How to Study the Bible III - Stewardships vs Dispensationalism
Craig Kaes · Oct 16, 2016
How to Study Bible (2016), No. 40
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926540315551

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Talk first about dispensations and stewardships and why we would care. So I'm trying to find a good way to phrase the question. So dispensations were Defined and canonicalized in book form best probably by Ryrie, like 130 years ago, something of that nature. You're, was I, never mind. He's just heckling you just to make sure that you really are prepared to teach.

Why would we bother with a concept like that? I thought this was about how to study the Bible. Why aren't we just diving deep first into the Bible? Why would we care about a concept like dispensations? Nobody's feeling brave. Will you ask the question again? Kaylee's feeling brave.

Because dispensations helps us understand the Bible more clearly, maybe? Yeah, it really is that simple. So what Kaylee said is that because it helps us understand the Bible. So there are certain principles and concepts that are laid out throughout the Bible. And so understanding what those principles and concepts are can help us rightly divide the Word. So that's why we would care about it.

The issue is that the word dispensation is not in our day-to-day vocabulary. So I don't go down to the store and provide somebody with a dispensation. When I drop my kids off when they were little with somebody to watch them, I don't say, OK, now let me explain your dispensation to you. It doesn't make sense.

So that's one problem with the word dispensation. And another problem with the word dispensation is it tends to be a divisive sort of word. Like when somebody hears dispensation, they react to it. And now you're talking about this camp versus that camp. we are dispensational.

There's nothing wrong with saying that, but to some it's like, oh, that's a naughty word. And so it's going to cause some divisiveness. We study the Word of God to know God and to have a relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ. We don't do it to build up our encampments and perfect our arguments for the beating up of the Bible.

So another issue with dispensations that it would be helpful to correct is this notion of time. So as popularly taught, dispensations will focus on epics. So when you are in this particular dispensation, there's no other dispensation going on. And the moment this one ends, then there's a brand spanking new one that begins, and the old one is just 100% over. And as we'll see as we look through this, that's actually not readily clear.

And the final one is that the people who love the term dispensation, zoom in on one Greek word. The Greek word that they like is οικονομία, which means household, or economy, or dispensation. The problem is that if you look through scripture, the concept of a dispensation, and don't worry, we'll define all of this. The concept of a dispensation is throughout scripture, and we end up finding out that there are really big ones, and really small ones, and different ones to different people. There are some fundamentals of dispensationalism that are fantastic and that we agree with ourselves.

So for example, the footnote number one. So number one, a consistent distinction between the purposes, promises, and identity of Israel and the Church throughout Scripture. Do we agree with that, that those are separate? Yes, we do. A consistent system of literal, grammatical, and historical interpretation. Is that how we look at the Bible here at Holly Hills? And the main purpose of God in the world is for His glory. Is that something that we teach here as well?

So by the definitions of dispensational, by the basic tenets, This is a dispensational church, and I don't want to point you guys away from that and say, oh, dispensation, it's this truly horrible thing. But I think having different vocabulary around it is helpful and more useful.

Make sense? All right. So let's talk about a new word. And the new word is stewardship. Yes, sir? Just really quick. Ryrie just died recently. So 130 years ago would have been a hoot. Yeah. Yeah. It was more like in the 90s. Off by some measure of years. Yeah. Some measure of years. Thank you for the correction. He could have been 150, right? No? Sure. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So you were totally spot on. He wrote that about 130 years ago. He was 150 when he died. There's no problem. I'm saying that in a church. Okay.

So, new word. The new word equals stewardship. So we sort of have an understanding of what a stewardship is and what it means to be a steward. We even have people whose jobs you're on a ship, you have a steward. So it's in our normal vocabulary. So that starts to be a little bit better. This paper suggests the definition of stewardship is an economy. I don't know about you guys, when I think of economy, I think about global monetary systems, Greece collapsing, all of these sorts of things, I don't immediately think of the Abrahamic Covenant.

So I'm going to suggest an alternate definition which is simply an entrusting. Somebody or some group is entrusted with something. That's what a stewardship is. It is that individual or group's responsibility to carry out the expectations of that entrusting.

Let me give you a super simple example. When the kids were young, we would drop them off with their nanny and papa. OK, so they're grandma and grandpa, Crystal's parents. And we entrusted them with their care, responsible for care and feeding and all of that.

