There are many metaphors for the pastor in the New Testament. He is compared to a shepherd, farmer, soldier, and a workmen to note a few. One often overlooked metaphor is the pastor as steward. The New Testament uses metaphors because they are a powerful communication tool that illicit a visual response in the readers mind and make a simple connection to clarify and sharpen the thing to which they are compared. The image not only invokes information but emotion.
Although, there are many metaphors in the pastoral epistles, I would argue the controlling or dominating picture is the estate stewardship metaphor. Paul states his purpose and his occasion in 1 Timothy 3:14, “I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of truth.” Paul’s reason for writing is that he is concerned he may be delayed in coming to see Timothy and needs to make Timothy aware of what the church should be doing at Ephesus. The purpose of the letter is to stand in place of Paul himself to provide instruction how people are to behave in God’s house.
It is the introduction of this metaphor, the church as God’s household, that would strike the original reader. Modern households are anything but structured or uniformed, but first-century households conformed to strict rules according to the household code. Specifically, Paul is communicating specific instructions as one in authority to a subordinate.
The Apostle Paul was writing to Timothy to entrust a deposit that Timothy was then to steward according to the instructions of the letter. This stewardship language of “entrust” is used multiple times in Pauls’ epistles. Robert Yarbrough writes:
This being “entrusted” is a significant marker across a sweep of Paul’s writings: as a Jew whose race had long been “entrusted with the very words of God” (Rom 3:2), Paul via Christ’s calling had gone a giant step further: he had been entrusted with a stewardship (1 Cor 9:17), with “the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised” (Gal 2:7), “with the gospel” (1 Thess 2:4), and with “the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God” (1 Tim 1:11).The Letters to Timothy and Titus, ed. D. A. Carson, Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; London: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company; Apollos, 2018), 473.
The same word is used in Titus 1:3, “And at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior.” Paul’s emphasis on this metaphor shows its importance for understanding the nature of ministry as a stewardship. Modern readers have a grasp on the meaning in the English, but to truly understand the text one must examine what it meant to Timothy.
Estate owners in the Roman Empire would live in the city and travel infrequently to their farm estates. Agents commissioned by the owners would be sent each year to check on the health of estate. This is the picture Jesus uses in Matthew 21:33-46 where he illustrates Israel’s rejection of Him as the Messiah. Israel was not a faithful steward. Faithlessness was not uncommon in overseers and stewards, and corruption was encouraged by the vast distances and lack of accountability between the owner and the stewards. Columella, a prominent writer on agriculture in the Roman empire, notes,
“On far off estates, to which visits by the owner are not easy…Slaves damage grain land very seriously. They rent out oxen; they do not feed them or the other animals well…They record sowing of far more seed than they have actually sown…They lessen the total amount [of harvested seed] by outright dishonesty or by carelessness. They themselves even steal it, and the certainly do not guard against theft by others. And they don’t even record the amount of grain honestly in their account book. The result is that both overseer and slaves commit crimes, and the land quite often gets a bad reputation.”Jo-Ann Shelton, As the Romans Did: A Sourcebook in Roman Social History, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 156.
It is interesting to see the connection between overseer and slave and how the household or land can earn a bad reputation because of poor stewardship. In the church, one can see the connection between Paul’s concern for qualified overseers and deacons.
Next week, we will dive deeper into how Paul employs this picture in his instruction in 1 Timothy and Lord willingly, arrive at a sharper view of the pastor as steward in the church today and the importance of faithfully executing his responsibilities.