What is meant by "stewards of God" and "GRACE"?

Titus 1:9 [Holding to the faithful word, which is according to the teaching of the apostles, that he may be able both to exhort by the healthy teaching and to convict those who oppose.]

Ephesians 3:6-8 [That in Christ Jesus the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the Body and fellow partakers of the promise through the gospel, of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God...to announce to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.]

Titus 1:7 [For the overseer must be unreprovable as a steward of God...]

1 Corinthians 4:1-2 [A man should account us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Here, furthermore, it is sought in stewards that one be found faithful.]

Matthew 24:45 [Who then is the faithful and prudent slave, whom the master has set over his household to give them food at the proper time?]

Firstly, we need to be filled with Christ and then minister the riches of Christ to others. This is our stewardship. In our Christian life, we all are stewards. You are steward to me, and I am a steward to you.

In the New Testament, a steward is one who serves and takes care of the dispensing of God to His family. God has a very large family, and His desire is to dispense Himself into all the members of his family. This may be illustrated by the function of a steward in a wealthy family in ancient times. A steward in such a family was responsible to care for the dispensing of the means of life --- food, clothing, and other necessities -- to the members of the family. Wealthy families often had an abundant supply of these necessities in storage. The responsibility of a steward was to dispense this supply to the members of the family. God exceedingly rich; He has a vast storehouse of goods which He intends to dispense into His children. But this dispensation requires a steward. Thus, a steward is a dispenser, one who dispenses the divine life supply to God's children.

God's stewardship is the dispensing of the processed Triune God in Christ into His chosen, redeemed, and regenerated people that He may be their life and everything, to produce the unique Body of Christ in the universe to be His corporate expression. This Body is the church in this age, and the New Jerusalem in eternity.

Through regeneration of the life of God, we also become the flock of God (in life and nature, but not in the unique Godhead) which is always receiving the life nourishment from the Shepherd, and heirs of the grace of life, inheriting all the riches of life. Then we become stewards of the varied grace of God. We become not only heirs of Grace to receive grace, but we are so full of grace, we become stewards of grace to serve others with grace. The stewardship of the grace is the dispensing of the riches of Christ. According to the context of Ephesians 3, grace refers to the riches of Christ. When the riches of Christ are enjoyed by you, they become grace to you.

Many Christians think that grace refers mainly to material blessings. But the Bible indicates that grace did not come before Christ. However, God certainly bestowed material blessings on His people before Christ came. Grace is nothing less than God Himself given to us, gained by us, and enjoyed by us. Before Christ came, God could not be give to anyone. No one could receive God or enjoy Him. But in Christ and through Christ we receive God, and God becomes our enjoyment. Therefore, grace is God Himself as our enjoyment. The stewardship of grace is the dispensing of God into people to be their enjoyment.

Many people claim that they have a ministry, which is a service, but what is the content of their service? Do we minister Christ as the food supply to His believers? If we do not, we do not have a real, genuine, adequate ministry. The real, genuine, adequate ministry in the New Testament is the divine stewardship which ministers the Truine God in Christ to people as their life and life supply.

We are not here to carry on an ordinary Christian work. For instance, we are not concerned merely with teaching the Bible in an outward way. Rather, we desire to serve the riches of Christ to all the members of God's family. In preaching the gospel, for example, we should not be concerned merely with winning souls. Rather, we should preach the gospel to carry out the stewardship of dispensing the riches of Christ into others.

God's economy is a great matter. In order to carry out such an economy, God must have stewards to serve, to minister, to manage, and to execute His economy. First, God entrusted His economy to the apostles. When the apostles took up God's economy, it became a ministry, a stewardship, in them. Our concept may be that only the apostles and other gifted ones are worthy to bear the stewardship of God's economy and that we, the "small potatoes", are worthy only to do the cleaning and the ushering work but are unworthy to bear such a stewardship. However, in the light of the New Testament teaching, all the believers are priests, whether Paul or Peter or any brothers or sisters, old or young (1 Peter 2:5,9; Revelation 1:5-6). Thus, God's economy has become the stewardship of all the believers. :)



Reference: Life-study of Colossians; The Economy and Dispensing of God; Life-study of Ephesians; A Deeper study of the Divine Dispensing