Biblical Prosperity

When God said to Adam and Eve…”Be fruitful and multiply”… this not only meant having children, but to be productive in life. God created humans to have worth, value and contribute to the world around them. This is core to the Biblical worldview.

Fifty years ago Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich published “The Population Bomb.” In it he warned of a coming global crisis—unless the world could be persuaded to stop producing so many people. The book sketched out possible scenarios of hundreds of millions dying from starvation, England disappearing by the year 2000, India doomed, the average American’s lifespan falling to 42 by 1980, and so on.

The book sold three million copies and the social ethos of “population control” was born. Some even would declare overpopulation a graver threat than nuclear war. Mr. Ehrlich’s assertion about the limited “carrying capacity” of the Earth was considered a scientific fact.

However…this logic seemed to be flawed: Ehrlich stated that when a calf is born a country’s wealth rises, but when a baby is born it goes down. Really? A calf is worth more than a human being? What he missed recognizing is that human beings are more than just a higher form of animals with mouths to feed. They also come with God given minds that separate them from the rest of the animal kingdom.

Julian Lincoln Simon called the human mind “The Ultimate Resource.” And that’s why it never runs out. Human beings constantly find new and creative ways to harness the earth, increase the bounty for everyone and expand the number of seats at the table of plenty. Human ingenuity adapts to circumstances and turns what were once luxuries into everyday amenities. Commodities would become cheaper as humans found more cost-effective ways of extracting them or cheaper and cleaner alternatives (solar power). By almost any measure—life expectancy, infant mortality, poverty rate —things are getting better all the time.

A false understanding of scarcity can lead to fear and self-preservation. The idea of a finite supply of natural resource is only one part of the equation. As history has shown, give people free markets and property rights, and you will be astonished by how much they will improve their lot—and ours.

So today…realize God loves you and has created you with a productive purpose, a future and hope.

Source:The Population Bomb Was a Dud – Paul Ehrlich got it wrong because he never understood human potential.ByWilliam McGurnApril 30, 2018. Wall Street Journal

In January 2017 Finland became the first country in Europe to pay free basic income in a pilot program, which evoked enthusiasm around the world. It was a much-heralded socialistic experiment.

However, the Finnish government reportedly announced Tuesday that it will end the country’s universal basic income program by year’s end — and appears to be taking on new measures to cut benefits to those who do not actively seek employment.Finland was considered the first European country to pay a monthly check of $685 to its unemployed between ages 25 and 58. It was a pilot program — serving 2,000 randomly selected jobless people.

The initial move was met with skepticism from citizens who questioned whether an unemployed young person would be motivated to find a job if they were making a steady income, albeit small. “There is a fear that with basic income they would just stay at home and play computer games,” Heikki Hiilamo, a professor at the University of Helsinki, told the paper. This fear appears to be justified by the government’s cancelation of this program.

A little Bible understanding could have saved Finland some time and money. In 2 Thess. 3:10, the bible states, “For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: ‘The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.’” This was written to early Christians who were sitting around and waiting for the Lord to return. Of course the scriptures say Christians need to take care of widows, orphans and the poor, and throughout history Christians have led the way in this. However, for those with strength and opportunity, they were created to be productive.

When DOVE’s first church planting team moved to Scotland many years ago it was confronted by multitudes of unemployed, glue sniffing, secondary school dropouts. The “dole” at that time gave young people the option to drop out of school at age 16 and start getting a check in the mail. As you may imagine, given that choice, many of the youth opted to quit school and start getting a check. A number of these young people gave their hearts to the Lord, gained a value for work and went on to live productive lives. The gospel brings with it what is called by mission’s experts “redemption and lift”.

Source:

Finland to end its universal basic income program by year’s end by Edmund DeMarche  Follow him on Twitter @EDeMarche.

Harold Eberle in his book Compassionate Capitalism: A Judeo-Christian Value, highlights how the spread of Christianity instilled compassion in Western Civilization…

The spread of Judeo- Christian values implanted compassion in Western civilization. You see…the ancient pagan religions offered no motives for charity. Stoic philosophers taught that it was disrespectful to even associate with the weak or poor. The Romans were callous and without compassion for the needy.

