CRITICAL NOTES
1 Corinthians 4:1. So.—Choose between (a) a forward reference to “as” (e.g. with Stanley), and (b) a backward reference (with, e.g., Evans, in Speaker, and Beet) to 1 Corinthians 3:21-22; meaning: “Let a man account of us as Christ’s servants, having moreover the greater thought also present in his thinking, and governing his estimate of us, that we are thus the house stewards in Christ’s household for the very purpose of dispensing to him and his brethren these ‘all things’ which belong to him, because he belongs to Christ.” Servants.—Good note in Trench, Syn., § ix., on the four New Testament words for “servant.” See διάκονος and δοῦλος together in Matthew 20:26-28. [Matthew 22:2-14, where Trench points out that the “servants” who bring in the guests are men, and can be δοῦλοι, but the executioners of the sentence of the Host are angels, who are only διάκονοι.] See δοῦλος and ὑπηρέτης (the word here) together in John 18:18. The δοῦλος [slave, bondservant] is bound to a person; the θεράπων does some service to a person, whether as his slave or a freeman, whether for the once, or frequently and customarily; the διάκονος is a man charged with a special task, and to the task, rather than to the person who enjoins it, the word points; the ὑπηρέτης is, so to speak, an attendant charged with the duty of an office. Our word may be studied in Acts 13:5; Matthew 5:25; Luke 4:20; John 7:32; John 18:18; Acts 5:22. Must not overpress the derivational sense—the “under-rower in a galley”; the ship being the Church, Christ sitting at the helm, the passengers being the members of the Church. Stewards.—Might be slaves, though in positions of important trust. Joseph, e.g. was so. Here the thought is only that their business is to administer the household of their Master, and particularly to deal out the stores of soul-feeding “mysteries” to their fellow-servants of other offices and orders (Titus 1:7; well expounded in 1 Peter 4:1, and 1 Corinthians 2:1; Ephesians 3:2). For “mysteries,” see 1 Corinthians 2:1; certainly not the sacramenta, which word in ecclesiastical Latin, through the Vulgate, has become the equivalent of “mysteries.”
1 Corinthians 4:2.—Notice “here,” by a change of reading. Stanley (alone) joins the word with the preceding sentence. A maxim true of all stewardships in ordinary human affairs.
1 Corinthians 4:3. Judge.—Examine, as if dealing with a man on his defence in a court of justice. So 1 Corinthians 9:3. Judgment.—Lit. “day”; parallel to the “day” of God’s judgment in 1 Corinthians 3:13. (See Separate Homily on that passage for general treatment of the subject.)
1 Corinthians 4:4. Know nothing by myself.—Not at all to be taken as: “I have no knowledge of Divine things but such as is a gift of the grace of God.” Simply a piece of old-fashioned English, still lingering in the provincialisms of some counties. A Lincolnshire peasant, e.g., will say, “What do you think by it?” instead of “think of it,” or “think about it.” Paul only means, of course, “I am not conscious to myself of anything.” He does not say “evil”; that is so generally, however, the issue of any examination and judgment of oneself that almost of necessity it is suggested by his language. Cf. 1 John 3:20. The Lord.—Paul’s largely predominant usage makes this almost certainly “Christ.” This is confirmed by 1 Corinthians 4:5. It is always Christ who “comes,” and who will act as Judge. Yet ultimately, and supremely, though the judgment and sentence is Christ’s, the reward is “God’s praise.” Note “his praise” (giving the force of the article) in R.V.
HOMILETIC ANALYSIS— 1 Corinthians 4:1-5
Theme: Judgment.
