1 Corinthians 4:2 · Symbol · Stewardship
The Word Oikonomos
The Greek oikonomos names the manager of a household, and the New Testament gives the word to apostles, overseers and every believer.
In two verses of one parable Jesus used all three Greek words for the steward, his office and his work.
Now it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.
- The word
- οἰκονόμος (oikonomos), G3623
- First appears
- Luke 12:42 “And the Lord answered, “Who then is the…”
Summary
Oikonomos is the Greek noun for the man set over a household or an estate to manage it for its owner. Its companion oikonomia names his office and its administration, and the verb oikonomeo names the work itself. Jesus used the words in parables of a master's goods, and Paul and Peter carried them from the household into the church.
- In the Greek world the household manager was usually a slave or a freedman, trusted with what belonged to his master.
- Jesus used the word of a manager who must answer to his master for the household placed under him.
- Paul used the noun for the office, oikonomia, of his own commission to preach the gospel.
The Word and Its Family
Luke's Gospel gives the word its first use in the order of the canon and its fullest use, in the parable of the shrewd manager.
This study follows the Greek noun oikonomos, the steward, through the verses of the New Testament, with the noun oikonomia for his office and the verb oikonomeo for his work. Stewardship is one of the values Scripture asks of every believer, and this word is the one the apostles chose when they described themselves and the church as stewards.
The question this study answers is what the word meant to the people who first heard it, and how Jesus and the apostles used it. The study gives the counts of the three words and shows who held the office in a Greek or Roman house. It then follows the word into the church and closes with the caution that the parts of a word do not set its sense.
And the Lord answered, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their portion at the proper time?It stands here because Jesus' question about the faithful manager opens the word's story.
So he called him in to ask, ‘What is this I hear about you? Turn in an account of your management, for you cannot be manager any longer.’It stands here because the master's demand for an account is the turn on which the parable moves.
Where the Words Stand
Two nouns and a verb stand in nine books of the New Testament, from Luke to 1 Peter.
The three words stand twenty times in eighteen verses, and eight of the twenty are in Luke's Gospel.
| Word | Sense (Tyndale House lexicon) | Rows | Verses | Books | Rendered in the Berean text |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| oikonomos, οἰκονόμος, G3623, noun | manager | 10 | 10 | Luke 4, 1 Corinthians 2, Romans, Galatians, Titus and 1 Peter one each | manager, stewards, steward, trustees, treasurer |
| oikonomia, οἰκονομία, G3622, noun | management | 9 | 9 | Luke 3, Ephesians 3, 1 Corinthians, Colossians and 1 Timothy one each | management, position, responsibility, plan, stewardship, commission |
| oikonomeo, οἰκονομέω, G3621, verb | to manage | 1 | 1 | Luke alone | be manager |
The counts follow the STEP Bible tagging of the Greek New Testament, where a verse that uses two of the words holds a row for each.
Stewards of God
Abbott-Smith's second sense carries the word from the household into the church.
Abbott-Smith gives the word a second, metaphorical sense, “an administrator, a steward”, with three verses. Paul wrote that “men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Corinthians 4:1).
As God’s steward, an overseer must be above reproach—not self-absorbed, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not greedy for money.It stands here because the qualities Paul asks of an overseer are those of a man trusted with another's house.
As good stewards of the manifold grace of God, each of you should use whatever gift he has received to serve one another.It stands here because Peter writes it to churches he has just told that the end of all things is near.
Do the Parts of the Word Give Its Meaning?
Strong's, Clarke and Barnes trace the word to the household, and Ephesians 1:10 uses it of God's purpose.
Strong's gloss calls the oikonomos “a house-distributor”, and Clarke derived the word “from οικος, a house, or οικια, a family, and νεμω, I administer”. The parts fit the manager of a house. They do not fit every use of oikonomia, for which Strong's adds the special sense of a religious “economy”.
as a plan for the fullness of time, to bring all things in heaven and on earth together in Christ.It stands here because the Berean text gives the noun no household sense in this verse.
Albert Barnes, in his Notes on Ephesians 1:10, wrote that the word means properly “the management of household affairs”. He went on, “Then it means stewardship or administration; a dispensation or arrangement of things: a scheme or plan”.
The Household Manager
The oikonomos ran another man's house or estate, and a city could have one over its treasury.
Abbott-Smith's lexicon defines the word's first sense as “the manager of a household or estate”. Adam Clarke, in his Commentary on Luke 16:1 (1832), described him as one who “superintends domestic concerns, and ministers to the support of the family”.
He is subject to guardians and trustees until the date set by his father.It stands here because Paul uses the household's trustees to picture life under the law before God sent His Son.
Oikonomia, the Steward's Office
The noun for the office runs from a manager's post in Luke to Paul's commission and God's own plan.
Abbott-Smith gives oikonomia two senses: first “the office of οἰκονόμος”, as in Luke 16:2 to 4, and then, in later writers, “administration, dispensation”. Paul used it of his own call: “if it is not voluntary, I am still entrusted with a responsibility” (1 Corinthians 9:17).
He wrote of “the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you” (Ephesians 3:2) and of “the commission God gave me to fully proclaim to you the word of God” (Colossians 1:25). He warned Timothy against speculation “rather than the stewardship of God’s work, which is by faith” (1 Timothy 1:4).
Voices on the Steward
Two voices, of the fourth century and the eighteenth, read the good steward and his reward.
died 397 · Ambrose of Milan
Ambrose stands here for Paul as the pattern of a good steward.
Read the page on Ambrose of Milan
“Blessed is that innkeeper who can care for another's wounds. Blessed is he to whom Jesus says, ‘Whatever you shall spend over and above, I will repay you.’ A good steward is one who also spends over and above. Paul is a good steward, whose sermons and epistles overflow with the knowledge that he received. He followed the moderate command of the Lord with almost immoderate effort of mind and body, so that he raised many from deep sorrow by the stewardship of spiritual exhortation.”
Ambrose of Milan · Commentary on Luke · on Luke 10:35Patristic
1662 to 1714 · Matthew Henry
Matthew Henry stands here for the steward's reward, set against Abraham's steward in Genesis 15.
Read the page on Matthew Henry
“It is the joy of our Lord, for it is joy in the Lord, who is our exceeding joy. Abraham was not willing that the steward of his house, though faithful, should be his heir ( Gen. xv. 3 ); but Christ admits his faithful stewards into his own joy, to be joint-heirs with him.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Matthew 25:21 to 23Puritan
A Steward Found Faithful
Every use of the word sets the steward under the eye of the one he serves.
In each of its uses the oikonomos answers to another for what he holds.
Blessed is that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns.It closes the study because Luke sets this blessing directly after the word's first use.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- STEP Bible TBESG glosses (Tyndale House, Cambridge, CC BY 4.0), the Greek senses based on Abbott-Smith (1922), with the Strong's definitions (1890) the rows carry.
- STEP Bible, Translators Amalgamated Greek New Testament, the tagged text (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0.
- G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), the entries for oikonomos and oikonomia.
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible (1832), on Luke 16:1.
- Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on Ephesians 1:10.
- Ambrose of Milan, Commentary on Luke, on Luke 10:35.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on Matthew 25:21 to 23.
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