And so as we look through the individual bullets about the stewardship and ask ourselves, OK, so how does that correspond to the example I just gave, so you have The one entrusting. If you're going to be entrusted, somebody had to entrust you with something, right? So who did the entrusting? Crystal. Yeah, we did. So Crystal and I, in my example, I dropped him off. So I'm the one who's doing the entrusting. Who is being entrusted? Nani and Papa. Nani and Papa. They are the stewards.

They actually have a title. And it's on the basis of this title and this relationship that I'm entrusting them with it. Their title is Mama. Title is also Nani. So relationship with us, relationship with the kids. And on the basis of that, I'm going to entrust them.

The character of the one entrusted. If I found these people to be untrustworthy, irresponsible sort of people, would I drop my kids off there? Only if I were a really bad parent, which on that particular day I was not. And so the character of the one entrusted, trustworthy. I would be trustworthy, probably loving, so it's a reasonable thing to do that entrusting. What's the arrangement or assignment? I've asked them to watch the kids. So the arrangement or assignment is they get to watch the kids. Principles of entrusting. Push pause on that one. Jump over to the next ones. We'll come back.

The objective. of the one entrusted. What are they responsible for? First on my list was keep safe. So safe implies alive. So we're in total agreement there. I added an extra one. Make them know that they're loved. So feel loved. It's part of that entrusting. The domain entrusted, this is the span of this stewardship. The domain is the kids. So over all kids, they are now entrusted. And the call of those in the domain. So those in the domain are the kids. And so what's their responsibility in this situation? To listen. Exactly. Listen to the grandparents.

And this is not an exhaustive list. We could pull out more bullet points about stewardship, but these are good organizing principles that we're going to be able to find about most stewardships. You'll notice that time isn't on here, but The time of that particular stewardship is limited when we go and pick up the kids and bring them home. No longer are they responsible for the care and feeding of the kids. But this is actually a really good example because there's fuzziness to it. And the fuzziness is If Crystal and I are around, is there still a stewardship there around making the kids know that they're loved and keeping them safe? So it's fuzzy. The official knighted, blessed, whatever stewardship has ended, but there's still the responsibilities really haven't. it might suggest a bigger stewardship for grandparents.

So if you go through Scripture with these principles in mind, all of a sudden, lots of stewardships start popping out. So as an example, Joseph is in Potiphar's household. And the Lord blesses Potiphar's stuff greatly while Joseph is there. And so he gets put in charge of all the things.

Is that a stewardship? Yes. He's been entrusted with something. So yeah, what other sort of stewardships could you pick out off the top of your head? Noah had a stewardship. Noah had a stewardship. He was entrusted with the safety of those who needed to make it through, and then for the repopulation of the earth. The apostles had a stewardship. What was the objective of the apostles? To spread and make disciples. It was to establish the church. To establish the church, sure. And to care for the body, which is Christ's bride. The Apostle John was given a stewardship to Mary.

That's a fantastic example. at the end of his stewardship there, was that the complete termination and then there was, that was the end of an epic and then we had another course not. It's a different way of looking at these responsibilities that were given these ways of God. entrusting those with him. So you said... Well Mordecai was given, is that his name?

He was entrusted with Esther. Esther was entrusted with going to make sure that the Jews were not killed. Yeah. So Esther had a stewardship. And her uncle was instrumental because he had a stewardship. Yeah. So we've got a whole mess of these and we'll We'll look a little bit later about what Paul's stewardship was. On the time element, I'm just going to read really quick the footnote on the previous page.

The Schofield Bible In a note to Genesis 1.28 says, Dispensation is a period of time during which man is tested in respect to some specific revelation of the will of God. So they equate. There's an equal sign. That's an equal sign. Dispensation is a period of time.

And what we're discovering is that this notion of stewardship encompasses what's intended in a dispensation, but gives it more meaning and less time orientation. Within those stewardships, no human maintained that the stewardship that was given for the entire duration of that particular stewardship, for that particular dispensation, the way that people think about it. So more on that momentarily.

