By Bob Walters

"Economy” is the word theologians use for the actions and relationships within the Holy Trinity – the Father, Son and Spirit – and to describe the Trinity’s interaction with the fallen world.

This economy – stemming from the Greek word oikos, “generous handling” – is a mystery of God’s love and heavenly glory.  The result is humanity’s salvation.

Man’s economy or “economics” – often called “the dismal science” – is about tangible transactions and temporal value.  The result is often opposite “oikos,” and instead is a self-inflicted deterioration of our relationship with the Holy Trinity.

Why?  Man wants worldly assets; God demands glorifying faith.

It’s easy to blame science, culture, government and education for diminishing our appreciation of God’s economy.  Science belittles belief in the unseen; modern culture destroys the faithful home environment; governments continually infringe on heavenly citizenship; and education has expelled prayer, Bible belief, and God from schools.

In our fallen world, people reflexively understand economics as empirical exchanges: we give something, we get something, we haggle over the cost.

So how does God in His grace, His economy, provide the free gift of salvation through the sacrifice and death of His son Jesus?  That’s confusing.  We are attuned to trade-offs, not grace.  We want to see a price tag.

Curiously, secular doubters frequently rely on this God in whom they don’t really believe.  They assume God will be compassionate in judgment in the hereafter.  That indicates tacit belief in God, morality, judgment and heaven.  Nonetheless these folks stubbornly refrain from expressing the “economic” key and divine absolute to receiving God’s gift: confession of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

In John 14:6, Jesus tells Thomas (later the famous “doubter” of the resurrected Christ in John 20:24-30), “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.”  You want God?  Proclaim Jesus as Lord.  Simple.

Way too often modern churches, evangelists and TV preachers, though they undoubtedly know better, mimic the world’s economy by marketing religion to man’s selfish appetites.  That may help gather a crowd (and donations), but becomes dismal when a church leverages fears, shame and guilt to keep the seats (and coffers) full.  That obfuscates the mystery of God’s love, obscures the community of the Trinity, and overrides the simplicity of God’s gift in Christ.  It does not glorify God.

When a church’s “economy” promotes legalisms and worldly self-interest, “religion” becomes a roadblock rather than a highway to the Kingdom of faith.

Economists – reliably unreliable – get the world’s economy wrong all the time.

God’s economy – with the grace of Christ – is a truth that will never fail.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that in Greek, the opposite of “oikos,” generous handling, is “akribia,” legalism.

Spirituality Column #401
July 22, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters

Spirituality Column #400
July 15, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters

Change is a desired and celebrated component of Christian life.

“Things that don’t change are dead,” the saying goes.  A rich, consequential Christian life necessarily will be filled with change – new challenges, new opportunities, new understandings, new missions, new people and often new places.  Some changes are desperately hard, challenging our faith and shaking our trust.  Some are so easy they undercut our faith by overwriting and obscuring our “need” for God.

A life of dull sameness, empty yearnings, or even recurring nightmares – but absent change – signals a hollow spot in the spirit.  Conversely, there is a sense of newness, mystery and adventure that accompanies one’s daily life trusting in Christ and growing in faith.  Change is hard to avoid; perseverance fills in the hollow spots.

Every time a believer goes to the Bible – the same old, unchanging Bible – he or she expects to see something new: a perspective previously not entertained, a phrase that comes alive, a connection formerly not noticed.  That’s growth, that’s change, that’s good … and that’s dependable.

“Consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds, because … testing of your faith develops perseverance,” says James 1:2-4.  Perseverance develops maturity, and in maturity, James adds, we know the joy of the Lord “not lacking anything.”

Change can be soothing or unnerving … often the latter.  Regardless, faith will help us find joy in the change, though joy is different from comfort and happiness.  “Not lacking anything” doesn’t mean “I get everything I want.”  We are to know and define joy in the completeness of our ability to focus on Christ and in our yearning to reflect and magnify the glory of God.

And that’s the point of the whole exercise: the unchanging glory, immensity, truth, love and completeness of God Almighty.  From the beginning, the actions of God’s Kingdom were assigned to God’s Light and Word, Jesus Christ.  The Holy Spirit’s job is to shine the light of God’s glory on Jesus Christ.  Our job as humans – if we allow ourselves to invite and listen to the Holy Spirit – is to change our fallen-world attitudes and worldly wicked hearts into divine-light homing beacons.  We also have a bigger job than that: understanding that it is our faith in Jesus Christ that glorifies God.

Fine and dandy that we are loved, saved, adopted, forgiven, welcomed into the Kingdom, seated on the throne, and will live forever amid the majesty of the One God Creator Almighty.  Amen!  But what we get, finally, isn’t the point.

God’s glory is the point.

And that does not change.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) knows “change” is a popular sermon subject.  Once you understand God’s glory is supreme … don’t change that.