Stewards of the
Mysteries
Much truth is coming to light
today about apostles and prophets, the foundation stones in the church. If the
foundation of the church isn’t restored there is little hope of the church
rising to its destiny. The focus of this restoration is Jesus as the both the
chief cornerstone and the capstone of this holy dwelling, his body.
Many of these
restorative truths are the “mysteries” given to Paul that make up a large part
of his epistles. They are doctrinal, devotional, and dispensational as they
often pertain to a present truth not given to
While the events of
Within the context of
1Corinthians 4:1 we will come to understand one role of the apostle as a
steward of mysteries. This restored role of stewardship must take prominence as
even the governmental function of an apostle is influenced by the mysteries
they steward. The rest of the five fold gifts and spirituals of 1Corinthians
take on new meaning and purpose also.
Paul said to the
Corinthians, “Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ and stewards
of the mysteries of God” — 1Corinthians 4:1. He saw himself in the role of
one entrusted with divine truths that must be carefully guarded and faithfully
dispensed. We can do no less today. What is a steward in the context of these
divine mysteries?
The word steward is
oikonomos
in the Greek, a compound of oikos, meaning
“house” and nemo,
“to deal out and distribute”.
Thus a steward is one who manages domestic affairs, like a family or business.
In Roman society this person could be a treasurer, chamberlain of a city,
manager, or overseer of a household not his own.
This person stands
between the household (those receiving) and the householder (the one to whom it
all belongs) and dispenses to the household as delegated by the owner. What
Paul saw himself dispensing to the household of faith were these mysteries.
Once received by the body, the responsibility of stewardship became theirs as
well — 1Peter
—
Looking More Closely At The Word ’Mystery’ —
Let’s turn our attention
to the word ‘mystery’. It is a word found in the New and not the Old Testament.
However the phrase “dark sayings” is found a couple of
times. Musterion
(mystery) is found 27 times in the New Testament. The
apostle Paul uses it mostly. When speaking of the
and spiritual existence beyond law and beyond the Jews as He
commissioned in Matthew 28:19. It was then given to Paul by the Lord Jesus to
reveal these mysteries to the church in order to mold it into these
revelations.
When
we think of mystery we often imagine something spooky. These truths are hardly
that. The meaning is that something up to this time was not known, hidden in
God, but now is being revealed. The word means further that man’s wisdom
couldn’t conclude or deduce what only God can reveal.
The
word mystery had special meaning to the unbelieving world that sought out dark
and hidden things. Sometimes, only a select few initiates of some cult or
secret society knew these secrets. But the mysteries given to the church are
the sacred property of all the believers.
Unlike
a mystery novel that unfolds the final truth at the conclusion of the book, our God has provided the upfront revelation so the
“reader” doesn’t have to search and figure “who done it”. We get in on it
immediately.
Since
the nature of this short word is to reveal an aspect of the apostolic ministry
and not to expound on the mysteries themselves, I will not go into explanations
of the mysteries. What follows is how these mysteries came to Paul and his
sacred trust towards them.
I
see ten mystery doctrines spoken of by Paul. They appear as follows:
Mystery of
Mystery of the (or “my”) gospel —
Romans
Mystery of the “rapture” —
1Corinthians
Mystery of God’s will — Ephesians
1:9
Mystery of one body — Ephesians
3-4
Mystery of the bride — Ephesians
Mystery of the Indwelling Christ
— Colossians
Mystery of faith — 1Timothy 3: 9
Mystery of Godliness — 1Timothy
Mystery of iniquity —
2Thessalonians 2:7
This
may not be the order in which they were given to Paul, but the order in which
they appear in the bible. As mentioned earlier, they are doctrinal because
they are teachings for life and the building of the church, dispensational because
they were given to the church and never revealed to
We
look to Ephesians 3 as the best example of the extent of Paul’s responsibility as
a steward and thus ours to follow. First he said that these mysteries came to
him by revelation of Him (Jesus), by the Spirit vs. 3-6 and Galatians
1:12. His stewardship was not of man because his
revelations
were not of man. After these revelations came Paul’s sense of stewardship,
(as a minister) of these truths, vs. 7-10. Then comes the extent to which he
intended these truths to reach, that is to all men, (of faith), vs. 9. Finally, that this extraordinary wisdom of God would extend to
the principalities in the heavens vs. 10. In the range of my
thinking it is possible that Paul intended that to mean evil spirit rulers in
the heavens and good angels who desire to look into the purposes of God in the
church, 1Peter 1:12.
Revelation for
revelation sake is not the goal of the mysteries given to Paul and others. They
are part of the building plans that Jesus inferred when our Lord said He would
build his church and the gates of hell would not prevail. Three words stand out
in the Ephesians letter that were goals of Paul’s stewardship and should be for
today’s apostle. They are to bring the body to unity & maturity (Ephesians
For these mystery
doctrines to achieve their purposes, two things must occur within the five-fold
ministry. First apostles will begin to prioritize their ministries to emphasize
these doctrines. Second, there must be
harmony and collaboration within the five-fold ministry to achieve the purposes
for which these truths were revealed. For this to happen, we will see the
“architectural anointing” arise in apostles.
Blessings In Christ,
This Ephesians Ministries International®
article is a publication of Ephesians Ministries International®.
Ephesians
Ministries International,
Http://ephesiansministries.org