Umar kept a blue folder on the top shelf of his wardrobe in Kaduna, and nobody in the house was allowed to touch it.
It belonged, in a sense, to his uncle. His father’s elder brother, a doctor, had left Nigeria twenty years earlier to work as a physician in Manchester, but before he went he had built a small block of four flats in Barnawa. When Umar finished his teacher training, his uncle had called him in and handed him a bunch of keys. “You are my eyes here,” he said. “Collect the rent. Look after the building. Tell me the truth about everything.”
Umar took the charge seriously. On the first of each month he visited the tenants. He wrote every payment in a receipt book and kept the carbon copy. When the borehole pump failed, he got three quotes before he hired a plumber, and he photographed the old pump and the new one. When the roof leaked during the rainy season, he climbed up himself to check that the repair had been done properly. Every month he sent his uncle a WhatsApp message with a summary: rent received, expenses paid, balance transferred, and photographs of the receipts. In eleven years, he had never spent a kobo of the rent on himself.
His own finances were another story. He taught mathematics at a government secondary school, and his salary disappeared each month in ways he could not explain. He owed the provision store at the junction. He had borrowed from a colleague, a cheerful man named Taiwo, and had not mentioned it for four months. His widowed mother in Zaria received money from him when he remembered, and his late brother’s two children had been sent home from school twice that year because their fees had not been paid. He gave in church when he had cash in his pocket. He had no idea what he earned in a year, what he owed, or where the money went.
Then the doctor came home for the Christmas holidays. On his second evening in Kaduna he sat in Umar’s parlour with the blue folder on his lap and went through it page by page. It took him over an hour. When he finished, he closed it and looked at his nephew for a long moment.
“You have kept my house better than I keep my own,” he said. Umar smiled with pleasure. Then his uncle asked one more question, quite gently. “And your own house, Umar? Do you keep it like this?”
Umar had no answer.
Everything has been entrusted
The word steward is not used much in everyday Nigerian English, but the idea is familiar to every one of us. A steward is a person who manages what belongs to someone else. The house help who is given money for the market, the driver who is handed the company car, the caretaker who collects rent for a landlord abroad, the cashier at the bank: each one handles resources that are not his own, and each one will be asked to give an account.
Scripture teaches that this is the position of every human being before God. “The earth is the LORD’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein” (Psalm 24:1). Nothing we hold is ultimately ours. When King David gathered an enormous offering for the building of the temple, he prayed a prayer that sets the whole matter in its true light:
Thine, O LORD , is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O LORD , and thou art exalted as head above all. Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest over all; and in thine hand is power and might; and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all. Now therefore, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name. But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee.
“For all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee.” David was the wealthiest man in Israel. The people had just given gold, silver, bronze, iron and precious stones in staggering amounts. And David’s response was not pride at their generosity but wonder that God had allowed them to give anything at all. “But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort?” Even our giving is a return of what God first gave.
Stewardship begins here. Umar had understood perfectly that the rent from Barnawa was not his. What he had never grasped was that his own salary was entrusted too. So were his health, his skills as a teacher, his time, his relationships and his family responsibilities. A believer does not own a portion of his life and give the rest to God. He holds the whole of it as a steward.
Paul uses this language of himself and his fellow ministers: “Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful” (1 Corinthians 4:1-2). The Greek word is oikonomos, the manager of a household. In wealthy homes of the ancient world, the steward was often a trusted servant who ran the whole estate: buying supplies, paying workers, keeping records and making decisions on behalf of his master. He was not required to be brilliant. He was required to be faithful.
The book of Genesis gives us a picture of what faithful stewardship can look like. Joseph was sold as a slave into the household of Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh:
And Joseph found grace in his sight, and he served him: and he made him overseer over his house, and all that he had he put into his hand. And it came to pass from the time that he had made him overseer in his house, and over all that he had, that the LORD blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake; and the blessing of the LORD was upon all that he had in the house, and in the field. And he left all that he had in Joseph’s hand; and he knew not ought he had, save the bread which he did eat. And Joseph was a goodly person , and well favoured.