I. The minister’s own judgment of himself.
II. Other men’s judgment of him.
III. The master’s judgment.
I. The preceding sentences of the letter (chap. 1 Corinthians 3:18-23) have been concerned with the Corinthian habit of over-valuing themselves, and with the party idolatry of their (eponymic) leaders. As for Paul he wishes neither to be over-estimated nor to be under-estimated. [There is no virtue in undervaluation of oneself; such over-depreciation is not infrequently not humility at all, but pride—a subtle pride which is hungry to be told that it is too humble and that the self-asserted value is too low. For the sake of the Master’s work, a man may well desire to know what he is worth, and what he is fit for, and to what he is adequate.] Paul would be judged “according to truth” (Romans 2:2). To what court shall he go for Justice and for Truth? To the court of Conscience, perpetually “sitting” within his own spirit? This has its value, and its supporting power to him, as he avows (2 Corinthians 1:17, where see). A man walking in the favour of God, his spirit continually illumined with the light of the Spirit of God, may know himself. He will guard against self-deception. The grace which is in him will keep him awake to the danger of such self-deception. And whilst there will always be ministers [and workers of every order] whose danger will be an undue, morbid self-depreciation and self-condemnation; just as there will also always be those whose danger lies quite at the opposite pole; in many more the healthy conscience will give them the sustaining force of the knowledge that their aim is as right as they know how to keep it, and their discharge of duty faithful, at any rate up to the measure of their ability and knowledge. Woe to the man who goes about his work without the approval of even his own conscience! Who is unfaithful, and knows that he is! Man’s judgment may not condemn him. He may hit exactly the taste, he may meet exactly the desire, of those to whom he ministers; he may give them exactly the only teaching they will welcome, and do neither less nor more in his ruling of the flock than is agreeable to the sheep; he may be personally popular, therefore; he may have the applause of the public as a “successful man,” the pastor of “a successful Church.” Yet, if all the while the Spirit of God will not suffer him to approve himself, but will keep his sense of right so far alive that not only can he not forget the meaning of the ministry as a “stewardship,” or the high ideal of faithfulness to God with which he began his work, but that a voice and verdict within him will ever persistently condemn, he is of all men most miserable. Wretched he who cannot even stand the judgment of himself upon himself.
II. It were folly to pretend to be literally indifferent to the judgment of others. Sometimes, when a conscience has been lulled, or drugged to sleep, or silenced by long neglect; when a man without the guard, or the goad, within him has sunk, not only far beneath the Master’s standard of requirement as to faithfulness in His stewards, but even beneath what was once his own; then the rebuke and condemnation of outsiders may do the man a service. It may make for him an objective conscience, and compel him to hear again from others what he used to hear from himself. He has broken or made dull the mirror within him; then the condemnation of “man’s judgment” may confront him with his own image in the mirror of Truth in their hand. It would be both foolish and false to pretend to be indifferent to the good opinion of others. If the faithfulness of the steward chance to secure the approval and esteem of other men, he will take it as a grace and a gift from his Lord, to be used, in its turn, like any and every other gift, for the advantage of his Lord’s work. The goodwill and esteem of his people are a help to the minister towards doing the people good. Wise and loving fidelity may accomplish something—it must—even where its sharp rebuke or unwelcome dealing puts a strain upon the pleasant relationships between man and man; it will not utterly fail to do good, even when it does its work in the face of indifference or dislike. But where goodwill and affection, and a true estimate of the meaning of the minister’s work and office, prepare for, and co-operate with, his fidelity, there it will “have free course.” The design of the whole Divine ordinance of “stewardships” for the dispensing of “the mysteries of God” will be then most perfectly fulfilled. However indifferent Paul may have been to the judgment of men, his sympathetic, affectionate nature prized highly the love of those for whom he “spent himself” even to the “spending” of himself “out” (2 Corinthians 12:15).
