Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 162 · June 11
Found Faithful
“Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.”
What would have to happen by the end of this year for you to call it a good year? Nearly every answer comes out as a result: something finished, something grown, or somebody changing their opinion of you.
The Corinthians had been ranking their teachers against each other. Paul begins by giving himself a new title: "Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God." A steward ran a household he did not own, and he carried keys to rooms that belonged to somebody else. Then Paul gives the requirement for a steward, and there is only one: "Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful."
What follows is Paul turning down three verdicts in a row. First he sets aside theirs: "with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you." Then he sets aside the public's, "or of man's judgment." Then he sets aside his own, and that is the surprising one: "yea, I judge not mine own self." He adds, "For I know nothing by myself," which in old English means he knows of nothing against himself. Even so, he will not treat a clear conscience as the final result: "yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord. Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come."
Carry two things away from that. First, Paul asks, "what hast thou that thou didst not receive?" Everything in your hands came from God, and that is what makes you a steward. Second, Jesus set the review in the same terms: "if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own?" Your review has a date on it, set by the Lord, and it falls a good deal later than the end of this year. Paul also says what that day holds for the faithful: "then shall every man have praise of God."
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 162 is Established and Sealed (2 Corinthians 1:21-22).