οἰκονομία (Oikonomia)

MEANINGAdministration, stewardship, dispensation. From oikos (house) + nomos (law/rule). The management of a household or estate --- the ordering of things according to a plan. The NT's word for the distinct administrative periods of God's redemptive plan.

GRAMMARIn Ephesians 1:10, oikonomia is used for God's plan to gather all things in Christ 'in the fullness of times.' In Ephesians 3:2, Paul describes his own role in the oikonomia of God's grace given to him. In 1 Corinthians 9:17, Paul's apostleship is an oikonomia entrusted to him. The word consistently describes the ordered management of a plan across time.

SIGNIFICANCEOikonomia is the NT's word for what dispensationalism identifies as the distinct administrative periods of God's redemptive plan. Thread 5 reads the canon as God's oikonomia moving through genuine historical phases: patriarchal → Mosaic → prophetic → new covenant. Each phase has its own administrative structure while serving the single overarching plan. This is not replacement theology (each period cancels the prior) but progressive revelation (each period builds on and advances the prior).

KEY VERSE / SCRIPTURESEphesians 1:10; 3:2, 9; Colossians 1:25; 1 Timothy 1:4 (oikonomia theou --- the administration/plan of God).

CROSS-REFERENCESEphesians 1:10 · Galatians 3:24 (paidagōgos --- the law's administrative role) · Romans 11:25-29 (Israel's future --- the plan continues)