But as an example, when Moses died, he handed off his stewardship to Joshua. ended up taking folks where they needed to go. So let us talk a little bit about the principle of law and the principle of grace. So the traditional way of presenting dispensations presents Seven, some are in the three dispensation camp, some are in the seven, some are in the nine. They're all over the board. And it kind of makes sense, because when we look at them as stewardships, there are as many as we choose to see. But they'll make distinctions between these different epochs, and when one ends, another begins, and one of them is pretty typically called the dispensation of grace.

Here it's listed as the Church Age. And that implies that God has not been gracious since the creation, which is categorically false. And so that's where you start to see the time element being really limiting, not in a remotely helpful way. So what this chart does is, and this is the one for which there's a color version. They're color coded.

And it looks at the traditional dispensations and then applies either the principle of law or the principle of grace to that. So Innocence, and just so that you guys have familiarity with the way that dispensations are often taught. Innocence, this was Adam and Eve in the garden. But what was the scope? What was the objective of their dispensation, or in this case, stewardship? Because it was a stewardship.

Take care of the land and the animals. Take care of the animals, take care of the garden. They got to name the animals. Got to name some animals. Got to walk and talk with God. Which is super cool. We'll get there. And they couldn't eat the fruit. So this is the scope of their responsibility.

Was that according to the principle of law or the principle of grace? It would have to be the principle of grace. I think. And let me suggest to you that it's actually the principle of law because if you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil Everything's a it's done done deal I was just looking at him being put in the garden and that was pretty gracious of the Lord, but you're right so principle of law there, but When you when you so conscience this is from the guard getting booted from the garden and till the flood.

And it's a time period in which man is sort of left to do things as man sees fit. And we end up with the entire earth more or less corrupt. So the responsibility given was, OK, now you've got to grow your own food. You've got this curse. However, there's a promise of a seed somewhere down the road. So government is Noah until Abraham. And so the promise made is, you know what, I'm not going to flood anymore. go and replenish the earth, have dominion over the animals.

But there is a principle of law that's put into place, because this is where we get capital punishment. So folks are doing certain things, then we get capital punishment. But when we get to Abraham, which is the promise, we get that I'm going to make a great nation, out of you, I'll make your name great, and all the nations will be blessed through your seed."

Was that conditional in any way? That's done deal, that was unilateral promise that was not dependent on Abraham whatsoever. That's grace, that's not law, that's not on a basis of Abraham being amazing, that was on the basis of God's grace. What? It's on the basis of God being amazing. On the basis of God being amazing.

And so the next ones that come up are laws, so the law is given to Israel, then Christ dies on the cross at Pentecost, thus begins the church age. And then sometime, hopefully not too distant future, we get the kingdom. And so this notion of epics and the crisp boundaries You have to create a new dispensation called the kingdom, totally new dispensation, because at the beginning of the church age you had to do away with the law because you can't have that anymore. That's got to be 100% done. But then somehow when we get into the kingdom where there's law again, that must be a new one. playing with definitions to sort of keep the concept together.

And that's where the notion of a stewardship really is a richer way of looking at this. But throughout that whole chart, you see salvation by faith. So Abraham believed God, and it was credited as righteousness. So the principle of grace is abundant during the dispensations at that time.

Does that kind of make some sense? You know what really strikes me is because of like during the time when the law of Moses was in effect for the Jews, right? You could have someone who was saved by faith but they still suffer capital punishment because they failed under the law. I bet that my fire would a half hour or two later, it would be all it would take. But I'd still be saved by faith, you know. So it's really, it's kind of a fascinating, you know, almost sharp conflict between the two principles.

And didn't, you were talking about there are There are, I suppose, laws on the books that God could, if he wanted to, employ. But he didn't necessarily do that all the time. It was just if he needed to, or if he wanted to, he could. So that is also not consistent or congruent with these time epics, or who God is.

Because God has always been gracious. God has always been gracious. I look at the Israelites completely ignoring God as their king and saying, no, no, we want a king, we want a king, we want a king, we want a king. And I think of how gracious it was that finally, like, Let me introduce you to this guy named Saul." I gave them that as a way of showing them, oh wait, no, that wasn't a good idea. It was a very gracious way. When Moses comes down with his tablets and sees people worshiping a Golden Idol and he has a big fit and grinds it up and makes him drink it and smashes these he's so mad and God's response to that was Okay, I'm gonna make a couple more tablets Because they need that That's grace It wasn't even grace when the Israelites asked for a king, and he provided Saul. But beforehand, he says, I'm warning you, he's going to do this to your people. And so he warned them beforehand. And they still said, yes, we want a king. And so he said, all right.

