Symbiotic Economics: Wealth; Part 1
23/January/2008 08:24 Filed in: Weekly Column
Volume 10, Issue 4
PDF copy
Modern worldly economics is based upon the book, “Wealth of Nations,” published in 1776 by Adam Smith. We have mentioned that book in a few of these Symbiotic Economics articles, but in the seventeen articles thus far they are pretty much all oriented towards people, rather than money, wealth, getting rich and the other reasons why people study economics. Since the title of the series is Symbiotic it must be directly related to life. Thus far, in worldly evolutionary dogma, only human beings can care about economics in the reasoned way, Symbiotic Economics is about how people react with one another, both positively and in a negative fashion.
As I write these words Wednesday, January 23, 2008, there is growing apprehension that all the wisdom of mankind still can not predict the financial future of civilization. Like, how far will the stock markets fall tomorrow, or? When you read this what will be the concerns about not only the economy of where you live, but how it may effect the rest of the world, and more to the point, directly what is going to happen to the lives of you and your family.
Symbiotic Economics, has a different worldview than classical economics and therefore could be subtitled “Wealth of People.” The wealth of people concept probably has a deeper meaning to you today than it has for a decade or two. If you are not a decade or two old, this time is going to be new territory.
Bluntly, evolution does not have an answer to what is facing the world, simply because evolution does not believe in, or has constructed any absolutes by which to design a sound natural order. Only the God of the Bible and creation, who created the whole thing really knows what is going on. That wisdom is not going to come from relying on God’s grace after you have done all you can do either. Furthermore, in evolution there is no basis by which to judge evil or good, or sin and grace. Actually, we have all been indoctrinated by our educational framework to only believe in relative choices as they relate entirely to self, with no thought to a wider world, other than what it can provide for me.
So just what is wealth in the symbiotic economic sense?
Wealth is the total energetics of all your assets of aspirations and liabilities, applied to the outward focus of your life.
“Boy, I didn’t hear that anywhere before, show me the money?
Starting with your last question first, the money will show up in due time and as required (not necessarily desired) as you apply your assets of your life toward the betterment of community. That community includes, of course, you as an individual created in the image of God, whether you believe that or not. If you do not believe that, that liability can be changed into an asset instantaneously, by the Creator. You don’t have to read too far on this website to understand how that can be done. Furthermore, you can call up that obnoxious Christian friend or acquaintance, that always seems to have it all together even though their life is way more in the pits than yours.
Furthermore, your wealth needs to be energetically focused outward. If you continually focus your energies on yourself, you will eventually find, or have found, that it is a tragically small, simple, and trite universe. So let’s look at two examples of wealthy people of the 20th century, Mother Teresa and Bill Gates.
Of course Mother Teresa has gone home to be with Jesus, but there is enough evidence recorded in this world to make you believe that she considered herself one of the most wealthy people in history, simply because she was called to work with some of the world’s materially poor.
Bill Gates is wealthy essentially because of his stock in Microsoft. Now publicly traded stock is not money, but can be converted to money, just by calling your broker and telling him to sell. Today (January 23, 2008) is probably not the best day however, you might not get through for a while. Bill Gates got ”rich” not by working at Microsoft as a job, but as Bill created Microsoft, wealth was created that has affected in a highly positive way the entire world, including somebody writing these words on a Mac.
Bill however, now no longer works at Microsoft directly, with more wealth than anyone can successfully handle, he now works full time trying to get rid of it, where it will make or do the most good. This in a world where poverty, sickness, and hunger are way too prevalent, because most of the people in the world look at their lives as an inward, and I think greedy is an appropriate word here, attempt to gain money at the expense of others.
So stating it another way, both Mother Teresa and Bill Gates had and have a calling to create wealth and apply it to the world’s problems. In our symbiotic economic sense you could argue who created the most wealth in the world, but anyone would be hard pressed to really even comprehend the scope of the whole discussion. Furthermore, God isn’t through with Bill Gates yet.
