. As a steward of God’s creation, made in the image of God, Adam is called to fulfill his responsibility as the progenitor of the image of God. Children born to Adam and Eve also bear God’s image. As image-bearers, they are ideally suited to manifest the glory of the Lord.
God instructed them to expand their administration of dominion over all the earth, filling the earth with the glory of God. As Adam’s children multiplied and filled the earth, they would fulfill their role as propagators of God’s glory.
David refers to this truth when he says that man was crowned with glory and honor and given dominion over the works of God’s hands. This is God’s world. He is the Creator and owns all things in it, but he gave the man a task to fulfill. It was the Stewardship of Creation.