A STEWARD’S enquiry.

‘You made him ruler over the works of Your hands; You put everything under his feet . . .’ Psalm 8:6.

The unique place of women and men in creation is not only a statement of human identity. It is also a job description. We have work to do.

Throughout the Bible witness there is an emphasis on the notion of caring on God’s behalf for the world. The term most often used for this role is ‘stewardship’, which carries with it the idea of accountability. We have a task, and we will be taken to task.

With trembling hands, God holds out to us the totality of the world He has made and loves. Like Paddington Bear, we find a label on it saying, ‘Please Look After This Planet’.

The property handed to us is not some vacant plot, some square of barren ground — it is the tumbling, sparkling, precious product of the artist’s hand. Imagine an author asking you to look after a lifetime’s worth of unpublished manuscripts — texts into which they had poured their life. God trusts us with His treasurer because He loves and honours us; because we’re family.

We know that we are called to trust God. We speak less frequently of the flip-side of the same coin. God, deeply and genuinely, trusts us.

Revd Tom Grant, Chairman, Andover Churches Together.