Biblical Economics???

Sure, I know ... anyone can read the Bible and find what they want.

Yet, this morning's lectionary (October 5, 2017) caught my attention.

Paul the Apostle defends his work and offers a view of labor and wages that have wide implications for society, at least as I see it.

Paul writes (1 Corinthians 9.4-12):

Do we not have the right to our food and drink? Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a believing wife, as do the other apostlesand the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living? Who at any time pays the expenses for doing military service? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock and does not get any of its milk?

Do I say this on human authority? Does not the law also say the same? For it is written in the law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Or does he not speak entirely for our sake? It was indeed written for our sake, for whoever plows should plow inhope and whoever threshes should thresh in hope of a share in the crop. If we have sown spiritual good among you, is it too muchif we reap your material benefits? If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we still more?

Fair wages?

Adequate benefits?

Safety in the work place?

The right to organize?

Profit sharing?

God is concerned about the oxen, as Paul notes, and still more: God cares about the whole range of life, and those who work by the strength of their arm and the sweat of their brow ... which includes those on the shop floor and those who sit in front of a computer - all those who do not own the means of capital, but provide their own capital by labor.

Paul adds in his second letter (chapter 8.13-15) with regard to giving:

I do not mean that there should be relief for other sand pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need, so that their abundancemay be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance. As it is written,

“The one who had much did not have too much,
and the one who had little did not have too little.”

There is always going to be owners and workers, those with much, and those with less ... and as I read Paul here, and consider the whole of the Sacred Text, it's the widening of the gap that concerns me, and it's the effort of a nation, a good government, and its people, who work to keep the gap viable for all - lest the spoils of the day go unreasonably to the few.

Some thoughts about Biblical Economics ... and how I read the Sacred Text.