Notice that Joseph’s stewardship brought blessing to the whole household. “The LORD blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake.” Potiphar trusted him so completely that he “knew not ought he had, save the bread which he did eat.” He had to know the state of nothing, because Joseph knew the state of everything. That is the kind of trust Umar had earned from his uncle. It is also the kind of faithfulness God looks for in His people.
A parable about a shrewd steward
Jesus told a strange story about a steward who was dishonest. His master heard that he had been wasting his goods and gave him notice: “give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward” (Luke 16:2). Realising that he was about to lose his position, the man called in his master’s debtors one by one and reduced their bills, so that they would welcome him into their homes when he was out of work.
Then comes the surprising line: “And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely” (Luke 16:8). Jesus is not praising the man’s dishonesty. He calls him “unjust.” What He commends is his foresight. The steward knew that a day of reckoning was coming, and he used the resources in his hand to prepare for it. “For the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.” Worldly people often think more carefully about money than believers do. They plan, calculate and look ahead. Jesus wants His disciples to be at least as thoughtful about eternal things.
Then He draws out the lesson about everyday faithfulness:
He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches ? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who shall give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
“He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much.” Jesus calls money “that which is least.” It is not the most important thing in the world. The “true riches” are spiritual: the kingdom, the knowledge of God, the souls of people, the life of the age to come. But money is a training ground. How we handle the small thing reveals how we would handle the large thing. A man who cannot be trusted with a few thousand naira will not suddenly become trustworthy with a few million.
“And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who shall give you that which is your own?” Here is the steward’s mindset. Our money is “another man’s,” entrusted to us for a season. Faithfulness in managing what belongs to God is the path to receiving what He will one day give us as our own.
And Jesus ends where He ended in the Sermon on the Mount: “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” A steward serves his master by managing his master’s goods. If he begins to treat the goods as his master, everything is turned upside down.
PunchlineStewardship begins the moment you stop asking, “How much of my money should I give to God?” and start asking, “How should I manage God’s money?”
Know the state of your flocks
The first practical task of a steward is to tell the truth about what has been entrusted to him. Proverbs puts it in the language of a farmer:
Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds. For riches are not for ever: and doth the crown endure to every generation? The hay appeareth, and the tender grass sheweth itself, and herbs of the mountains are gathered. The lambs are for thy clothing, and the goats are the price of the field. And thou shalt have goats’ milk enough for thy food, for the food of thy household, and for the maintenance for thy maidens.
“Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds.” A wise farmer knows his animals. He counts them. He notices when one is sick or missing. He knows which ewes will lamb this season and how much grazing remains. He does not leave it to chance or rely on a vague impression. And the reason is given: “For riches are not for ever.” Resources that are not watched over will slip away.
This is one of the most neglected parts of financial life in many Christian homes. We pray for provision, but we do not know how much has already been provided. We ask God for increase, but we cannot say what we earned last year. We sense that money is short, but we have never written down where it goes.
A truthful account has two sides. The first is what has been received. What comes in each month, from every source? Salary, business profits, the side job, gifts from family, rent, allowances. Many people, especially traders and the self-employed, have never separated their business money from their household money, and so they cannot tell whether the business is actually making a profit. Write it down. Know the real figures, not the hoped-for ones.
The second side is what is owed. This is the part we often avoid. What do I owe to others? Debts to friends, to the shop, to the cooperative, to the bank or a loan app. Promises I have made: the contribution I pledged to my cousin’s wedding, the money I said I would send to my mother. Obligations that come with my position: rent, school fees, taxes, the salaries of anyone who works for me. Scripture is clear that what is owed must be honoured. “Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it” (Proverbs 3:27). A steward who spends freely while his debts and duties go unpaid is not managing well, however generous he may appear.
When Umar finally sat down to do this for himself, it took him three evenings. He discovered that he had been spending almost a fifth of his salary on things he could not remember buying. He listed what he owed, to the provision store, to Taiwo, and to his brother’s children’s school. Seeing it all on paper was painful. But he said afterwards that it was the first time in years he had felt that he was looking at his life honestly.
