Biblical Economics
“Let as many bondservants as are under the yoke count their own masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and His doctrine may not be blasphemed.” I Timothy 6:1
Servants and Masters
Employers and Employees
Capitalists and Workers
Bourgeois and Proletariat
Have’s and have Nots
Economic systems come and go but the truth remains: some people have and some people don’t. Karl Marx, next to Charles Darwin one of the most influential men of the 19th century, interpreted all of human history through the lens of “class struggle.”
In his famous works: The communist manifesto and Das Kapital, Marx outlined a system that would throw off disparity by placing all personal property in the hands of the government.
All the means of production as well as all the profits of labor would be united under the “benevolent” and watchful eye of the state.
The state’s utter objectivity would then redistribute the wealth in proportion to need and- Waa la’ everyone would be happy! Right!! We now know how that song ends- misery!
If the inherent flaws of communism and socialism are now obvious to us; it doesn’t seem that they are so obvious to a younger generation of Americans. Disingenuous political leaders are exploiting the greed of people by promising them everything (free this and that) for nothing, while all the while we are burying ourselves as a nation under massive deficits and debt.
Someday this chicken will come home to roost. We’ve all heard the phrase before: “If it sounds too good to be true- it is!”
The Bible envisions an economic system where work is rewarded by profit and production is decentralized and in the hands of people. God recognizes that some will be masters and some will be servants but God also enforces guidelines for how both are to act.
The master recognizes that he is a servant- a servant of God- and one that will give an account. The servant recognizes that he is the Lord’s freedman and works not “with eye service as men pleasers, but as a servant of the Lord, doing the will of God from the heart” Ephesians 6:6. Ultimately, all wealth is in the Lord’s hands;
we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can take nothing out.
Because of grace,
Tim
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