Proverbs 3.9-10
“Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine.”
If you are a Christian, you have heard many messages about tithing and giving. Every church encourages and admonishes the congregation to give generously to support “the work of the Lord” through the church. The same is true for other ministry organizations.
I think the message is much deeper than simply giving to support the ministry. Yes, the people of Israel were directed by the Law to support the priesthood and the temple through giving the firstfruits of what they produced. And although it is not to be a legalistic commandment, the core principle of giving to support the ministry carries over into the New Testament. But there is a larger principle at work here: The Prime Directive.
The Prime Directive is found in Genesis 1:28: “And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”
God created man in His image (morally, functionally, and relationally), then gave man the assignment of ruling over and managing the earth as God’s ambassadors. In other words, the earth belongs to God the Creator, and we are given the assignment of overseeing the earth as God’s stewards. A steward is someone who oversees and manages something that is owned by someone else.
That is the Prime Directive: Have dominion and manage the earth as stewards of the Creator, and fulfill that stewardship responsibility in a way that reflects the moral, functional, and relational image of God. The primary way this is accomplished is work. Daily labor and work.
Under the Prime Directive, we don’t give to the Lord only a portion of what we produce; rather, everything we do and produce belongs to the Lord. We are, after all, stewards, not owners. He owns the fields that we cultivate and the forests that we hunt. He are simply the stewards who oversee the fields and forests so that the Lord receives the fruit of what belongs to him.
Note also that part of the Prime Directive is “be fruitful and multiply.” Fulfilling the command to have dominion over the earth was not something that Adam and Eve could accomplish on their own. It would require a community of people, a variety of organizations and institutions, and a diversity of job responsibilities. Everyone would be given work to do, and they were expected to be disciplined and productive in their work.
Genesis 3 records Adam and Eve’s disobedience, and the result was the derailment of the Prime Directive. The Lord established the people of Israel as the OT covenant community who would again embody the Prime Directive, and through whom would come the Messiah who created an eternal covenant community.
The NT covenant community is redeemed by Christ to restore what God had commanded Adam and Eve to do: have dominion on earth as stewards of God the Creator. In other words, the Prime Directive. As followers of Christ, everything we do and everything we produce should be seen as part of the Prime Directive. The Lord calls you to do your daily work as an act of stewardship is response to his call on your life.
Don’t give the Lord 10% of what you earn. Give the Lord everything. How you deploy and invest and use what you produce is a matter of wisdom, which is the very purpose of the book of Proverbs. It is a matter of resource allocation. Here is what a faithful steward asks: “How should I invest my master’s resources in order to get the best return? How should I do my daily work in a way that maximizes production and glorifies God?”
That is the mindset of Christian who is living the Prime Directive. Writing a check to your church or ministry is easy. Living all of your life, doing all of your work, and viewing all of what you produce as belonging to the Lord is an altogether different matter.
The blessing for stewardship is clear: “Your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine.” This is not an absolute promise, at least not in this current age. When Christ returns this promise will be fulfilled for every believer. In the meantime, it is a classic Proverbs promise … a general principle that is true most of the time for most people.