Managing well in hard times
Knowing the figures is only the beginning. A steward must then manage what he knows. In the Nigerian economy, that is not easy. Prices rise faster than salaries. The naira has lost a great deal of its value. Many families are stretched beyond what they thought possible. Good management will not solve every problem, but poor management will make every problem worse.
A few principles can help.
Plan before the month begins. A simple budget is nothing more than a decision, made in advance, about where the money will go. Begin with the fixed obligations: rent, school fees, transport, food, debts. Then decide on giving and saving. Then see what remains for everything else. When prices change, revise the plan. A budget written once and never looked at again will not help you.
Keep records. Receipts, bank statements, transfer confirmations, the ajo card. In an age of POS payments and mobile transfers, money can leave your account in so many small amounts that you never notice it going. Look at your statement every week. Know where the leaks are.
Separate the different kinds of money. If you run a business, keep its money apart from the household money, and pay yourself a regular amount. If you are holding money for someone else, such as a contribution group, a family levy or a church project, keep it apart from your own and record every naira. Umar never mixed his uncle’s rent with his salary. That one habit had protected his integrity for eleven years.
Do not hide from the truth. If the figures show that you are spending more than you earn, that is painful knowledge, but it is useful. It means something must change: an expense cut, a new source of income sought, a debt renegotiated, a conversation with a spouse or family member. Pretending will not make the problem smaller. “A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished” (Proverbs 22:3).
And bring the whole matter to God. Stewardship is not a technique that replaces prayer. It is a way of honouring the Owner. Pray over your budget. Ask for wisdom. Thank Him for every provision, however small.
Those of his own house
Stewardship carries particular responsibilities toward those who depend on us. Paul addressed this in instructions about the care of widows in the church at Ephesus:
But if any widow have children or nephews, let them learn first to shew piety at home, and to requite their parents: for that is good and acceptable before God. Now she that is a widow indeed, and desolate, trusteth in God, and continueth in supplications and prayers night and day. But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth. And these things give in charge, that they may be blameless. But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.
The context is the church’s support for widows. Paul distinguishes between “widows indeed,” women who had no family to support them and depended on God and the church, and widows who had children or grandchildren. For the second group, the family had the first responsibility. “Let them learn first to shew piety at home, and to requite their parents.” To requite means to repay. Children who were cared for by their parents are now to care for them in return, and Paul calls this “good and acceptable before God.”
Then comes the strongest statement: “But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.” That is a startling sentence. Paul says that a believer who neglects his own family is behaving worse than an unbeliever, because even many unbelievers care for their families. Providing for dependants is not an optional extra to Christian faith. It is part of what faith looks like.
This speaks powerfully into Nigerian life, where family obligations are heavy and real. Many believers support aged parents, younger siblings, nephews and nieces, and relatives in the village. Some call it black tax, and it can feel crushing. Scripture honours it. Caring for those of your own house is a godly act, and it belongs in the steward’s budget as a planned responsibility, not an afterthought paid only when there is something left over.
At the same time, stewardship brings wisdom to these obligations. “Those of his own house” begins with your immediate household: a spouse and children who depend on you have the first claim. A man who sends money to every relative who calls while his own children are sent home from school has not understood Paul’s priority. Stewardship also means distinguishing between genuine need and requests that encourage idleness. Paul elsewhere writes that “if any would not work, neither should he eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). Helping a capable relative find work, learn a trade or start a small business may be a more faithful use of resources than sending money every month indefinitely. And where you are married, these decisions should be made together.
Umar realised that he had been faithful to his uncle’s building and unfaithful to his own mother and his brother’s children. It was not because he did not love them. It was because he had never planned for them. They had been given whatever happened to be left. When he made his new budget, they went near the top of the list.
An open hand toward those in need
NuggetA steward manages his master’s goods according to his master’s wishes. And Scripture leaves us in no doubt about one of the Master’s deepest wishes: that His resources should reach the poor and the needy.
“He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the LORD; and that which he hath given will he pay him again” (Proverbs 19:17). Giving to the poor is described as lending to God Himself. Paul tells the Galatians, “As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith” (Galatians 6:10). The circles widen outward: our own household, the family of faith, and all people as we have opportunity.