There you go. How about it? OK, so three people groups throughout scripture. It's helpful to make a distinction between. You have the Gentiles, so those who are not part of Israel. You've got the Gentiles. You've got Israel. You've got the Church. And the Church is able to encompass So, talking about how many dispensations there are. turns out to not be super useful, but people will spend a fair amount of time very steadily debating this. They're in their camps and they're not budging from their camps. It's not especially useful for understanding scripture. It's not super useful for the glorification of God. It's super useful for argumentation. Scripture does, however, talk about the principles, so principle of law, principle of grace, and makes very careful distinctions between those, and makes it abundantly clear that you have those principles throughout. For example, A couple of the verses, so the John 1, John 1, 16 and 17.

For of his fullness we have all received in grace upon grace, for the law was given through Moses, grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. Skipping over to the next page, the Ephesians passage. He made known to us the mystery of his will according to his kind intention, which he purposed in him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in heaven and things in earth." So everything through Christ.

Keep your thumb on page five because we'll come back to the Hebrews passage in a while. So just to sort of sum up, Here we're going to make a distinction between dispensation and stewardship. We will be using stewardship as the term. So it's more of a focus on what was entrusted to whom, what were the circumstances around that, than it is about making very big global distinctions. Does it enable making some of those distinctions? Absolutely. the stewardship given to Abraham is different than the stewardship given to me.

Let's look at a couple examples. I'm going to skip forward to an easy one and then we'll come back to a tricksy one. Go ahead and skip to page 7. We'll go through this Ephesians passage, and you can, if you're feeling like challenging yourself, just put your hand over the right side of that table so you can't see the answers given.

But do keep in mind, as I'm reading this passage, You want to try to understand who's doing the entrusting, who's receiving that entrusting, that responsibility. Why are they receiving that responsibility? And so the why speaks to their title, their character, and the principle around that.

Is it law? Or is it grace that this is given? Then within that, what is the work? What is the domain? So you're entrusted with some set of something. So what is that set? And for those that are within that set, within that domain, what's their responsibility? This is a silly question, but I don't understand what the work of the one receiving the responsibility is. Like what that verbally means.

The job that they're carrying out as part of that responsibility. And how is that different than the arrangement or assignment of responsibility? In this particular example, we may be able to tease those out. So the arrangement or assignment is going to be I'm trying to think of a better way to describe this. So at my job, I have a given assignment of work that I do.

So number one, I have a title. That title comes with a set of responsibilities. And if somebody is talking to me, about a particular one of those responsibilities, then they're not talking about the entirety of it. So the one, I would be the one receiving the responsibility. Title is fancy whiz-bang title. Work of the one receiving it is the embodiment of what that role does. and then arrangement or assignment of responsibility. What's the particular thing that we're talking about here right now? So the assignments are subsets of the work. They would be more like the bullet points? Yes. OK. So let's run through these. So you guys have it in the back of your mind what sort of things we're looking for while we go through this passage? OK.

For this reason, I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus, for the sake of you Gentiles, if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace which was given to me for you, that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief, By referring to this, when you read, you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit. To be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, of which I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace which was given to me according to the working of his power. To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ. and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery, which for ages has been hidden in God, who created all things, so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the Church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which he carried out in Christ Jesus, our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in him.

Therefore, I ask you not to lose heart at my tribulation on your behalf, for they are your glory." So Paul's entrusted with a certain responsibility, isn't he? Who does the entrusting?

God. Okay, and where do you see that in here? Verse 2? No, not verse 2. So you've got a stewardship of God's grace there. Where do you get that God is the one who gave it? Verse 3, by revelation there is made known to me the mystery. Okay. In verse 4, referring to this, when you read, you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ. and then verse 5. Like all the verses is what you're saying? Well it just it keeps digging deeper so we start with God. Oh I'm sorry, Crystal is just sort of walking through each one of the verses and pointing out how Oh, so many of them say, in fact, yes. God is the one who's giving the stewardship.

