God....the ultimate economist!

“The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer that planted good seed in his field. But that night as everyone slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat. When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew. The farmer’s servants came and told him, ‘Sir, the field where you planted the good seed is full of weeds!’ ‘An enemy has done it!’ the farmer exclaimed. ‘Shall we pull the weeds?’ they asked. He replied, ‘No, you’ll hurt the wheat if you do. Let both grow together until the harvest. Then I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds and burn them and put the wheat in the barn.’ ”
Matthew 13: 24-30, NLT

Whenever we think of an economy we typically think of a person’s or a nation’s wealth creating machine. The truth is that an economy is much more pervasive than merely “a system of producing, distributing, and consuming wealth.” (http://www.yourdictionary.com/economy, 4.a.) 

It’s “the restrained or efficient use of one’s materials, technique, etc.”

(http://www.yourdictionary.com/economy, 2.b.)

While the media culture has shaped our minds into thinking of economics merely as wealth production, distribution, and consumption, the truth is far more basic; it’s efficiency. God certainly understood, and understands, efficiency. A lot of people doubt that, asking themselves why a God of love would allow evil in the first place. If He is indeed all powerful, why not just destroy it? After all, that would be the most efficient answer, wouldn’t it? Or would it?

The truth is, that’s the knee jerk answer, but it isn’t the most efficient answer, nor is it the most compassionate. God’s love keeps the wheat from being torn up by allowing evil to run its course until the appropriate time. We find in economics that intervention into the normal flow of free markets usually does more harm than good, but God knew that long before we realized it.

God . . . the quintessential economist.