III. Yet none of these “courts” is that of Final Appeal. No absolute and unchallengeable acquittal [or condemnation] can be given even from the bench where Judge Conscience sits, and still less from that other tribunal where “Man” holds the “day” of his assize. Says Paul: “I desire greatly the approval of my own conscience; I believe I have it; as to my stewardship and my fidelity as a steward, I cannot charge myself with any wrong. I do not forget a legitimate regard for the ‘manifestation of myself in your consciences’ (2 Corinthians 5:11). As a matter of fact, I know that many of you do not give me a very approving verdict. Yet I dare not trim my sails to catch the breeze of your applause. I hold it, indeed, a matter of the smallest moment that you should approve or condemn, in comparison of the one greater, final, absolutely true and just verdict of the Lord.” Man is so often to himself a problem utterly perplexing, that he knows not how to hold a just balance in his estimate of himself; he fears to approve too easily, he fears to acquit too readily, whilst, rightly enough, he does not desire to harass himself by condemning without reason. A Christian man is so conscious of the blinding effect of a biassed heart upon the clear vision of his judgment, that even if in the court within he be held clear, he will still report the verdict to the Higher Judge for His endorsement or revision. A faithful, honest worker will be so sensitive to the ensnaring power of too nice a consideration of man’s favour or man’s frown; he will be so conscious of the deflecting power of an anxiety what man will think or say or do, upon the compass-needle of his conscience; that he will never trust the steering of his course to anything lower than the judgment of his Lord. Up above earthly influences and bias, stable amidst all the revolutions and vagaries of man’s opinions and judgments, there it shows, the Divine Pole Star of his direction. He will not disregard, as we have seen, the commendation of his fellows, but he will not “lay himself out” to win it. If they give him condemnation, then he “will appeal unto” the Greater than Cæsar. Against man’s judgment, and from man’s “day”; whatever also be the judgment of his conscience in its “day” of inquiry and sentence; the matter is carried up to the Great Judge and forward to His “day” and its “Great Assize.” For that, amongst other reasons, do Christ’s people “love His appearing” (2 Timothy 4:1; 2 Timothy 4:8). It was said of Dr. Pusey that the deepest note of thankfulness in all his Te Deum was this, “We believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge.… We praise Thee, O Christ!” In that day all the clamour and conflict of the varying and uncertain verdicts of man will be hushed into silence, whilst He speaks. Even now it is no small comfort to a true-hearted “steward” to remember that He knows all about him and his work. All that under-life of motive and aim, which works its way to the surface and becomes obnoxious to man’s judgment, only after struggling, as it were, through an overlying medium of imperfect knowledge and of many another limiting disability, is always, and altogether, in His clear view. It may be that He knows the man even better that the man knows himself; that He may judge him now and again more favourably than he judges himself. In any case, He will always be profoundly reasonable in what He expects from the “steward of the mysteries”; no prejudice, or favour, with Him; profoundly reasonable, and utterly and simply just. “Let me”—for the sentence as well as for its execution—“fall into the hands of,” not “man,” but “Christ.” Moreover, the full and final verdict can only be pronounced when the coming of the “Day of the Lord” shall have completed the facts and evidence on which it most justly rest. So, then, Paul will pronounce no final verdict upon his own fidelity in the discharge of his office. “Let it stand over until He comes.” The passing, temporary, human judgment may well go for little with him in the expectation of that other judgment. Indeed, he suggests not obscurely that his opponents and detractors at Corinth may have more reason for apprehension in view of it than he has. When “hidden things of darkness and the counsels of the hearts are dragged forth,” some men, some apostles, may “have praise of God,” but some may have—[How nearly without exception are all our judgments of men and conduct judgments before the right time! How often have even the lapse of a few years or months and the addition of even a single new fact