Conclusion to Part II
Updated: 1/20/20
For anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Awake, you sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Look carefully how you live—not as unwise but as wise. Redeem the time because the days are evil (Ephesians 5:14–16).
“Redeem the time.” What does this mean? It means “buy back the time.” The meaning of “redemption” is “buy back.” This is what it means to be redeemed by Christ’s perfect life crucifixion, and resurrection, which God imputes judicially to His elect. He has bought back your life, not from Satan, who has never had a legal claim to anything, but from God the Father. Something eternally valuable is transferred to redeemed individuals who are members of groups, both covenantal and noncovenantal. This command, to redeem the time, establishes an economic and a judicial connection between your work in history and your time in eternity. This two-fold connection has to do with stewardship (economic) and trusteeship (judicial). Your actions are representative: point two of the biblical covenant.
We learn from this passage that time is not a zero-cost resource. It should therefore be obvious why time management is crucial to fulfilling your areas of responsibility regarding the dominion covenant. First, there is no such thing as free time. Second, because of technological innovation, entertainment has become a huge industry. It absorbs huge amounts of money. But far more alarming, it absorbs huge amounts of time. This is good news for dominion-oriented Christians. Their covenantal opponents are likely to succumb to this law of economics: at a lower price, more is demanded. The price of digitally delivered entertainment keeps falling. It becomes less resistible. For those with a dominion mindset who recognize the eternal value of their time, the lure of time-costly entertainment is less. They can resist more easily, meaning less expensively. For them, cheap entertainment serves as a barrier to entry for potential competitors. Their opponents find it too convenient to waste time. They do not use entertainment as end-of-the day relaxation, which is necessary in the lives of most people for increased production the next day: job, calling, volunteer service, or education. Dominion-oriented Christians are able to count the costs of lost time more accurately. They make better judgments regarding the use of their time. Conclusion: time management is not a covenantally optional skill.
I have covered only five areas of work: calling, job, volunteering, education, and business. Most men are involved in the first. They should be more involved in two through four. They also should be more involved in self-education as a way to improve their understanding of society in general and their callings and jobs in particular. Dominion requires this. These responsibilities are in addition to the covenantal responsibilities in family, church, and state. All this requires time. Time is not a zero-price resource.
The good news is that all creatures are constrained by time. There are exactly 24 hours a day for all creatures great and small. Life is a capital asset. While life expectancy varies, culture to culture and person to person, the range of lifespans is narrow. People who do not die in infancy or early childhood have close to the same amount of time to work with. There is a far more equality chronologically than economically or intellectually. This gives dominion-oriented Christians without much money an advantage over those with lots of money but no dominion vision. Those few covenant-breakers who do possess a dominion vision serve mammon: “more for me in history.” Their inheritance is dissipated as time goes by. “A good person leaves an inheritance for his grandchildren, but a sinner's wealth is stored up for the righteous person” (Proverbs 13:22).
I have argued that you must become clear in your mind about what your calling is. The earlier in your life that you make this assessment, the better it will be for your life’s crucial work. A great advantage that I had in life was that I knew what my calling was by age 21. I had no idea what my job would be, but I knew that I had to understand the connection between economic theory and the Bible. I have needed almost six decades of study and writing to get where I am. My great work still lies ahead: the scholar’s edition. I have had little time to waste. I see this fact more clearly today than I did at (say) age 50. So will you . . . unless you are older than 50.
In making your decisions regarding your calling, your job, and any other areas of service, the parable parables of the talents and the minas should guide you. God has transferred to you talents in the broadest sense. He holds you responsible for increasing the value of these talents, as assessed by God, who imputes value. To impute value means to bring judgment. God will bring judgment, day by day, just as He did in the week of creation. Then He will bring final judgment, which we also refer to as the day of reckoning. Reckoning means accounting. This final judgment is the context of Matthew 25. Point two of the economic covenant, stewardship, is always related to point four: judgment. This is why covenant-keepers must strive to increase their productivity, which will increase their net output. The question then is this: “What is the best use of this output for kingdom-building purposes?”
It is significant that Jesus used these two pocketbook parables to drive home a spiritual lesson. The context of these parables is business. More specifically, it is entrepreneurship: the process of multiplying capital. It is this: “Buy low. Sell high.” Here we find that business is the model for dominion in general. Not only did Jesus not criticize business; He presented it as a model for success in life. Gaining profits in history is the model for dominion. Profits in history lead to greater responsibility in eternity. “The first came before him, saying, ‘Lord, your mina has made ten minas more.’ The nobleman said to him, ‘Well done, good servant. Because you were faithful in very little, you will have authority over ten cities.’ The second came, saying, 'Your mina, lord, has made five minas.' The nobleman said to him, ‘You take charge over five cities’” (Luke 19:16–19).
You must be productive as a covenantal agent: individual, family, church, and state. But this is only the beginning. There are other areas of service. They should be pursued in terms of your calling. This means that you must decide what your calling is. It is that area of your life in which you are required by God to leave the most valuable legacy, meaning inheritance. It will take God-induced judgment to make a correct assessment. Then it will take a lifetime of reinvested profits to build that legacy. It will also take a program of training to guide those who will receive your legacy.
Quite frankly, that is what this book is all about. I am attempting to recruit and train you to carry on some aspect of my legacy. This is a book on activism. It is based on this biblical premise: “Be doers of the word and not only hearers, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word but not a doer, he is like a man who examines his natural face in a mirror. He examines himself and then goes away and immediately forgets what he was like. But the person who looks carefully into the perfect law of freedom, and continues to do so, not just being a hearer who forgets, this man will be blessed in his actions” (James 1:22–25). It is not sufficient for you to have read Volume 1: Student’s Edition. You need to read Volume 2: Teacher’s Edition. You must recruit and guide students. But even this is insufficient. You must put into practice what you have read about and taught. This is why I divided five sections of each chapter of Part I into theology and implementation.
When you have identified your most likely calling, it will be time to rethink all aspects of your life in terms of this calling. You must set priorities. Then you must develop a pair of budgets: money and time. Then you must discipline yourself to adhere to these budgets, day by day. This is difficult work. Few people ever do this systematically. If you do, you will begin to gain mastery over the world around you. This will lead to service opportunities, which are always leadership opportunities. This is a biblical strategy: dominion through subordination. That was what Jesus did with respect to His Father. Go, and do likewise.
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To read the entire book, go here: https://www.garynorth.com/public/department197.cfm.