LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1981, Page 94

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94 ESSAYS ON STEWARDSHIP

Turn with me to Ephesians 4:11 and 12. “And He
gave some to be apostles.” They were gifts of the Lord to
the church. The apostles were unique. They were eye-
witnesses of the Lord and His resurrection. They had
supernatural gifts. Their area of influence was the
“whole world” in that sense. They had gifts necessary to
establish the church. They did a good job. God gave
“apostles.”

“To them were added “prophets,” people from the
Old Testament who had spoken of the Messiah, and
prophets in the New Testament speaking forth the Good
News, the good message.

“There were “evangelists” given to the church,
people not normally attached to a particular congrega-
tion, but who went about preaching the Good News and
otherwise building up the church.

And some were “pastors and teachers,” people
assigned to local congregations, called the local
churches, who watched over their flocks. Pastors who
were teachers because they communicated divine know-
ledge. To what end?

“For the perfecting of the saints.” The ultimate end
is the perfecting of the saints. Not just the bettering of
civilizaton, but the building of the kingdom of God. As
the leaders of the church function, they are to serve, not
as lords, but as servants of Christ Himself. The sign of
that leadership is the towel, as Jesus washed the feet of
His disciples.

The holy strategy of the church then must be built
around this centralizing principle of a dynamic laity led
by aserving ministry. A ministry that “ministers to the
priests” so that the priests can evangelize the world for
Christ. To summarize then, every baptized Christian is
a priest of God.

The pastor, a doubly ordained person, the first
ordination being baptism in that sense, is primarily
charged with charging the priests. The work of the
priesthood must be spiritually guided and evangelically
accomplished. And the great periods of Christian
influence and expansion have been periods when
informed, Biblicaly-oriented, Spirit-moved clergy and
laity worked hand in hand for the extension of the
Kingdom.

Now let’s look at the varying gifts that God gives and
what He expects of us. Let’s look at Matthew 25:14-30
together.

“The kingdom of heaven is as a man traveling intoa
far country.” The man being the Lord about to withdraw
His presence from the earth to ascend into heaven. Here
He represents Himself as a man going into a foreign
country. He is putting his affairs in order and giving
instructions to his servants.

“He calls the one and gives him “five talents, to
another two, to another one, to every man according to
his several abilities.” God knows what we can accom-
plish. He doesn’t expect more than we can accomplish,
but He does expect faithfulness; He does expect us to
employ His grace to His glory.

Whatever natural powers we possess, and the
opportunities of exercising and improving them are the

gifts of God, and they are delivered to us to be put out to
investors in that sense. So the Master gave the gifts, and
the man who had five went out quickly. He understood
that these were not his possessions, they were to be
invested on the master’s behalf, and for his gain, andhe “
doubled his investment. :

“And likewise he that had received two” doubled his
investment. The person who had received one went and
didn’t do something overtly evil, he merely failed to do
that which was good. As many people then and now, he
took the treasure and buried it in the ground. He
recognized that it was not his own to treat as he liked; it
still belonged to the master and was entrusted to his
care, but he just stashed it away.

After a long time the master came back to reckon
with them. There is always that time when the Lord
asks, “What have you done with the gifts I have given
you?”

He that received five talents happily and joyously
came back and said, “I have five more. And the Lord
said, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have
been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler
over many. Enter into the joy of the Lord.’”

So also the one who had two had doubled his
investment. He didn’t get four or five, but he did get two.
Each of us is to search our hearts to see how we can
multiply what we have. And he was also invited to enter
into the joy of the Lord. Fidelity to the call that we have
received—that is what God is asking of each of us. Then
he comes—this last one who comes back with the one,
with no joy and confidence in what he has done.

He blames his lack of activity on a distorted view of
the master. He says, “You were a hard man, | was afraid .
of you. You are the kind of person that reaps when you
haven’t sown, and gathers when you have not planted. I-
was afraid, so J just held it in the ground.”

The master for the sake of argument said, “If I amas |
you describe, then all the more reason for you to have
done something with it. If I am as you described, then °
you certainly did not act consistently. You should have ;
taken your money—with less effort than digging in the *
ground—to the bankers” (with the rate from time to time *
being anywhere from 4 to 40 percent).

Summing up his assessment, he said to that servant,
“You wicked and unprofitable servant, go into darkness
That which you have will be taken away.” So the whole 3
parable is a call to faithfulness in investing God’s gifts

Now we can’t divide talent and ability from the :
matter of the prioritizing of time. The holy written Wor
says in the Psalm, ‘Teach us to number our days tha
we may apply our hearts unto wisdom” (90:12).

Henry Luce many years ago was casting about for
name for his new magazine, a magazine that would be‘:
built around the news events of the day and of the week. ©:
After much discussion and experimentation, he decided «
to call his new magazine Time magazine. Time -
magazine went on to become one of the most successful :
publishing ventures in all of printing history because it +
revolved around one of the most important of subjects
how people pass their time and invest their ability.