Betsy Schwarzentraub: Stewardship is the Good News in action!

“If evangelism is telling the good news of God’s love, then stewardship is showing the good news by the way we live.”

Betsy Schwarzentraub in Afire with God: Becoming Spirited Stewards (Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 2000) 13.

“Surely it must be confessed to be a matter of small account to sacrifice a little worldly comfort and prosperity during the short span of our existence in this life, in order to secure a crown of eternal glory, and the enjoyment of those pleasures which are at God’s right hand for evermore! It might be added also, that our blessed Saviour had fairly declared, that it would often be required of Christians to make such a sacrifice; and had forewarned us, that, in order to be able to do it with cheerfulness whenever the occasion should arrive, we must habitually sit loose to all worldly possessions and enjoyments.”

Wlliam Wilberforce (1759-1833) A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians with the Higher and Middle Classes contrasted with Real Christianity (Boston: Nathaniel Willis, 1815) 290-291.

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel, will save it. Mark 8:35

“America today is a “save yourself” society if there ever was one. But does it really work? The underdeveloped societies suffer from one set of diseases: tuberculosis, malnutrition, pneumonia, parasites, typhoid, cholera, etc.

Affluent America has virtually invented a whole new set of diseases: obesity, arteriosclerosis, heart disease, strokes, lung cancer, venereal disease, cirrhosis of the liver, drug addiction, alcoholism, divorce, battered children, suicide, murder. Take your choice…

Our affluence has allowed both mobility and isolation of the nuclear family, and as a result, our divorce courts, our prisons and our mental institutions are flooded. In saving ourselves, we have nearly lost ourselves.”

Ralph Winter in “Reconsecration to a Wartime, not a Peacetime, Lifestyle” in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement: A Reader, 2nd edition (Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1999) 706.

“If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next…It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become some ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth “thrown in” : aim at earth and you will get neither.”

C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) in Mere Christianity III. 10:118.

“It is not the rich man only who is under the dominion of things; they too are slaves who, having no money, are unhappy for the lack of it.”

George MacDonald (1824-1905) in George MacDonald by C.S. Lewis (New York: HarperOne, 2001) 38.

“The man who has tasted the things of heaven easily thinks nothing of what is below, but he who has no taste of heaven finds pleasure in possessions.”

St. John Climacus (c. 525-606) in the Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 17.

“Find out how much God has given you and from it take what you need; the remainder is needed by others.”

Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, (354-430) as quoted in Randy Alcorn, Managing God’s Money (Carol Stream: Tyndale, 2011) 72.

“God gives so we can become joyful givers and not just self-absorbed receivers…

Here is roughly how sin works in relation to God the giver. All things are from God and through God, and yet we want to be independent of God, standing on our own two feet, claiming God’s gifts as our own achievement…

Most of us, especially the believers among us, won’t deny God’s existence in order to secure our independence. Instead, we think we can have it both ways. We believe that we can stand on our own two feet, independent of God, and still affirm that God is the creator of everything…

When we assert our independence, when we ascribe to ourselves what comes from God, we wrong God…

We might not feel particularly grateful for what we have because we think that, rather than receiving it, we earned it. And we want to disposed of our hard-earned goods the way we please; they become not so much gifts given to us to enjoy and pass on, but rather exclusive possessions.

Assertion of independence, pride of achievement, sense of entitlement, an absolute right to dispose with our goods—these are the ways in which we live in contradiction to who we actually are in relation to God…

To live in sync with who we truly are means to recognize that we are dependent on God for our very breath and are graced with many good things; it means to be grateful to the giver and attentive to the purpose for which the gifts are given.”

Miroslav Volf in Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005) 28, 35-36.

But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. 1 Timothy 6:8

“These words are a timely reminder of the weakness of a consumer society which is based on the assumption that possessions are a symbol of status. The credit boom would take a considerable bashing if this teaching were taken seriously. The fact is contentment does not come from owning whatever we want, for there is no end to what we want. A Christian approach to life can never make a central feature of the acquisition of material things.”

Donald Guthrie in The Pastoral Epistles (Downers’ Grove: IVP) 125.

Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me…whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me. Matthew 25:40, 45

“One’s attitude toward the poor reveals one’s heart attitude toward Christ…No heart that loves Christ can be cold to the vulnerable and the needy…Anyone who has been touched by the grace of God will be vigorous in helping the poor.”

Tim Keller in Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Just (New York: Dutton, 2010) 53-54.