caused an entire revision of some unfavourable judgment on men and actions, till we have stood ashamed at the bar of our own conscience that we judged so hastily, on such imperfect data, and so harshly, and perhaps gave in our words or bearing such unfair and unchristian effect to our hasty prejudice! “Wait till the Lord comes!” “Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the Judge standeth at the door” (James 5:9). How often a little more knowledge has shown us that the very confident verdicts of our “righteous” indignation were after all at the best wasted words, and at the worst were so hasty and uncharitable, as to have been sins against the Spirit of Christ! “Therefore judge nothing before the time.”] And how precious and glorious a compensation for all the unfair, hasty, or even evil-hearted judgments of men will be His praise! In a moment, all the past swallowed up and forgotten, all the pain gone, all the temporary disadvantages past. Nor is it anything but a laudable motive that a man should make the winning of “praise” in that day an object for which he cultivates “fidelity” to his trust. If He says, “Well done, good and faithful,” he surely does not intend, or expect, that we should be faithful for bare fidelity’s sake. His “Well done” is in itself an object to be worked for. Finally, if praise is not for ability only, or chiefly, or for success, but for faithfulness, all may win that! [The Pounds, Luke 19, exhibits graduated reward according to graduated results from equal ability and endowment. The Talents, Matthew 25, exhibits equal praise for unequal ability and endowment, because of equal fidelity. Both are true principles of the judgment.] [Said Bishop Thirlwall, writing to a friend, “The law of God’s kingdom is ‘He that is faithful in a few things shall be made ruler over many things.’ But how little it matters whether there are many or few, so long as there is the faithfulness which makes the most of the few, and can do no more with the many.”] [Robertson, Expos. Lectures, in loco, says: “Learn not to judge, for we do not know the heart’s secrets. We judge men by gifts, or by a correspondence with our own peculiarities; but God judges by fidelity. Many a dull sermon is the result of humble powers, honestly cultivated, whilst many a brilliant discourse arises merely from a love of display. Many a diligent and active ministry proceeds from the love of power. Learn to be neither depressed unduly by blame, nor, on the other side, to be too much exalted by praise. Life’s experience should teach us this.… And our own individual experience should teach us how little men know us! How often, when we have been most praised and loved, have we been conscious of another motive actuating than that which the world has given us credit for; and we have been blamed, perhaps disgraced, when if all the circumstances were known we should have been covered with honour. Therefore let us strive … to be tranquil; smile when men sneer; be humble when they praise, patient when they blame. Their judgment will not last; ‘man’s day’ is only for a time, but God’s is for Eternity.”]
SEPARATE HOMILIES
1 Corinthians 4:1-2. The Stewardship of the Minister.
I. The office.—
1. No great Fact in God’s order is simple. It is only in the “elementary” stages of His work that we find what is not complex, many-sided in its aspects and relationships. The permanent, developed “ministry” of the Church was in even Apostolic times becoming a many-sided fact, needing many analogies to set it forth. Each one [as in all cases of teaching by analogy] has its strong point of teaching and applicability; often with its many weaker, where it does not bear pressing, or using at all. There it is supplemented by another, strong where it is weak, but needing in its turn the strength of the first to be its complement in exhibiting the whole round of the truth. The men are here called “ministers” (see Critical Notes); they are “Shepherds” (Ephesians 4:11, etc.) who “bear rule” (Hebrews 13:17) with whatever of authority a Shepherd must of necessity have over the Flock. They are “Teachers” (Eph. as above, etc.). They are “Presbyters” or “Elders” (e.g. Acts 20:28), and indeed, like those of Ephesus, are “Overseers” or “Bishops.” They claim whatever respect and weight of influence is needful to enable them “to watch over souls (cf. Ezekiel 3; Ezekiel 33) as they that must give account” (Heb. as above). This last clause completes the circle of ideas by inserting into its round the link of the thought found in the word “Stewards.”
