Stewardship and Dispensations: The Significance of Οικονομός and Οικονομία
Stewardship and Dispensations:
The Significance of Οικονομός and Οικονομία
The sixty-six books of the Bible span thousands of years of human history and beyond. They begin before God created man and end with the creation of new heavens and a new earth where righteousness settles down and feels at ease[1]. Within the pages of the Bible, we see changes in God’s relationship and standard for mankind and the failure of mankind to live up to God’s expectation, which ultimately brings judgment. In the Garden of Eden, Adam was not allowed to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil[2]. Upon eating the fruit from this tree, his spirit was separated from God[3], he became subject to physical death, and he was expelled from the garden[4]. Having been expelled from the garden, God’s expectation for humans was for them to properly govern the manner of their lives by the knowledge of good and evil, now that they possessed it. However, again, men failed, and God judged the earth by bringing a flood[5]. After the flood, God instructed Noah that men are to govern themselves and that capital punishment is to be implemented[6]. Again, men fail to follow God’s instruction, reject God, and seek their own way. Therefore, God brought judgment and forced man to separate and spread across the earth[7]. This judgment brought about multiple languages and the division of the continents, which caused man to spread out across the earth[8]. Having scattered man across the face of the earth, God then approaches Abram and ultimately offers him four covenants[9]. These covenants included a promise of land that Abraham and his descendants […]