Foundations of the Free Market, 5

Continued from "Foundations of the Free Market, 4"

Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted. And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

(Mat 28:16-20)

Up to this point, I have shown that humanity's first calling and assignment from God is to subdue the earth and to take dominion over it. God provided the Garden of Eden as the original template for that dominion mandate.

In the last post, I also demonstrated that the dominion mandate has not passed into oblivion but is still in effect. But sin has altered man and put him at odds with God and with God's declared purposes.

Therefore, God has given dominion to Jesus the Anointed, the representative New Man. In Him, God has called and redeemed a people to share in that dominion (II Tim. 2:12).

That in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth;

(Eph 1:10)

In order for man to exercise godly dominion over the earth, however, he must first come under the dominion of King Jesus. And please notice that the Great Commission, as quoted at the beginning of this post, sets for us the precise goal of bringing the nations under His command.

Please understand that I am not saying that God's redemptive plan merely serves the purpose of fulfilling the dominion mandate. I do not believe that redemption is in any way subservient to the dominion mandate.

I do believe that both the Great Commission and the dominon mandate have both come from God and serve to express His sovereignty over man and over creation by and through man.

The Banking Crisis

Thanks to Gary North for drawing the following video to my attention. I even like the music up until about halfway through.

Foundations of the Free Market, 4

Continued from "Foundations of the Free Market, 3"

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

(Gen 1:26)

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

(Gen 1:28)

Did the Dominion Mandate to subdue the earth survive humanity's fall into sin? There are those who claim the mandate died with Adam & Eve's innocence in the Garden. I would like to present evidence to the contrary.

As the verses above indicate, God gave man the assignment to subdue the earth, with particular reference to animal life. Because all earthly authority comes from the Creator, every exercise of authority also carries responsibility.

Let me put it another way: human authority is a responsibility that comes directly from God.

Adam failed to exercise his specific responsibility to safeguard the Garden from trespassers. (For an explanation of this, see my post "Origin of Man's Protective Sheepdog Function" over at the WARSKYL blog.) When the serpent entered the Garden to challenge God's rightful place over man, Adam should have ejected him.

Adam did not assert his authority over a beast that questioned the order of things. His failure was immanently related to responsibility to exercise authority over the beasts of the earth.

So, when Adam failed, did the Lord remove that responsibility from him? To answer that, let's look at the events leading up to the Great Flood.

And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make thee an ark . . . . And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die. But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee. And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.

(Gen 6:13-19, emphasis added)

God laid upon Noah the responsibility of seeing that the animals survived the deluge. In one sense, we could say that God saved Noah -- he found grace in the eyes of the LORD, Gen. 6:8 -- and Noah, in turn, saved the animals.

This is the same dominion responsibility that God gave to Adam & Eve in the Garden. It did not perish in the Fall. But there is another, even more explicit evidence for the survival of the Dominion Mandate.

Take a look at Psalm 8:

O LORD our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth! who hast set Thy glory above the heavens.

Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast Thou ordained strength because of Thine enemies, that Thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.

When I consider Thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the Son of Man, that thou visitest Him?

For thou hast made Him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned Him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.

O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!

(emphasis added)

Some may object that this is a messianic Psalm (see Hebrews 2:6-8) and refers to Jesus alone. But this passage makes it clear that it applies to Him as the Son of Man. That is, he exercises dominion as the Representative Man (as the title Son of Man implies), as the Second Adam.

At the Triumphal Entry, Jesus demonstrated His rightful dominion by riding on an unbroken colt (Luke 19:30-33).

Thus, the Dominion Mandate survived the Fall, and we must make sure that it figures into our economic theory as well as our vocational practice.

Continued in "Foundations of the Free Market, 5"

Discerning God's Will for Your Vocation

Back when I was a teen (in a previous millennium), I used to hear a lot of youth leaders preach and teach about "finding God's will for your life." The path they set us on was basically to pray until the Lord gave us "peace" about what we were supposed to do.

Those messages often came with the warning that if we did not do this, we might "miss God's perfect will" for our lives. It would be a tragedy to settle for God's second best.

The "God's perfect will" messages hit us at a stage of life when most of us wonder about why we're here, what we should do with our lives, when we crave a rendezvous with destiny. As a consequence, the Christian young folk I knew (myself included) tended to speak about our options in terms of God's will.

"I think it's God's will to go to college (or the army, or to work for my uncle)." "I wonder what college major would be God's will?" "I believe it's God's will for us to go steady." And six months later, "I believe it's God's will for us to break up."

As I look back , I now realize how subjective it all was and how easily we found "peace" about the very thing we wanted to do in the first place. Then we justified it by attributing our own selfish choices it to God's will.

Of course every Christian should desire to do God's will. We were just looking for it in the wrong place. Rather late in life, I discovered some principles based on the Word of God that will guide the seeking Christian not only into God's will for his vocation, but for his family life, Christian service . . . well, every aspect of life.

A few years ago, I put those principles together into a mini-course of five lessons. When my pastor saw the course, he thought enough of it to encourage the youth of our church to all sign up for it.

I am now offering these lessons free of all cost or obligation to anyone who would like to study them. Furthermore, if you'd like to make the course part of your ministry, I will supply the html code so that people can sign up for it right from your own church's (or other ministry's) website rather than having to send them to my business site.