2. Stewards, not priests.—This name is never given to any order of men selected out of the general body of the Christian community. [Even as they are “ministers” of the Mediator, and not themselves mediators.] The priesthood of the Old Covenant order is, like every other essential, fundamental, basic idea of that order, brought forward into the new. There is a “priesthood” still. The essential lines which govern the representation of the office and function are still there, plain enough to establish the identity, the continuity. But they are modified; touched here, filled up in more detail there, emphasised in a third point; and, above all, are now found in complete exposition in the Man Christ Jesus, and only in Him. [Moses spoke of the coming Prophetic Order in Deuteronomy 18:15; the prophets, every one, in anticipatory, suggestive, partial presentation embodied God’s Idea, which was by-and-by to be fulfilled in the One Prophet. Of Him pre-eminently did Moses speak (Acts 3:22; Acts 7:37). Similarly he might have said, “A Priest shall the Lord your God raise up,” etc. Indeed, the fulfilment of such a saying would already have begun in the Priestly Order which had been established. Also remember how the Idea of Priesthood in its highest function more and more clearly stood out to men’s apprehension, until the very phrase “High Priest,” unknown at first, became a necessity of religious thought and expression.] The complete, two-sided significance of Mediatorship is exhibited in Him who is “the Apostle”—sent out from God to man—and the “High Priest”—going in from man to God—“of our profession” (Hebrews 3:1). And the offering of a sacrifice which made atonement for sin, the culminating point of the priest’s office, to which everything else was only sequential and subsidiary, is now restricted to Him. In that sense Christianity knows only the one “priest.” The “steward” is no “priest.” The many, mortal priests, themselves sinners needing atonement, have yielded up their office and honour to the undying, holy One—The Son, “consecrated for evermore” (Hebrews 7:23-28). And if indeed anything of the hierophantic office of the priesthoods of the Gentiles seem to cling to the work of the man who has to deal with the “mysteries of God,” yet there is manifest and vital difference. The hierophant took in—into the penetralia of the building as well as of the doctrines—the few favoured ones, the esoteric circle, the illuminandi; took them in as a favour from himself, which he had the right to withhold, as well as to confer. The “steward” does impart “mysteries” indeed. But he has no right to withhold them; he has no right to make them the possession of a favoured few; their disclosure is his duty, he must bring them out to all. “Must bring them out” also. The figure must not be overpressed; but he is not the priest leading some into an inner darkness and secrecy; he is a steward bringing out from the store-chamber what is to be given freely to all waiting outside who need what he brings.
3. Stewards, not proprietors.—They have no controlling rights over the disclosure of the truth. They are only the “ministers” of Christ in the matter, passing on, giving round, to the hungry multitudes what He has blessed, and what has only been given into their hands that it may be given away widely by their hand. [“So” exactly means, “All things are yours,” 1 Corinthians 3:22; cf. 2 Corinthians 4:15.] They are not to indulge in the selfish indolence of the man who sits in his study, reading, reading, reading, thinking, learning, acquiring, but only slightly if at all attempting to enrich his people with the fruit of his growing knowledge of the “mysteries.” They have it, they are entrusted with it, to pass it on. The apostles, no doubt, might and did satisfy their own hunger with the marvellous bread, but the fainting five thousand had the prior claim. Etymologically “stewardship” is “economy.” But the ecclesiastical “economy” in the disclosure of truth has travelled a long and aberrant way from the idea of “stewardship.” It is one thing to see to it that the “babes” have only their “milk,” whilst the men of full age are fed with their “meat” (Hebrews 5:12-13); it is another thing in fear, or with dishonest tact, to suppress or modify truth, in the presumed interests of “truth,” or in the interests of a Church or an order of men, or for the security of some conciliar or personal dogma. Whatever is the truth of God should all be told to all. He can be trusted to take care that its widest disclosure works no real, no lasting mischief. Better the risk of mischief than of manipulation by not too honest stewards. The Bible Society is an organised expression of the stewardship of the mysteries entrusted to the Church of Christ in the gift of the Word of God. It is given to the Church to be given by the “stewards” with world-wide liberality of distribution. They may not even detain it in the store cupboard!
