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God & Economics Today we
begin a series of lessons on the subject of God and Economics. This is not the
“Health and Wealth” preaching that we have heard on television. This series
wants to take a look at what the Bible says about money. The need
for this series is obvious. I don’t know the number of times I have been asked
questions pertaining to money. People want to know if it is scriptural to
declare bankruptcy. Others want to know why some people seem to have enough
money and they struggle to pay their bills. Money is the number one cause of
divorce. Therefore it impacts our homes and the Lord’s church. If we are
worried about our finances we are being harmed and our attention is being taken
away from other things. I
don’t claim to be a financial expert but I do know the following: Just as
there are physical and spiritual laws in the Bible there are also laws of
economics. As long as we respect the laws of physics we can survive and do well.
If we obey God’s spiritual laws we can go to heaven. If we recognize and obey
the laws of economics we can pay our bills. Those
economics laws do not change over time. The problem we are having as a nation is
because many of the financial laws have been violated and now we are paying the
price. Old sayings I heard as a child such as, “Sooner or later you have to
pay the piper” or, “If you can’t pay for it, don’t buy it” or, “A
fool and his money are soon separated” and, “If it sounds to good to be true
it probably is”; are as true today as they were 50 years ago. But some have
bought into the idea that they can have whatever they want and not have to pay
for it. We live in
a materialistic society. Our culture and business model is built on creating
consumer demand. In business they talk about the “market approach.” However,
we have to be careful of consuming for the sake of consuming. We may be the
richest indebt society ever to exist. We can use
the Bible to learn how to handle our finances. I will not say this series will
answer every question you may have on this subject but I do believe it will be
helpful. – Dennis Tucker |