Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohio
Economy refers to the administration in God's house to minister the riches of Christ to God's children. To this end the apostles were given a stewardship, which is the office of this administration to minister, shepherd, teach, preach the gospel, etc. for the household of God.
|
Also stewardship means to give [dispense] things: food to hungry people, shelter to the dispossessed, healing to the sick, care to the lonely, clothing to those shivering with cold. Stewardship means to share. The NT is full of this theme, from the gospels onward. In NT times there were no social services. Widows starved, sick people had no hospitals. Orphans ended up in some bad place. There were no "human rights". What Jesus taught, that the strong should help the weak and not prey on them, to share with those who couldn't repay you, was revolutionary. Still is.
Paul's letters continually mention the collection for the poor of Jerusalem, and in 2 Cor 8 he goes into lengths about it. "Those who gathered much had no excess, those who gathered little had no lack." In Acts, people sold their possessions and laid them at the feet of the apostles who distributed [dispensed] them (4:35); they held possessions in common (2:44). This was God's economy, which is in faith.
I remember being told by WL or RK or someone, that if I just went to the back of the meeting and dozed off, I'd wake up with "more God" than when I arrived. That, to them, was the "dispensing" in God's economy. The "much more saved by his life" wasn't obedience or righteousness but in the LC was rather called "dispositional sanctification" which meant if you just hung out with WL you got "more God".
And if you bought his books, said, "Amen" every time he spoke, sat up front and pumped your fist - "exercise your spirit, brother!" - well wowee zowee you got the express elevator to the top. More God, more God, more God! Amen! A selfish, me-first view, in which you didn't have to love anyone, didn't have to give to the poor and dispossessed, didn't have to visit the sick. Just hang out on the "local ground" and get the "dispensing" and then get ''sonized''.
Which one makes more sense - An economy/stewardship in which your orientation is to serve others, or a self-focused one that "makes you God in life and nature but not the Godhead"? Remember Jesus' teaching: "Do unto others" and "love your neighbour"? If you focus on self, is that really the way of Jesus?
In Acts 12:25 Barnabas and Paul finished the "diakonon" in Jerusalem and returned to Antioch, taking with them John Mark.
Diakonon means "service" or "dispensing". What were Barnabas and Paul doing there? Pray-reading? No, they were dispensing the goods from Antioch to the hungry people of Jerusalem. (See Acts 11:27-30)
"Eating Jesus is the Way"? Or, "Jesus is the Way"? I don't think they're two aspects of the same thing, rather they're diametrically opposed. The first is self-oriented, the second is other-oriented. Barnabas and Paul were aligned with the NT orientation: love your neighbour - the other person - as yourself. Love is doing unto others, not pray-reading or listening to a message. Love is dispensing unto others - not just flattery. ~James 2:16; 1:22.