Manager
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G3623 names a manager or steward entrusted with another's household, resources, responsibility, or commission. Its ten governed forms occur in Luke, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Titus, and 1 Peter.
Reader summary
Full entry for οἰκονόμος (G3623) · Open the biblical lexicon
G3623 names a manager or steward entrusted with another's household, resources, responsibility, or commission. Its ten governed forms occur in Luke, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Titus, and 1 Peter.
The BSB source-word alignment has 10 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include manager (4), stewards (2), of stewards (1), steward (1), treasurer (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Luke 12:42. Its strongest book concentrations include Luke (4), 1 Corinthians (2), 1 Peter (1), Galatians (1).
G3623 names a manager or steward entrusted with another's household, resources, responsibility, or commission. Its ten governed forms occur in Luke, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Titus, and 1 Peter. The noun describes a role under an owner or superior; it does not by itself confer moral approval, ownership, church office, or unrestricted authority.
Luke 12:42 asks about a faithful and wise manager charged with distributing food at the proper time, while the rest of the parable warns against abuse during the master's absence. Luke 16:1, 3, and 8 name the manager accused of wasting property and then dismissed. His master commends his shrewd action, not his dishonesty, and Jesus' following sayings govern the parable's use of wealth and faithfulness.
Paul calls apostolic servants stewards of God's mysteries in 1 Corinthians 4:1-2 and immediately requires faithfulness. Galatians 4:2 places an heir under guardians and trustees until the father's appointed date. Romans 16:23 uses the noun for Erastus as the city's treasurer. Titus 1:7 calls an overseer God's steward within a list of tested character requirements. First Peter 4:10 describes believers serving one another as good stewards of God's varied grace. These settings unite entrusted responsibility and accountability while keeping civil office, household administration, apostolic service, church oversight, and gift-sharing distinct.
Stewardship language cannot make people or ministries a leader's property. It calls entrusted servants to fidelity, transparent care, and use of resources for the owner's purpose and others' good. It cannot excuse financial secrecy, spiritual elitism, coercive control, exploitation, retaliation, or concealment of abuse.
The ten direct forms describe household managers in Jesus' parables, servants entrusted with God's mysteries, temporary trustees for an heir, a civic treasurer, an overseer accountable to God, and believers administering God's varied grace.
There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions.
The parable begins with alleged mismanagement and impending removal. Later commendation concerns the manager's shrewdness, not an approval of waste, fraud, or exploitation.
Servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.
Stewardship places apostolic ministry under Christ and makes God's entrusted gospel the responsibility. It does not create secret teaching or immunity from evaluation.
As God's steward, an overseer must be above reproach.
The title is embedded in character qualifications that reject arrogance, quick temper, violence, and greed. Stewardship intensifies accountability rather than expanding personal control.
Faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms.
Received gifts are administered by serving one another. Grace remains God's gift and cannot be commodified or used to rank believers by visibility.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. One entrusted with managing another's household or resources, not as owner but as accountable steward.
One entrusted with managing another's household or resources, not as owner but as accountable steward.
(οἶκος + νέμω, to manage) [in LXX chiefly for עַל ;]
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
10 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
a steward
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Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 5 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 6 selected witnesses from 10 lexical occurrence verses.
οἰκονόμος is built from these roots:
An elder is not an owner but a steward of God’s household, reinforcing that church leadership is delegated responsibility under divine authority. 1 Peter 4:7-11
Defines delegated responsibility under Christ’s authority. Luke 12:35–48
Highlights accountability to God as owner. Luke 16:1–13
Defines believers as entrusted managers, not owners, of spiritual gifts. Titus 1:5-9
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
G3623 does not praise a title in the abstract. Luke 12 tests a manager by timely care and condemns abuse of fellow servants. Luke 16 presents a manager under accusation and dismissal, so the parable cannot make dishonesty virtuous; Jesus directs attention to shrewd action, faithfulness, wealth, and loyalty. First Corinthians 4 calls ministers stewards precisely to place them beneath Christ and under the requirement of faithfulness.
Titus 1 surrounds God's steward with character tests that exclude arrogance, violence, and greed. First Peter 4 makes every received gift an occasion to serve others from God's varied grace. Teaching this range makes stewardship concrete: authority is delegated, resources are not owned by the steward, people are not inventory, and accountability cannot be avoided by spiritual language.
1Cor.4.1
Morphology distributes the ten masculine noun tokens across five case-number patterns: accusative plural twice, dative plural once, nominative plural once, nominative singular three times, and accusative singular three times. Luke 16 repeats singular forms for the same parabolic manager, while First Corinthians, Galatians, and First Peter supply plural forms. These inflections identify syntax but cannot determine whether the role is household, civic, apostolic, ecclesial, or illustrative.
Joseph's administration in Potiphar's house and later in Egypt, along with royal and temple officials accountable for entrusted stores, provides canonical background for delegated management. Those narratives may illustrate trust and accountability, but they do not make G3623 a technical Old Testament office or transfer every feature of one steward to another.
MorphGNT Strong's Dictionary XML — CC0 1.0 Public Domain
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (morphhb/OSHB) — CC BY 4.0
Open Scriptures Hebrew Lexicon — CC BY 4.0
Berean Standard Bible (BSB) source-word alignment - CC0 Public Domain