Preface to Teacher's Edition
Update: 1/13/20
Christian Economics: Teacher's Edition
For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:28–33).
You have somehow come across this book. If so, you have a problem: this book is designed to help people teach other people the material in the first book in this series, Christian Economics: Student’s Edition. That book is much shorter than this one. It sets forth the basics of Christian economics. This book is supplemental. It builds on the previous book. So, if you have not read the previous book, you are at a disadvantage. You have a lot of catching up to do. You are missing crucial information. You can download it here for free:
On the other hand, maybe you have read the student edition. You were intrigued by it. You are curious. You want confirmation. This book provides confirmation.
Maybe you were convinced by the student edition. You want more information in order to increase your expertise. This book will do this for you. But there is a looming problem: with greater information, you will have greater responsibility.
And that servant who knew his master's will but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating. But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more (Luke 12:47–48).
It is insufficient to pour information into your head without sharing what you have learned. It is not good enough to become an absorber of information. You must become a doer of the word.
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing (James 1:23–25).
So, if you believe what this book teaches, you will have to become a teacher. Count the cost of this responsibility. Jesus said: “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62b).
I have been a direct-mail copywriter ever since 1974. I had to learn this skill to market my brand-new newsletter, Remnant Review. I taught myself this skill. I am still learning. One of the rules of direct-response copywriting is this: never write for a committee. If you do, your copy will be less intense and therefore less persuasive. Also, your copy will not press the reader’s hot buttons, which is essential for response rates high enough to roll out another mailing.
A professional copywriter first targets a specific audience. Second, he pictures a mental image of a representative member of this audience. He hopes that he gets this mental image correct. Then he writes for this fictitious but hopefully representative person.
I have a target group in mind: Christians who read serious non-fiction books. Second, these people think that the Bible has answers for life’s problems. Third, they are searching for explicitly Christian answers to economic issues. Fourth, they are concerned about the state of the economy. Fifth, they are willing to take action if they discover these answers. They are activists.
Is this you?
I am missing crucial information. I do not know who you are. I do not know where you are. I do not know when you are. I do not know what you have accomplished in life so far. In short, I do not know your main motivations.
Here is a valid universal goal: greater wisdom. Wisdom is the skill of good ethical judgment. To gain wisdom, you must build on biblical foundations. Christians need reliable foundations, no matter what they are doing with their lives. They should not expect covenant breakers to provide these foundations.
Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it (Matthew 7:24–27).
This book provides a theological foundation for understanding economic theory. It uses the five-point biblical covenant structure as a way to understand economics. Generally, the covenant is structured in terms of these categories: God, man, law, sanctions, and time. I explain this in my book, Unconditional Surrender: God’s Program for Victory (2010). There is a short version: God’s Covenants. You can download it for free here: www.bit.ly/gncov. I have also written an advanced book on this topic: The Covenantal Structure of Christian Economics. Download it here: www.bit.ly/gncovecon.
As you should know by now, the best way to learn something new is to implement whatever you have been shown. You learn by doing. You start a small project. But whenever the material is more theoretical than technical, the best way to learn it is to teach it. I want you to learn this material. So, I want you to teach it.
I have written a third volume, an activist’s edition. I show how to implement at least some of this book’s material locally. Learn by doing. I have written Volume IV, the scholar’s edition. It is longer than this one. It is my magnum opus [great work], the culmination of my life’s calling.
This book is not a workbook. It is not an outline for a series of lessons. It is an intellectual tool that will help you gain the confidence of your first student. The student needs to know that you really do know what you are talking about.
If you are self-disciplined enough to read this book, you should become a teacher. You should train others. What kind of training? That depends on your abilities. But there is no doubt that you should become a teacher. You are needed. You may not yet be wanted, but you are needed.
In a series of lectures in 1962 to a group of Catholic activists, an ex-Communist organizer named Douglas Hyde described how the British Communists in the 1930s and 1940s recruited and trained people, who in turn became organizers. Hyde was among the most successful of these trainers. His lectures were published as a book, Dedication and Leadership Techniques (1962). This material was updated in a later book, Dedication and Leadership (1966). Here is his description of this training. The new recruit would be sent out to sell the Communist Party’s newspaper, the Daily Worker. They did not expect him to sell many papers. They had far more important goals. One was to force him to take a public stand for his new-found faith. Second, they wanted him to be ridiculed by the public. This would be his daily experience. Here is why this was important.