So the steward’s budget includes generosity. Many believers see the tithe as a joyful starting point of grace-giving, returning a tenth to God through their local church. Others give proportionately and freely without a fixed percentage. Both views are held by sincere Christians. Whatever your conviction, a faithful steward plans to give, rather than leaving generosity to the mood of the moment. And beyond regular giving, he keeps something available for the needs that God brings across his path: the neighbour whose child is ill, the student who cannot pay his fees, the widow whose rent has been increased.
Generosity and responsibility belong together. A man who gives lavishly to impress the church while his debts go unpaid and his family is neglected is not a faithful steward. Equally, a man who pays every obligation but never opens his hand to anyone in need has missed the purpose of the resources entrusted to him. The faithful steward does both.
Giving account with joy
Every steward will one day give an account. “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God” (Romans 14:12). For some believers, that thought brings only fear. But Jesus describes the day of reckoning in remarkably warm terms:
And the Lord said, Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Of a truth I say unto you, that he will make him ruler over all that he hath.
“Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.” The faithful steward is the one who gives the household “their portion of meat in due season.” He feeds those in his care. He does his ordinary work faithfully, day after day. And when the master returns, the steward is not punished or merely tolerated. He is blessed and promoted: “he will make him ruler over all that he hath.”
In the parable of the talents, the master’s words are even warmer: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord” (Matthew 25:21). The goal of stewardship is joy. The master wants to share his joy with his servants.
We need to hold this within the grace of the gospel. Our standing with God does not depend on our financial management. We are accepted in Christ, completely and freely. No budget can earn God’s love, and no financial failure can cancel it. But because we are accepted, we are free to serve faithfully. The steward who knows his master’s goodness does not manage anxiously, afraid of every mistake. He manages gladly, eager to hear the master’s “well done.”
And we have a perfect example. Hebrews describes Jesus as the one “Who was faithful to him that appointed him” (Hebrews 3:2). He managed everything the Father entrusted to Him, His time, His words, His relationships, His very life, with perfect faithfulness. He did not lose one of those the Father gave Him. He is the faithful Steward whose faithfulness covers ours, and whose Spirit now works in us to make us faithful too.
PunchlineThe day after his uncle’s question, Umar went to the market and bought a second blue folder.
He labelled it with his own name. Inside, on the first page, he wrote three headings: Received, Owed and Given. Every month from then on, he filled it in as carefully as he had always filled in his uncle’s. He went to Taiwo and apologised for his silence, and they agreed a plan for repayment. He paid off the provision store over four months. He set up a standing transfer to his mother in Zaria on the first of every month, and he met with the headmistress of his nephews’ school to pay their fees in instalments.
It was not easy. His salary did not increase. But the money that had once disappeared without explanation began to go where he had decided it should go. And something else changed. He said he began to pray differently, as a steward reporting to a Master he loved, and not as a beggar hoping to be noticed.
When his uncle came home the following Christmas, Umar handed him both folders. The old doctor read the first one quickly. He read the second one slowly. Then he closed it and smiled. “Now,” he said, “you are keeping two houses well.”
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- What would change in your attitude if you truly believed that everything you have is entrusted to you by God?
- Do you know what you received last year, and what you currently owe? If not, what has kept you from finding out?
- How faithful are you in “that which is least,” the small daily decisions about money?
- How are you providing for those of your own house? Is their care planned, or does it receive only what is left over?
- How might your budget reflect God’s concern for the poor and needy?
This Week
Take three evenings this week to make your own “blue folder.” On the first evening, list everything you received in the last month from every source. On the second, list everything you owe and every obligation you carry, including family responsibilities and promises you have made. On the third, write down what you gave. Pray over each list. Then choose one owed item to address this month, and one planned act of generosity, and write both into next month’s budget.
A Prayer
Father, everything I have comes from You, and of Your own I give back to You. Thank You for trusting me with resources, abilities, time and people. Forgive me for the times I have treated Your money as mine, ignored what I owe, or neglected those of my own house. Make me faithful in that which is least. Give me the courage to know the state of my flocks, the wisdom to manage them well, and an open hand toward those in need. Thank You for Jesus, the faithful Steward, whose faithfulness covers mine. Let me hear Your “well done.” In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.