4. Stewards, not discoverers.—God is the Fountain of all the knowledge they impart. The Son is the Revealer of it all; He has drawn back, so far as it is drawn back at all, the veil under which lay hidden what the time has now come to disclose. [Cf. “Has brought to light Life and Immortality” (2 Timothy 1:10). They are not new things; they were facts before; they were there all along; but they were under a covering (? Isaiah 25:7).] His stewards do but publish widely what He has been Himself taught, and is commissioned to disclose. [He may take as bis own the words of Balaam, Numbers 24:13.] Nothing else lies within the four corners of a steward’s commission; anything else is ultra vires. He may not devise a Gospel, he may not add to the Gospel speculations of his own, not fairly deducible, or to be proved, from the definite instructions and disclosures given to him (Galatians 1:8-9). An “original thinker” in the ministry of the Church has properly his only “originality” in the analysis, and the fresher or clearer or more profitable presentation of the original corpus of “mysteries,” and in the skill and fulness of knowledge with which he is able to bring from all quarters what may be laid under contribution for the illustration of their meaning and their message to men. He stands before his people as simply, by natural gifts, by special study, and by special training, “an expert” in their exposition.
[“The mysteries” are dealt with under 1 Corinthians 2:1, 1 Corinthians 15:51.]
II. The fidelity expected of the steward.—There is
(1) fidelity, with responsibility, to the Lord Himself; and
(2) fidelity to the matter of the mystery and to the persons designed to be benefited by its disclosure; in these senses, partly accommodations of the idea of “fidelity,” the responsibility is still, and only, to the Lord Himself. Beginning with
(2). Paul has his own illustration, from the innkeeper who adulterates his wine (2 Corinthians 2:17). [The converse is suggested, under the connotation of another figure (1 Peter 2:2).] There must be no tampering with the mysteries. The fashion in such “wine” may change; the public palate may be perverted; it may demand the produce of another vineyard; but he at least will only supply this, of the best and purest he knows how to procure. He will spare no cost of pains and prayer to get this, that he may have it to offer. But he dares not—he desires not—to offer anything else. He may have the pain, and be put to the test of fidelity, of seeing those whom he desires to supply, leave him, to turn aside to the man who will give them a more popular vintage. But, for one thing, that old Gospel [not to press the figure too far] saved him, and still comforts and sustains him. In “faithfulness” to the mystery whose revelation has blessed him, and many ten thousands more, he will still dispense that. It is his presumed function and office to preach and present the “mysteries of God” in their Divine, unmingled simplicity. He is a living falsehood if. whilst he is presumed to do that, and whilst the people expect that of him, he offers something of merely human devising or imagining; or the “mystery,” indeed, but so overlaid with rhetoric, or the speculative supplements of undisciplined or uncurbed reasoning, that it is hidden and neutralised, put in such a form as never fed or saved anybody. He owes some “fidelity” to this very message, to the matter which has been disclosed by God, and of which he is a steward. Also, he must be faithful to his people. Indeed, if they are wise, they will wish him, and help him, to be faithful. If fidelity in a steward be needful anywhere, it is in dealing with Divine truth. “By these” mysteries “men live” (Isaiah 38:16). These are not merely gains to knowledge, however accurate, enlarging, ennobling. They are men’s life. It is of urgent necessity to them to possess in its unadulterated purity and in unstinted quantity the truth in the mysteries. It is Bread of Life for dying souls. They are a foolish people who will only ask for, and will only tolerate, what truth is pleasant or conventionally correct; for their own sakes they will covet, and will honour, and will thank and love the man who will only deal honestly with them as a faithful steward, who will give them the whole message of God, and will not in fear or in wicked complaisance spare themselves. He is not accountable to them (1 Corinthians 4:3) indeed; yet his relation to them is one which demands of him fidelity as the truest kindness. [Such “kindness” to them as that of the Dishonest Steward (Luke 16:1-8) may serve his dishonest turn for a moment, but will not carry him or them very far!] But, above all,
(1) he will be faithful as a matter of responsibility to his Master, and to God whose mysteries he holds in trust for distribution “as every man has need.” [The following verses, separately dealt with, give the noble portrait of a “steward” who is sustained under misconception, misrepresentation, detraction, malicious depreciation; or in the face of angry people, offended at the whole truth; by a sense of the approval of Christ, vouchsafed to him by One who knows how pure and direct his aim has been, how reverent and careful his handling of the disclosure of “the mysteries.”] “The Master praises; what are men?” But does the Master praise? That is ever his main question. His every day’s duty will be planned under his Great Taskmaster’s eye, and will be discharged with constant reference to His judgment. Motives are so intermingled in our life, the tangle so often passes all our own power of unravelling, that he will not spend overmuch time upon self-analysis. His mingled aims—right after all in their main drift and object—will be simply laid before his Master en bloc, for His analysis and judgment and smile of reward. If He is satisfied, the rest matter little!