If you're interested in making the course available in this way, contact me at gravelbelly@gmail.com

Here is the link:

Discerning God's Will

NOTE: When I go to that page using Firefox, for some reason the sign-up grid does not load if my Bookmarks or History is open in the sidebar. So, if you don't see the fields for signing up, try closing your sidebar.

Foundations of the Free Market, 3

Continued from "Foundations of the Free Market, 2"

Before the Fall, Adam and Eve labored to pursue their calling and purpose:

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. (Genesis 1:28)

After the Fall, they labored to survive:

And unto Adam he said, Because thou . . . hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, "Thou shalt not eat of it," cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
(Gen 3:17-19)

This judgment upon Adam marks the beginning of the economics of scarcity. (Mankind's inherent sin and need of redemption are also part of the Fall, but important as they are, these are not my main focus here.) From that time forward, man's wants have exceeded the resources available to supply those wants.

The state of scarcity is not all bad. It has produced certain economically rehabilitative effects on mankind. They include the following:

1. Men engaged in productive labor have less time to devise mischief;
2. The division of labor results in more efficient productivity, which tends to enforce cooperation among the members of a society;
3. It forces man to participate in the original Dominion Mandate, whether he wants to, or not.

Of course, there are those who deny that the Dominion Mandate survived the Fall. I will provide Scriptural evidence that it did indeed survive in "Foundations of the Free Market, 4".

Evaluation for Excellence

Whether you're competing in the business world or the job market (or competing to keep the job you have), the key to success is excellence. Employers and clients with their heads screwed on straight want to keep excellent service because excellence represents more value for each dollar spent.

That means to recession-proof your business, employment or present job, you need to rise above the mediocre. This raises the question: if excellence is the key to success, what is the key to excellence?

Henry over at assessment.com provides a great insight into what it takes to rise to excellence in one's work:

One comment that is heard time and again about those who demonstrate excellence is, "He/she is a natural at it." They don’t seem to struggle to be excellent; it just flows. That is always a sign of motivation, and therein lies the first key: Motivation is required for excellence. Motivation is what we like to do naturally. It’s like being right or left-handed. We don’t even think about it. We just write. The same is true for people known for excellence. They have a group of motivations that work in concert to help them perform at a higher level. Like all motivations, these were inborn and are as much a part of them as being blue-eyed or tall. But there is a second key: Motivation can be developed. People who demonstrate excellence have identified their motivations and worked hard to develop them. They have added knowledge, skill, experience and practice to consistently produce at the highest levels. By the way, there is a flip side to these two keys, and it is this: The best we can be with low motivation is adequate. No matter how hard we work and desire it, in the long run we will never be excellent at something without high levels of motivation in that area. In other words, if we toil in areas where we have low motivation, we resign ourselves to mediocrity.

He has not told the whole story, to be sure, but what he says makes sense. We tend to be good at what we like, and we tend to like what we're good at.

The Motivational Assessment Personality Profile (a test you can take for free over at assessment.com) will scientifically analyze how various job talents and skills motivate you. You can pay to get more information and insight from the test, but if you are like me, you will be surprised at the insights you get even from the free evaluation.

I recommend you take the free test. But don't buy anything yet, at least until my next post on this subject. Until then, I'd be pleased to hear your reactions to the test results in the comments section.

Online Garage Sale

While I intend this blog to be about business and economics, I thought I'd pass along this opportunity.

It's not really a career, and the only way to turn it into a business would be to have an attic with an inexhaustible supply of "used stuff". But it IS a way to turn those old video games, golf clubs or vintage records into cash.

A new online store called Triple Clicks is trying to position itself as THE online market for garage sale items. In order to promote their service, they will give you your first listing free.

If you have something to sell, and you're interested, Click Here.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I will benefit from click-throughs that result in free registrations.)

Foundations of the Free Market, 2

Continued from "Foundations of the Free Market"

In the previous post, I have shown that, in His role as Creator, God is the origin of and the model for productive activity. But how does this affect mankind?

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion . . . .

(Gen 1:26)

As a creature made in God's image, man possesses the ability to produce as an integral part of his nature. Yet he does not possess this potential in an absolute sense, as does the Creator. That is, man cannot create ex nihilo (out of nothing) as God created the world.

God gave man two areas in which to express his productivity:

1. Dominion over the created realm -- Originally, God put man in Eden, in a garden. Adam was to turn everything outside the Garden (the non-garden) into garden. To subdue the earth meant to impose the garden template on everything that was not garden. This entails meaningful, productive labor.
2. Procreation -- God told Adam not only to subdue the earth, but to populate it. By themselves, Adam and Eve could not tend a worldwide garden. Therefore, the expansion of the frontiers of the Garden depended on expansion of the work-force. Adam was to share the vision of his vocation with all the generations.

I suspect that the original garden-template included places to produce vegetables, fruits, nuts, etc. as well as ornamental flowers, trees and shrubs. I think our contemporary understanding of parks, groves, truck gardens, orchards, meadows and possibly more were all present in the original garden template.

There is no question that man's fall into sin disrupted and distorted his productive endeavors. Some even say that the Dominion Mandate did not survive the Fall. I would like to address those issues in "Foundations of the Free Market, 3".