In contrast, the early Christians held to the Jewish value that all people are created in the image of God. Ancient Hebrew society had many ways of caring for the needy, including the giving of alms and farmers gleaning their crops only once so that the poor could freely gather that which was left behind.

From the start, Christians cared for the widows, orphans and the poor. Not only did they have this from their Hebrew roots, but also from the standard raised by Jesus whose very life was directed toward reaching out and loving others, especially the downtrodden. We can read in the book of Acts how the early disciples took care of the needy. Deacons were assigned for feeding widows. Peter and Paul were committed to caring for the poor. Church father Tertullian wrote how early Christians contributed to a common fund to help the poor. Justin Marty wrote how collections were taken during church services to help orphans. There are many such writings from this period.

Throughout the last 2,000 years of Western history, the church has been at the forefront of building hospitals and running orphanages. During the 13^thcentury a group known as the Order of the Holy Ghost operated more than 800 orphanages, and many monasteries cared for orphans during the Middle Ages.

Today it is the church, including the DOVE churches, which have practically led the way in adopting and caring for the multitude of AIDS orphans in Africa. In some cases the DOVE pastors have adopted as many or more orphans than they have natural children. Most Christian denominations collect funds to give clothing, food and medical relief to the poor. The Judeo-Christian ethic was one of benevolent capitalism.

People worked hard, lived frugally, saved and gave.

Sources:

Compassionate Capitalism – A Judeo-Christian Valueby Harold Eberle, 2010, Worldcast Publishing.

Harold Eberle in his book Compassionate Capitalism: A Judeo-Christian Value, highlights how the spread of Christianity continued to transform the pagan culture of ancient Europe…

Great Christian thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas and other catholic theologians strongly defended rights for personal property and personal gain. It was during this period that money became a more common currency of exchange allowing more people to accumulate wealth. The Great Plague killed one third of the population of Europe, decimating the labor force and allowing surfs to take jobs, which paid wages. Soon the masses were able to enter a labor force which ran more according to capitalistic principles.

Capitalism was one of the major triumphs of the Judeo-Christian ethic over Greek and Roman thought. It was the system that eventually freed the Western world from the oppression of the powerful over the mass of humanity by giving each person the opportunity to advance. Capitalism allowed a middle class to arise and displace the ruling aristocracy. It also catapulted the Western world ahead of other civilizations that did not embrace the Judeo-Christian worldview.

During the 11^thand through the 14^thcenturies business and commerce accelerated and numerous guilds were formed to organize the various trades in to associations. The guilds established guidelines for good business. Later…Livery Companies emerged which were solidly tied to the church and dedicated to promote righteous ethics in business. At a time when dishonest scales were commonplace, the Livery Companies verified weights and measures, along with promoting high standards of excellence. This eventually led to a change in the business climate in Europe.

Another triumph of the Judeo- Christian values was the instilling of compassion in Western civilization. You see…the ancient pagan religions offered no motives for charity. Stoic philosophers taught that it was disrespectful to even associate with the weak or poor. More on this next week…

Source: Compassionate Capitalism – A Judeo-Christian Valueby Harold Eberle, 2010, Worldcast Publishing.

Ready for a revolutionary new approach to teach children from any nation how to live a prosperous life…

Brookings scholars Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill call it the “success sequence”: that is…getting at least a high-school diploma, working, and then marrying before having children in that specific order. Following the success sequence is associated with a much lower chance of being poor and much better odds of realizing a prosperous life.

Tracking a cohort of young adults from their teenage years to early adulthood, sociologists W. Bradford Wilcox and Wendy Wang recently tested how well the three success sequence “steps” work among the millennial generation. They found that 53% of millennials who had failed to complete all three steps were poor.

Teenage pregnancy out of wedlock is the number one predictor of poverty in most cultures. The same research indicated the probability of ending up poor was reduced by 60% for millennials who married before having children and by about 90% for millennials who followed all steps of the sequence compared with those who missed all three.