I was just noting that as you go down, it's almost like it circles closer and closer and closer to be specific. So it goes from God, and then, let's see, there was a revelation. Then there was the understanding and insight, which is, you know, the mystery of Christ. And then now we get to the generations. Now it's becoming more concrete. And it was revealed to his holy apostles. Okay, now we know who, you know, in these generations and the prophets.

So it's just, it appears that it starts from God and then it just keeps working its way into the very specific stewardship and the who's and where's and what's and why's. And I think when you get to verse 7 then it becomes super, super clear, which is, of which I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given to me according to the working of His power. So super abundantly clear, one giving the responsibility is God.

And I wanted to run through that exercise because we need to link. We're trying to understand scripture. We're using a framework for understanding the scripture. We shouldn't just read the passage and then close our eyes and then take this closed book test over here and hope we get it right. It turns out Bible study is an open book all the time, and so now you can link these as you're trying to understand them.

The one or ones receiving the responsibility, where do we see that? Well, in verse 2, it was given to me for you. to me the very least of all saints this great was given to preach the Gentiles. It's kind of all over again. So we get Paul in 2 and 8, is what I heard. We get our apostles and prophets in verse 5. And so these are the ones to whom this was given. The title of the ones receiving, that was in verse 7.

We've got a minister, right? Prisoner of Christ, that's where we started out, that was verse 1. Okay, so we're just pulling out what scripture tells us. We're not making things up as we go through and use this framework to understand the nature of it. Yes ma'am? And then there's an implicit, where did I see it?

There's an implicit stewardship that that we are given because of the prophets and the holy apostles and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Are we partakers of the promise? We are partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. So the point that Crystal's making is that there's an implied stewardship along with the explicit one here that's stated toward the apostles and prophets and Paul to partakers of the promise. Who's that? The church. Believers. That's you. Yeah, I am, personally. Okay, maybe for all of you, too. Yeah.

Okay, so principles of responsibility. He told us in verse 7 that it was according to the gift of God's grace that he was given this stewardship. The objective of receiving it? He is to convey what the grace truths are, and that the Gentiles are heirs. We can match these up with the verses that we've got as well. The domain of responsibility, so who's Paul responsible to? It's toward the Gentiles. And they are called to understand what he's talking about.

So this turns out to be a pretty rare passage in which completely self-contained, you get the answer to every single thing in the framework. Which is great. It doesn't always happen that way. And now you're finding out why I skipped over the Hebrews passage before. So let's skip back. So there are going to be three separate stewardships on page five. So three separate stewardships. One to Moses, one to Christ, and one to God. We'll focus in on the one to Moses just for the purpose of the exercise. But you can certainly go back and look at that. So middle of the page, page five.

Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus the apostle and high priest of our confession. He was faithful to him who appointed him, as Moses also was in all his house. For he has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, but just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. Now Moses was faithful in all his house as a servant for a testimony of these things which were to be spoken later. But Christ was faithful as a son over his house, whose house we are if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end. So let's talk about the one for Moses. So do we know who entrusted Moses with whatever he was entrusted with. Because the builder of all things is God. The one receiving the responsibility? Moses. Alright, that was easy. What was his title? Servant. And which verse do you get that from? Which one? You get it from five.

He was faithful in all his house as a servant. Do you know what the work was? It says testimony of those things which were to be spoken. So his work is testimony. He was faithful as a servant. That faithfulness was a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later. But we don't know. what he was servant over, servant responsible for. We just know that his faithfulness was a testimony. So we don't know.

It's interesting because it says now Moses was faithful in all his, that was God's house, that was his, kind of like what God wanted. So he was a servant of a specific entrusted household. He was. So Crystal's pointing out that Moses was a faithful servant of a household with which he was entrusted.

And for those ones where we have blanks, could those answers be found elsewhere and have them clearly brought in? Yes, it does seem as though other places in scripture might help us fill in some of those other blanks. But we do know the domain of his responsibility. It's over the house that was given. We just don't know what their responsibilities were or what the day-to-day work looked like that came in as part of that. Go somewhere else.

Fortunately, the entire Bible is not six verses in Hebrews, and so we can go hunting and figure out how to fill in the rest of the blanks. Alright. So, I think we have about three or four minutes. and look on page 12 and 13, homework. So talking earlier about Joseph and Potiphar's house, we've got the relevant nine verses that will tell us the answer to some of the questions. We'll have to figure out if it gives us all of the questions. I'm just seeing if we've got enough. Alright, so, really quick, remember the questions we're trying to answer.