Sooner or later, too, someone who is not just an abusive critic but an intelligent critic comes along and starts to ask questions: Why did you join the Communist Party? How can you join the Communist Party when you know what Russia did in Hungary? Or, how Joe Stalin concluded a pact with Hitler? Someone else comes along and says: How can you be an atheist? And starts to argue atheism with him. This is tremendously important because he has not got the answers. He is not supposed to have answers at that stage. This is all part of the operation.He discovers his own inadequacy. He thought he knew quite a lot about communism. He had been mixing with communists, reading the Daily Worker. Perhaps he discovers that he does not really know as much about communism as he thought. When he has been doing this for two or three weeks, someone described as the education secretary comes to him at a Communist Party local meeting, and says: “Don’t you think you ought to learn more about the communism which yon have accepted? Wouldn’t you like to attend some classes? We are organizing some classes for beginners now. We won’t make enormous demands upon you. They will be pretty simple, geared to the state that you have reached, but we’d like for you to attend.”
He heaves a sigh of relief, and says: “Thank God or whatever gods there may be. Here is a chance of getting the answers to the questions I have been asked. Here is a possibility of getting ammunition, shot and shell, for the battle in which I am already involved.”
In other words, he already feels the need for this—and so it meets a need.
This means in turn that he goes to the classes in a receptive frame of mind. It means that he feels the tutor has something which he needs, urgently needs, desperately needs, and, therefore, he is going to pay attention to what he is given, he is going to put in whatever work is required. Incidentally, no very great demands will be made on him at the start in the way of reading. All this is a sort of psychological preparation for future training.
Maybe you are a former student who has read my student’s edition. You are therefore intellectually ready to advance to the next level of knowledge. This book will provide what you need intellectually to become a teacher. Is this your goal? What is your main goal in becoming better informed? If it is not to recruit others and train them, then you have missed the point—of this book and of Christianity. I did not write this book and 35 other support volumes merely to satisfy your intellectual curiosity. I wrote it to help you change the world. The world needs changing.
The study of economics can become a lifetime task. Mastering anything requires an abnormal degree of commitment. Studying economics may be worth this degree of commitment. Something should be worth it. If it is not economics, then find something else.
In any academic discipline, a Christian must do double duty. He must first re-think both the categories and the content of the discipline from the point of view of the Bible. This is a lonely task. Second, he must master the major rival views. He must understand rival views so well that he could debate an issue from the point of view of the rival view, and the listeners would think that he held the rival view. Then he takes the Christian side and demolishes what he has just presented. This is not easy, but this is what serious intellectual commitment requires. When you hold an unpopular view, you must do double duty.
Are you ready to commit to this degree of responsibility?
After you make this self-assessment, it will be time for a leap of faith, either away from a study of Christian economics or toward it. You cannot know much about the future. If you commit, then much of this commitment will be based on faith. “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).
You will have to run a series of tests along the way. You are looking for positive feedback. It may be financial. It may be intellectual. It may be both. Set some temporal goals for the next year, five years, and lifetime.
Next, I want you to become a recruiter. This may require a systematic program of inviting people to discuss the information you receive in this book. It may be teaching a Sunday school class. If you teach, and you are good at it, you may want to go take the next step: train to become an activist. Finally, you may decide to become a scholar. You may want to extend or modify what you read in this book.
I have a sales task with this book. I am trying to persuade you to change your life. Changing your habits is never easy. Neither is changing your mind. There are inescapable costs associated with changing your mind. There is, above all, this cost: re-thinking much of what you have believed. Why? Because of this rule: “You can’t change just one thing.”
I hope you will keep reading this book until the end. Then, if I have persuaded you to commit, you should read it again. That’s correct: re-read the entire book, start to finish. Why? First, because any book that is not worth reading twice is not worth teaching. Second, in the second reading, you will begin to understand the auction process. This is crucial for teaching free market economics.
After the second reading, you should search for teaching opportunities.
If you then decide to plow ahead, don’t look back.
For Bible quotes in this book, I use the English Standard Version (ESV). in the language is modern. The ESV is better for digital translation software to translate accurately than the King James Version.
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For the rest of this book, go here: https://www.garynorth.com/public/department193.cfm