In regards to breaking out of the cycle of poverty, the success sequence significantly benefits young adults from low-income backgrounds. Among young adults who grew up in low-income families, those who followed all three steps had a poverty rate of only 6%. Eighty percent of those with lower-income backgrounds made it into middle or upper income brackets when they followed all three steps.

The message is simple. Some ways of entering adulthood are more prudent than others. And the message is as old as the oldest book on record, the Bible. Education? – Prov. 16:16 How much better to get wisdom than gold! To get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver. Work? – Prov. 14:23 In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty. Marriage? – Eccl. 4:9 Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. Children after marriage? – Hebrews 13:4 Let marriage be held in honor among all…

So for all the messaging of the importance of “love” and sexuality in culture today, let us be equally bold to speak about the practical, Biblical model that not only saves the soul from pain, but also can lead to economic prosperity as well.

Source:

Wang, W. March 2018. ‘The Sequence’ Is the Secret to Success – Go to school, work, marry, have children. Why do we fail to convey this message to poor young people? WSJ. Ms. Wang is director of research at the Institute for Family Studies.

A recent Gallup poll has noted that roughly half of Americans say they would be willing to vote for a socialist and 70% of Millennials would do the same. Numerous polls show similar levels of support among millennial voters, with between 40-50% of them consistently favoring socialism. Is this innocent idealism or a spiritual danger to consider?

Is socialism simply a political theory based on “kindness”, “coming together” and the government paying for my college; or is it a theory that teaches an entirely different set of beliefs about the role of the state, God, and man? Socialism and communism are more than just economic beliefs. When their origins are considered, they are practical attempts to replace God with the state—to replace man’s allegiance to God, or the church, with an allegiance to the state above all else. This deviates from the Biblical belief that God is over man, and man is over the state.

Karl Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto in 1848 because he blamed capitalism for most of society’s ills. He argued that the division of labor that began in the Industrial Revolution was really the first original sin; since in his view as an atheist, the Garden of Eden never happened. For Marx the real problem in society was not anything permanent about the human condition (sin), but it was that some people owned the means of production, such as factories and farmland, and others worked in those factories and farms but do not receive enough pay for their labor. Marx’s early theory of communism was a response to both the genuine excesses of the Industrial Revolution that had not yet been corrected by trade unions (originally started by Christians); and a gradual abandonment of the belief in God.

A Millennial today might say that they believe in socialism but not communism. However, Marx used the terms socialism and communism interchangeably. For Marx, socialism was the logical first step on the path to communism. Most totalitarian leaders have mirrored this mixed use of terms in the last 100 years, including Castro, Mussolini, Stalin, and Hitler. Some of the confusion by millennials as to the true nature of socialism can likely be attributed to a whitewashing of socialist histories in modern classrooms.

While Marx did think of socialism and communism in economic terms, there was a profound theological element to it as well. Marx was not just interested in a new economic and political form to fix the problems of the Industrial Revolution. He wanted to connect his understanding of the State to his understanding of religion. Marx believed God was not real; so then there was no need to appeal to God for moral right. In his world, the state and its leaders became the arbiters of morality.

Every single time socialism has been tried, in all of its forms, whether in Mussolini’s fascism in Italy, Hitler’s National Socialist Germany, Lenin and Stalin’s Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, Castro’s communism in Cuba, Mao’s People’s Republic of China, or North Korea, it has failed, and failed miserably.

Socialism promises economic equality, gives identity, and suggests the perfection of man and society is just around the corner. It offers up a false hope of creating the kingdom of heaven on earth, but it is an appealing vision. This probably partly explains the rising appeal of modern socialism.

Source

Verbois, C. Ph. D (May 2017) The Death of God and the Rise of the Resurrected State. published by Grove City College.

It was the potato famine that began driving large numbers of Irish to leave home in the late 1840s. This migration, along with mass starvation and disease, would eventually cost Ireland around a third of its population. Some went to Great Britain, but the overwhelming majority came to America.