III. The people’s estimate of the office and of the minister.—Two dangers threaten: an undue exaltation, or an under-valuing of the office; or, in another alternative, a party worship of the man, as at Corinth, or a superstitious estimate of the office.
1. The under-valuing of the office is a very real danger. The “minister” must not be simply the chief, and perhaps the only paid, officer of an organisation called “a Church,” which “keeps a minister,” as some in the congregation keep a clerk or a manager in their business. He must not simply be the chairman of their meetings; or the president of their social gatherings; or the intellectual leader of their speculations, or of the literary or artistic activity of the young life of the Church; or their deputy on whom they devolve all the initiative of religious and philanthropic agencies which the public expect from them. He may, happily and usefully, be all these. But these are the secondary things of his office. His first and essential duty—the “Hamlet-part” in the play, without which all is miserably incomplete—is to be a steward, blessedly made familiar with the mysteries of God, by close intercourse with God, their Giver, and coming forth from the holy intercourse to dispense them with a wisdom of adaptation to the needs of his people which is itself not a small gift and honour from God. If he only bring to his people—if his people only expect from him—spoken “leading articles” on topics of the week or of the time, perfect in literary finish; if they are satisfied with brief theses on half-secular themes, full of satirical, or sympathetic, or poetic power; if they are content with brief, admirable, but “natural,” ethical prelections which do not lift up duty into any organic connection with religion, its motives, its power, its sanctions; if he never bring to their ears, and to their hunger, any of the revealed secrets of the heart and will of God,—he is not “fulfilling his ministry,” nor discharging his “stewardship.” If they have no hunger of heart, and do not definitely desire to be fed; and even resent the earnestness of the man who would gladly be to them a steward of God’s mysteries, bringing them forth for the supply of their heart and conscience; they misunderstand and under-value the office. Desire him to be, pray for him that he may be, by sympathy with his aims and by grateful recognition of his work, help him to be, a steward and a faithful one! Not less than a steward!
2. On the other hand, not more than a steward. Do not think of him, do not accept of him, as a priest or an exclusive mediator with God. If he boast never so loudly of ordination by any special order of ministers, and claim to be of any special order himself; if he will thrust himself between God and the soul, as in any sense a necessary and indispensable intermediary; if he will claim over the judgment and conscience an authority which of old belonged to a prophet, and now belongs only to Christ, as represented by His Spirit, in the administration of redemption; if he will claim, in any sense, to offer a sacrifice which stands in any necessary relation to the forgiveness of sins or the maintenance of the spiritual life; if he claim priesthood in any sense which belongs exclusively to Christ, or in any sense which does not belong equally to every member of the “holy priesthood” (1 Peter 2:5),—then to acquiesce in such pretensions is to over-exalt the man and his office. Allow no priesthood; hear of nothing, think of nothing, but of “Ministry” and “Stewardship.” Pray for him, listen to him, use him, as a steward, not less nor more. And if a man, credentialled no matter by whom, assume to be the way to God, say to him: “Thou art in the way! Stand out of my way! Christ is my Way. Let me come direct through Him to God.” “Let a man so account of us.” A true “minister” asks no more.