So we've got, now, Joseph had been taken down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an Egyptian officer of Pharaoh and captain of the bodyguard, brought him from the Ishmaelites, who had taken him down there. The Lord was with Joseph, so he became a successful man.

And he was in the house of his master, the Egyptian. And the master saw that the Lord was with him and how the Lord caused all that he did to prosper in his hand. So Joseph found favor in his sight and became his personal servant. And he made him overseer over his house. And all that he owned, he put in his charge. It came about from the time he made him overseer in his house, and over all that he owned. The Lord blessed the Egyptian house on account of Joseph. Thus the Lord's blessing was upon all that he owned, in the house and in the field.

So he left everything he owned in Joseph's charge, and with him there he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate. So we need, by the way, we all need somebody like that in our house. Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance, and we're going to find out that Potiphar's wife made some bad life decisions based upon that. But just skipping ahead, Joseph's response to that is, behold, With me here, my master does not concern himself with anything in the house, and he has put all that he owns in my charge.

There's no one greater in this house than I, and he has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great evil and sin against God? Who's the one giving responsibility? Ultimately, it's God. In this particular example, wouldn't it be Potiphar? So verse 3, 2, 3. Oh, I didn't put verse numbers on there. That'll make it more challenging for you.

Potiphar is the one doing the entrusting. But Joseph very clearly recognizes that the stewardship is actually from God. And to violate that stewardship would be to violate, to sin against God. Is it the part it came about from that time he made overseer of his house in Oberolio and the Lord blessed the Egyptian house on account of Joseph?

Yes. Okay. Alright. So the one receiving the responsibility is Joseph. That's easy to fill in. His title? His new title was overseer. I believe his older one was servant. And became his personal servant. And it sounds like Joseph is his personal servant. Within Joseph being trustworthy as a personal servant, he continued to be a personal servant, only was promoted to overseer over everything. Crystal's making the point that started as servant, promoted to overseer. Okay. And that was the second bell, so just one more question. What was the domain of his responsibility? Everything but Potiphar's wife. Right. Yeah.

So I'll let you guys fill in the rest of those, and if you look at page 13, yay, Another example that you guys can work through to understand how to approach this. Question for you. So we've only talked about stewardships that we see in the Bible with people who also happen to be in the Bible. Do we have stewardship? Yes. Yes, we do. OK.

Name a couple. parents of their children? So we're parents of our children. So surprise, these folks here are not my children, they're God's. They're on loan to me and I get to take care of them. It's a tremendous honor that is this stewardship. Did you have your hand raised? What did you say? Siblings? Siblings and what's what's the stewardship there? To love one another point them at Christ Yeah, how about the building up of the church body are we do we have a stewardship to each other? Their bodies We have a stewardship over our body, and what's that? Well, it's the vessel of God, so we really shouldn't trash it. It's the vessel of God, so we shouldn't trash it. So then, when Christ says, well done, good and faithful servant, he's probably referring to your accomplishment in your stewardship, right? Yeah.

That's a great way of looking at it. You can even expand that to the beam of judgment and rewards would be hinged to your stewardships as well, right? Even though he doesn't specifically lay them out, you have to more or less figure out which stewardships you are given, correct? And he does lay some out pretty clearly. Sometimes your stewardship changes throughout your life. you're a sibling, you're a mother, you're a grandmother. That changes over time. That's a really good point. So for example, when I was five, did I have a stewardship over my parents? No. Now that would be weird, right? But when I'm 60 and they're in their late 80s, early 90s, do I have a stewardship toward my parents? Yes. Yeah, so some of these relationships and stewardships, they change over time. And you connect that to what Pat said earlier about John and Mary, because that only began when Christ gave that stewardship to John. Yeah, that's right.

Close this, because we're so far past the second bell. Golly, thank you for entrusting us with things and stuff. It's amazing that you would do that. Thank you for your word and for its clarity and its vastness and the fact that we don't have to just sort of try to figure out things really hard in our heads, but that you gave us your word so that we could know you. It's in Jesus' name I pray. Amen.