Mystery of Stewardship
by Dr. Lloyd T. Anderson, Pastor Bethany Baptist Church, West Covina, California
T h e mysteries of the New Testament are wonderful to behold and mer it our deepest study! Ephesians 3:6 to wit, that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs, and fellow-members of the body, and fellow-partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. In these words the mystery is summed up: it was God’s eternal purpose. Bennett, “Paul says, that the Gentiles should be joint-heirs (Gk. synklemomos) of an inheritance on which they had no claim by birth; ‘concorporate’ (Gk. syssomos, a Pauline coinage) with their brethren of Jewish origin in the living unity of the body of Christ; joint-sharers (Gk. symmetochos, cf. 5. 7) in those covenant-promises from which they had once been excluded (Eph. 2:12). And these unlooked-for privileges which God designed for them in ages past have now been made good to them ‘in Christ Jesus through the gospel’.” 3:7 Whereof 1 was made a minister, according to the gift of that grace of God which was given me according to the working of his power. Compare the last clause of Col. 1:23, ‘the hope of the gospel, . . . whereof I Paul was made a minister’. There as here ‘Where of’ means ‘of the gospel’; but here Paul is thinking especially of his steward ship of the mystery just unfolded. All God’s servants have gifts differing ac cording to the grace given to them (Rom. 12:6); but Paul glorified his personal ministry as an apostle of Gen tiles (Rom. 11:13). That he of all peo ple should be chosen for this service was to him a matter for unending wonder and praise; it was a manifest token of the working of God’s power —and he uses language similar to that which he used in Eph. 1:19 f. when he spoke of the display of God’s power
in raising of Christ from the dead. And rightly so; it was that resurrection- power working in Paul that enabled him to accomplish what he did in bringing God’s gracious purpose to fruition among the Gentiles. 3:8 Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach unto the Gentiles the un- A REACHING HAND The day was long, the burden I had borne, Seemed heavier than I could longer bear, And then it lifted— but I did not know Some one had knelt in prayer. Had taken me to God that very hour. And asked the easing of the load, and He, In infinite compassion, had stooped down And taken it from me. We can not tell how often as we pray For some bewildered one, hurt and distressed The answer comes — but many times those hearts Find sudden peace and rest. Some one had prayed, and Faith, a reaching hand, Took hold of God, and brought Him down that day! So many, many hearts have need of prayer— Oh, let us pray. searchable riches of Christ. That Paul of all people should have been chosen as chief steward of the mystery of Christ was something which made him marvel the more he thought about it. In an earlier epistle he had called himself ‘the least of the apostles, . . not meet to be called an apos-
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