Jason Riley states that the peasants fleeing Ireland had a shorter life expectancy than slaves in the U.S., many of whom enjoyed healthier diets and better living quarters. The black scholar W.E.B. Du Bois wrote that freed slaves were poor by American standards, “but not as poor as the Irish peasants.”

They Irish had arrived from a country that was mostly rural, yet they settled in cities like Boston and New York, working “wherever brawn and not skill was the chief requirement,” as one historian put it. In the South, the Irish took jobs—mining coal, building canals and railroads—considered too hazardous even for slaves. “No other contemporary immigrant group was so concentrated at the bottom of the economic ladder,” writes Thomas Sowell in his classic work, “Ethnic America.”

It wasn’t just a lack of education and urban job skills that slowed the progress of the Irish in America. The Irish were known for drinking and brawling. Irish gangs were common. When an Irish family moved into a neighborhood, property values fell and other residents fled. Anti-Catholic employers requested “Protestant” applicants. Want ads read: “Any color or country except Irish.”

Yet none of these obstacles proved insurmountable. Temperance societies formed to address alcoholism. The Catholic Church took a leading role in tackling poverty, illiteracy and other social problems through the creation of orphanages and hospitals and schools. For millions of Irish immigrants, the church was not simply a place of worship. It was the focal point of the community.

The phrase “the luck of the Irish” is commonly thought to mean “extreme good fortune.” But it was not luck that caused them to rise out of poverty. Faith, the Judeo/Christian worldview and the economic opportunity provided by free market capitalism began to penetrate the curse of poverty.

They arrived dirt poor and uneducated in the 1840s. After decades of struggle, they achieved prosperity. According to the Census Bureau, today’s Irish-Americans boast poverty rates far below the national average and median incomes far exceeding it. The rates at which they graduate from high school, complete college, work in skilled professions, and own homes are also better than average.

Source:

Lessons From the Rise of America’s Irish By Jason L. Riley. Wall Street Journal March 13, 2018

As we learned from the celebration of Purim last week, Jews in the Old Testament were taught to be generous and so Christians today should be generous. In the years I have been teaching Godly abundance I have said many times the Christians I meet have a huge desire to give to the poor and to fund the Kingdom of God. But…you can’t give what you don’t have. Their hearts are at the right place but their bank accounts are not.

Compassionate people need capital. Prosperous people can help others. Harold Eberle says it like this:

There may be a few individuals whom God has called to a sacrificial life, owning little and spending their days in prayer. But the vast majority of God’s people should work six days a week and be productive. The more successful they are, the more they will have the authority and power to influence the world in a powerful way.

This applies at all levels. The medical doctor can only go on a medical missions trip if he makes enough money to take time off and finance the mission. A business woman can only offer advanced training for her employees if her business is advancing. The business man can only fund an orphanage in Africa if he is making a prophet. And the neighborhood boy can only mow the lawn of the disabled homeowner if he has a lawn mower.

Many times I have been looking at situations or my finances a certain way, confident that I was doing all I could do. Since I thought this was the best I could do, I kept doing the same thing year after year…and getting the same mediocre results. But God would intervene somewhere, somehow; get my attention and show me a better, more prosperous way.

Sometimes this intervention was my own dissatisfaction with where my finances were at…desiring to give more but not having it. Of course we are content in the sense of being thankful, but perhaps this desire for more will drive us to make changes that will produce wealth for us to give. Philippians 2:13 states, “For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him. When God puts His desires in your heart it will lead to practical change in your life.

Source: Compassionate Capitalism – A Judeo-Christian Value by Harold Eberle, 2010, Worldcast Publishing.

Today…Jews don costumes and feast to celebrate Purim…the “they tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat” Jewish holiday. Purim remembers the tale of the Jews’ escape from death in Persian Empire as told in the book of Esther. Esther is celebrated as the courageous heroine.

Here is a brief overview of the story: King Xerxes, whose realm stretches from India to Ethiopia, selects Esther as his new queen. She conceals her Jewishness, but her cousin and mentor Mordechai does not. He refuses to bow down before the king’s advisor, Haman. Enraged by Mordechai’s defiance, Haman persuades the king to exterminate all the Jews of Persia.

