The current world Economic Failure
The credit crisis, stock market falls and government fear have come from fundamental failures in a profit orientated free market economy. The world in placing value on growth on money or in old fashioned terms, usury, has forgotten the meaning of economy.
Definition of economy
The English word 'economy' derives from the Greek word oikos meaning 'house' and 'oikonomia' 'the management of a house' or 'stewardship'.
The Apostle Paul speaks of his ministry as “according to the oikonomia of God”(Colossians 1:25) or in other words he preached the 'household management of God'. Paul also writes of the “oikonomia of the grace of God”(Ephesians 3:2), which is 'the system of management of grace'.
The word oikonomia or 'economy' once meant a holistic management of a household, or by extension a nation. A government's economy is its whole system of management, from its belief system to its outworking in laws, industry and the arrangements of settlement. Why is the word economy now only applied to money systems, and why is it expected money has continuous growth?
Money is not the root of all evil
Though an economy should not be solely about money, the money itself is not evil. The scriptures are clear,
For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. (1Timothy 6:10)
Covetousness, or the desire for things we do not have, can lead to sin and therefore evil. But money itself merely allows the exchange of goods.
And if the way be too long for you, so that you art not able to carry it; or if the place be too far from you, which the LORD thy God shall choose to set his name, when the LORD thy God has blessed you: Then shall thou turn it into money, and bind up the money in thine hand, and shall go unto the place which the LORD thy God shall choose: (Deuteronomy 14:24-25)
In simple terms money allows a dairy farmer to buy a suit. In a barter economy a cow may not precisely equal the value of a suit, by converting the value of a cow into coinage they can pay the precise value of the suit. Money allows just and equitable exchanges of goods, as long as the value of money is agreed.
Learning from British silver currency
Until 1696 people could clip a little from the edge of a British silver coin and still trade it at its marked value. So much clipping was done to trade as sliver bullion or counterfeit coin that the coinage lost half its marked value in weight by 1695, forcing the Great Recoinage of 1696, which placed a milled edge on all circulating coins. At the same time counterfeiting was reduced. The silver of the coinage was effectively pegged to a gold value and formed a bi-metal standard, which became a gold standard. In the short term re-coinage triggered a financial crisis, but in the long term the increased government control and the more trustworthy coinage benefited the country.
The law of Moses requires an economy to have a standard set of weights, or coins, for use in trade of goods.
You shall not have in your bag diverse weights, a great and a small. You shall not have in your house divers measures, a great and a small. But you shall have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure..: that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the LORD your God gives you. For all that do such things, and all that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto the LORD your God. (Deuteronomy 25:13-16)
The reward for equitable honest trade is long life in the land. So economy is about equity and about living long in the land, not about money or profit.
Trade, Profit and Usury
Taking the simple example trade is where the sale of a farmer's cow allows him to buy a suit. If the farmer sells his cow to a butcher and buys the suit from the tailor the trade is direct. Often however the suit is bought from the tailor and sold by another who transports it and trades it for a profit.
In all labour there is profit: but the talk of the lips tends only to penury. (Proverbs 14:23)
The farmer by his labour should make a profit and also the tailor, and even the trader, or merchant, is not condemned (1Kings 10:15).
A trader to buy more stock may borrow from another person or a bank, who in turn earns a profit by asking for a return on the money at a rate of interest.
But the economy, or management, of the Mosaic system, though it supported trade and the lending of money, did not support charging interest on loans.
If you lend money to any of my people that is poor by you, you shall not be to him as an usurer, neither shall you lay upon him usury. (Exodus 22:25)You shall not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of any thing that is lent upon usury: Unto a stranger you may lend upon usury; but unto your brother you shall not lend upon usury: that the LORD your God may bless you in all that you set your hand to in the land where you go to possess it. (Deuteronomy 23:19-20)
If there be among you a poor man of one of your brethren.. you shall not harden your heart, nor shut thine hand from your poor brother: But you shall open thine hand wide unto him, and shall surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he wants (Deuteronomy 15:7-8).
He that does not put out his money to usury, nor takes reward against the innocent. He that does these things shall never be moved. (Psalm 15:5)
This was an economy of balance, where the well off would give money to the poorer as loans to let them do work, but could not impoverish them by the interest charged. This economy required the wealthy to practice charity, always.
He that by usury and unjust gain increases his substance, he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor. (Proverbs 28:8)
What lesson did this economy of the Mosaic nation establish?,
The laws of the whole of the Mosaic system were to teach people how to live with God, how to live in God's house, to live in God's economy. To understand who really owned what.
And you say in your heart, “My power and the might of my hand has gotten me this wealth”. But you shall remember the LORD your God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he swore unto your fathers, as it is this day. (Deuteronomy 8:17-18)
This economy taught true wisdom, where value was placed firstly in equity practised before God
If you see the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for he that is higher than the highest regards; and there be higher than they. (Ecclesiates 5:8)
It taught also that the source of all profit was the increase of 'the field' which was sustained by God,
Moreover the profit of the earth is for all: the king himself is served by the field.
He that loves silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loves abundance with increase: this is also vanity. When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes?
The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep. There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt. But those riches perish by evil travail: and he begets a son, and there is nothing in his hand. As he came forth of his mother's womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in his hand. (Eccles. 5:8-15)
At the end of it all a poor man's labour is sweet and nobody can take their gain with them. In addition, if the gain was unjust, a person could lose the hope of life eternal.
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? (Mark 8:36)
Riches profit not in the day of wrath: but righteousness delivers from death. (Proverbs 11:4)
The fate of ancient Israel shows the result of the failure to keep God's type of economy, the one based on mercy to the poor, equity in trade and justice in law. They were told,
Hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment, and pervert all equity.... The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among us? none evil can come upon us. (Micah 3:9-11)
Truly the fate of the nation of Israel in dispersal demonstrated to all the world that the covenant is sure. Not keeping the economy of God will lead eventually to evil outcomes.
The current economic failures started with poor people not being able to pay loans. If the lenders had understood the Mosaic economy, God's economy, the monetary economy would not have failed as it has. But then again the world has forgotten that economy is not about money, but about the whole household management and that includes equity, mercy and justice.
The world will soon see God's economy, which is his management of his household in Christ, its value placed in those people who choose now in unity to love equity.
That in the economy of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ in him: (Ephesians 1:10)
At this time, when Christ returns and re-establishes the economy of God, the great traders of the earth, the merchants, will not lay up their gains to make greater profits by usury, but
her merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to the LORD: it shall not be treasured nor laid up; for her merchandise shall be for them that dwell before the LORD, to eat sufficiently, and for durable clothing. (Isaiah 23:18)
