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Bible Study Title: The Economics of God Nearly everythigng in Scriptrue has an economic component, and God has used economic realities to shape the world since the beginning. Indeed, at irs origin "economics" is a composite word, consisting of the Greek "oikos", meaning "house", and "nomes", meaning "law". So, economics is "the law of the household", Of course the aggregate of a hundred million households makes for some mighty numbers, but the same fundamental needs drive each household, and each person, and each animal, and this is by design. When God made the world, as described in Genesis, he first created the physical structures of its existence. The first biologically living things (as we define it) were created on the third "day", when the plants and trees were made. Plants anchor on soil, whence they get the elements that form their structure, they live on water and light. God provided the light directly, and the water sprang up from the ground. On the fourth day God created the sun as the source of natural light for the world, that the plants would use as their energy source. On the fifth and sixth days God created the animals, whose economics are more complicated, for while the still require a habitat of solid ground or sea in which to live, and they still require water, they cannot eat light to make food, like the trees. They have to eat the products of plants, or the products of animals (originally just milk, later, meat). And to collect those things, animals generally cannot fix themselves to the ground, like plants. They have to move around. Air is a special case, because it is the spirit that God breathes into the nostrils of animals, not plants, to make them breathers (a word we translate as "living souls"). In Scripture animals die but plants fade and wither, and the life is given by breath and taken back by the withdrawal of breath, by God. The blood carries the breath to the body, and so the blood is the life. The basic natural economy of creation is straightforward. Light and water feed the plants, the animals eat the plants, and man also eats the plants and, through his dominion, may eat the milk of animals as well. The land was fertile and self watering, there was light and abundance. There was the destruction of plant cells through digestion, and plants competed for space and light (which is why Adam and Eve had the task of tending the Garden, but there was no Biblical death, as the breathers were not being killed and eaten. There was superabundance of food, so the economics were the economics of the lack of scarcity and, therefore, leisure. There was no need for clothing, and no energy spent in such activity. Man was made to live an economy of leisure in nudity, with a focus on esthetics: tending the Garden. That's a summary of the Economics of Eden. I'll tie it to Genesis text when I come back and have a Bible in hand. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 7. ndeed, at irs origin "economics" is a composite word, consisting of the Greek "oikos", meaning "house", and "nomes", meaning "law". So, economics is "the law of the household", What verse in genesis are you referring to? Or what in the Bible are you specifically referring to?
Replies to Comment # 7. What verse in genesis are you referring to? Or what in the Bible are you specifically referring to? In the line you quoted, the breaking down of the word "economics", I was merely giving the etymology of the word: "Oikos+nomia" - House-rule - the "rule of the house" or "the ordering of the house" - that is what economics is, at root. Ultimately, several thousand years later, God's economics get pretty sophisticated as he lays out a general structure for Israel, including poverty relief. But poverty is the result of scarcity, and in the world of the Garden of Eden, where God originally placed Adam and Eve, there was no scarcity at all, of anything needful. They needed nothing. They didn't need clothes - no effort there. They didn't need to grow crops - they simply stretched forth their hand and ate whatever they wanted, without fear, and without harm. They did not have to store away for winter, or plan. Their activity consisted of walking with God and talking (in the breezy part of the day), being with one another, ruling the animals, and keeping God's garden - an aesthetic mission, not something required for life like farming is. But as to the word economics itself, it doesn't occur in the Bible at all. The bible is full of economics, but the word and concept of "economics" as the ordering of things based on needs and wants, supply and demand, is a science of the late 1700s, 1800s and onward, not a concept expressed by ancient man. Economics is THERE, of course, but not described by that word.
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