After some fasting and political maneuvering, Esther audaciously reveals her identity and everything turns upside down. Xerxes orders Haman hanged on the gallows meant for Mordechai, and the Jews defeat their enemies in a two-day war across the Persian provinces.

The celebration of Purim was then ordered in Esther 9:22; it commemorates “the time when the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month when their sorrow was turned into joy and their mourning into a day of celebration. He wrote them to observe the days as days of feasting and joy and giving presents of food to one another and gifts to the poor.”

On Purim, the story is retold with “jeers” for Haman and “cheers” for Mordecai. As part of celebrations, Jewish people gather at the synagogue where the story of Esther is recited and the atmosphere is rowdy. While it is read, listeners (especially children) are encouraged to use noisemakers, to boo, hiss and stamp their feet when Haman’s name is mentioned. Adults are encouraged to drink until they do not know the difference between “cursed be Haman” and “blessed be Mordechai”. I am not sure about that part, but they also give gifts to one another and gifts to the poor…demonstrating generosity to others in their gratitude toward God. Again we find generosity is at the core of the Biblical worldview in both the Old and the New Testaments.

Although Persia’s modern heir, Iran, still seems intent to destroy the modern state of the Jews, the celebration of Purim continues today; a two-day holiday of feasting, rejoicing, food sharing, gift giving, memorial feasting as the Jews celebrate the fact that they were delivered from being exterminated. For the Christian today this model of generosity, toward friends, family and the poor, gives us a practical way to demonstrate our gratitude toward God.

Source:

The Iranian Threat and the Eternal Meaning of Purim, The Jews of Persia saw the universe’s great whimsy. Grief turned into joy, mourning into celebration. By Eliora Katz, Wall Street Journal Online edition, Feb. 27, 2108.

The majority of Europeans during the middle ages lived as serfs on land owned by Kings and Lords who ruled from fortified castles. They were trapped in subsistence living, but this was accepted because people had no concept of advancing from one class to a higher class. The medieval church even wrongly supported this system with their teaching. But the Judeo-Christian truth of God desiring for people to advance, began to take hold and bring change.

The principles of Biblical capitalism eventually led to the triumph of the Judeo-Christian ethic over Greek and Roman thought. Capitalism was the system, which freed the Western world from the greater oppression of the powerful over the mass of humanity by giving each person the opportunity to advance. Capitalism allowed a middle class to arise and displace the ruling class. It also catapulted the Western world ahead of other civilizations, creating economic inequality in the world. Should those with means be punished or should those without means be lifted up?

Today some advocate that government should tax the rich and give to the poor to reduce inequality. However, this ignores how “growing the economy” seems to be a better answer to help the poor. Between 1990 and 2010, the number of people worldwide living in extreme poverty (i.e. on less than $1.90 a day) was cut in half, and has continued to decline since then. This is 20 years of enormous progress. Two economists, Tomas Hellebrandt and Paolo Mauro, studied this and concluded, in a 2015 paper published by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, that global income inequality declined between 2003 and 2013 due to rapid economic growth in poor nations.

There are two ways to close the gap between the rich and the poor. The first is to concentrate on making the poor better off. The second way to reduce inequality is to make the rich worse off. In a relatively free economy, the main way to get wealthy is to produce something that people value. This has been a basic economic insight at least since Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations,” published in 1776. Wealth is one of the main rewards for productive work. High taxes on wealth and the wealthy reduce the incentive to produce.

For example money to be invested in business and commerce will tend to move to the place where taxes are the lowest. So raising taxes will tend to move capital investment, the associated jobs and a rising standard of living, away from those that the “taxers” are trying to help.

Sources:

Compassionate Capitalism – A Judeo-Christian Value by Harold Eberle, 2010, Worldcast Publishing.

A War on the Rich Won’t Help the Poor by Henderson; Wall Street Journal, Feb 9, 2018. Mr. Henderson is a research fellow with the Hoover Institution, and an editor of the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. Appeared in the February 9, 2018, print edition.