1 Corinthians 4:2. Faithful Stewardship.
I. If in the ordinary transactions of time it is imperative that those who are concerned in the management of temporal concerns should be faithful, how much more, in matters which relate to the soul and eternity, is it imperative that the stewards of God’s mysteries should be faithful! The consequences of infidelity or dishonesty in the charge of the affairs of this life may be disastrous; but who can measure the ruin which follows when there is a want of fidelity in dealing with the things of the next life? In such case the ruin is irretrievable, the loss of the soul will stand no comparison with even the gain of the world.
II. Easy to perceive the fidelity required of the minister of Christ.
1. Personal fidelity. If a man has not experienced for himself the grace of God in convincing, converting, and sanctifying his own heart, how can he tell others of the change which is implied in all these workings of the Spirit?
2. Consistency of life and conversation. Even supposing that the doctrine preached is in accordance with God’s Word, an inconsistent life will wither the power of the message and frustrate the ends of its delivery. Not only this; but
3. There must be fidelity in the declaration of the whole revealed truth of inspiration. It is not allowed to the ambassador to deliver only a part of his message; he must proclaim the whole revealed counsel of God. He is to preach the truth in all its integrity, keeping back nothing which is plainly revealed; but as a wise householder he must bring forth things new and old, in order that he may be faithful to Him who hath called him and invested him with such lofty responsibilities. [“It is written.” “It is written again.”]
III. There are lessons which all professing Christians may derive.—
1. “Of all our earthly possessions we are stewards, not proprietors. There is in the ordinary arrangements of Divine providence a vast employment of second causes, and many of the things we acquire appear to come in the course of our own efforts and as the effect of our own industry or skill; hence arises the idea of ownership, and forgetfulness that all things come of God, and that we have not a fraction to which we can lay claim as an independent possession, which we have a right to employ without reference to Him who gave it. But in truth all the secondary means … are gifts from God, and derive their efficacy from His imparted power or beneficence. So that, in the most literal sense, all things come of Him, e.g., gifts of intellect which qualify for conspicuous usefulness to others, gifts of wealth or power for influencing largely our fellow-creatures. The point to be remembered is that all these bestowments are entrusted to the keeping of those who possess them to be employed by them as stewards in trust … for God’s service. Have you, then, consecrated large possessions and the gain of them to the Lord, and your substance to the Lord of the whole earth? Is the talent which belongs to authority over others employed for God, for upholding God’s honour, for promoting the temporal and spiritual well-being of all within the range of your influence?”
2. Our fidelity must originate in personal piety.—“
(1) The root of Scriptural obedience consists in a right apprehension of the relationship in which we stand to God. We are His creatures, every faculty we possess is His gift, and we are bound to consecrate all we have and are to His glory.
(2) More than this, God has yet a stronger claim. If we constantly remembered the wonderful love of God in the gift of His Son, we should never lose sight of the obligations under which we lie, to consecrate our souls and bodies to His service, to act as stewards who are bound to be faithful in His sight.
(3) And what a motive for fidelity is supplied when we call to mind the shortness of our allotted period of service, and the near approach of the time when Christ will reappear to reckon with all His professing servants. Stewardship always implies a time of reckoning. It may be near or distant, but then there will be no escape or evasion. With what joy will Christ’s true and faithful servants hear the welcome, ‘Ye have been faithful over a few things,’ etc. How terrible, then, the condition of those who, though they were stewards, have not been found faithful; the measure of their privileges will be the measure of their fearful condemnation.
(4) Let us then bear in mind the lesson which this day’s Epistle [Third Sunday in Advent] delivers for our direction. Knowing beforehand the strictness of the account which we must each one render, let us aim at dependence upon Divine grace to overcome every temptation, to conquer every difficulty, which opposes our progress in sanctification, and so to abound unto every good work that in the end we may attain to the recompense and the reward which in the last day awaits every one who shall be found to have been faithful to the stewardship confided to his keeping.”—Abridged from Bishop Bickersteth, “Clerical World,” i. 172.