“Well money talks!” Well sort of, someday, and it may not be in the too distant future, it will talk for the very last time. Those last words of money, will be to all who spend their entire lives in pursuit of it’s illusion of wealth, “Ha, fooled you, you pitiful mass of almost dead protoplasm.” Sounds like a line from C. S. Lewis’ “Screwtape Letters” and it probably was part of the conversations he edited out, but that is a whole story unto itself. And a very deep an wealthy story I might add, well worth investing some of your wasted wealth of time to read.
So my NKJV of the Bible uses the word money 149 times in 132 verses. Jesus uses the word “mammon” four times in the New Testament gospels. We also find the word wealth 37 times in 37 verses. What I didn’t know until I did the software search, (somewhat a contributed wealth of Bill Gates) is that they are never used in conjunction with one another.
If you look at the Bible, most of the time it shows that money’s talk is isn’t too flattering, both to itself and into sinking it’s claws into the world generally and specifically.
Wealth, much less used and more transcendent, speaks more into the context of assets beyond just money. The context of wealth we have been trying and will try to continue to convey as we continue to look at wealth in the symbiotic universe.
In Deuteronomy 8, just as the children of Israel were about to enter the Promised Land, we find one of our three main Biblical discourses we will be using as the context for this wealth series. Those verses are Deuteronomy 8:11-20. Please read those now in your own Bible, or from where we have posted it on the website, or both to get a more wealthy insight.
Specifically, the passage beginning in verse 17-20 gives us both the indicative law and the imperative application:
Beware lest you say in your heart, 'My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.' You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. And if you forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the LORD makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God.
In context, the passage refers to Jews about to the enter the soon to be nation of Israel, however in the true broader context of wealth, both temporal and eternal, it states a real absolute reality of creation. In other word’s these words state truth in both the specific revelation of the Bible, but also in the natural law and common grace attributes of the wealth of the world. In other words this mixed up world in which we now find ourselves, may look chaotic, and it is, but God will use this chaos, for His glory, to show to those who desire to know Him, that His ways are better and higher (more wealthy) than our ways (Isaiah 55:9).
Riches will be the last concept we look at this week. It is used 92 times in 89 verses. Sort of midway between wealth and money, leaning heavily toward the money side. If you look specifically at each of the individual passages you find that same context also. For lack of a better description riches are only temporal wealth.
Riches are what we leave behind when our pilgrimage in this world is over. That part of our wealth which is not invested in riches, we can take beyond the grave. That will be, as we described in the definition of symbiotic wealth, both assets and liabilities.
Now the religions of this world state that if your wealth balance sheet is positive you will go to heaven, if it is negative you will go to hell. Sounds pretty straight forward. If I asked, I can get an Amen from just about all the human community on earth.
To illustrate this, a quotation from the Book of Mormon does a great job of describing not only the focus of Mormonism, but sadly most of Christian evangelicalism that is visible in the world today:
For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do. 2 Nephi 25:23
This “latter revelation” is not found in the Bible, but is really just a better statement of Benjamin Franklin’s original, some half a century earlier, and the operating slogan for achieving the riches of the American Dream: “Heaven helps those, who help themselves.”
In the context of America’s on going political debate and eventual election of a new President, Martin Luther’s comment about temporal governance comes to mind: I would rather be governed by a competent Turk, than an incompetent Christian.
Finally, as an exercise to help you begin to understand your wealth status in an energetic fashion, prepare a diagram or an outline of what you consider important in life. Look at your life not really as a business, but as an eternal enterprise and put that in the center. From there choose three primary loci that you think most important, then under each one of those, three concepts that flow out of those, down to three levels. At that point you will find that starting with you at the center there are 40 boxes, circles, or points on the outline. That is about as complicated as you can handle. Furthermore, you will begin to understand that this point over here also relates to a lesser degree, to that point over there. If you swap this with that, what would that do to the total picture?
If you would like to look at such a diagram, go to the Community tab on the website where we have posted a Wonder Springs energetic at the bottom of the page (the only page under that tab that exists as of this writing).
Now, you are beginning to understand the complex diversity, God has programed or let you develop for His glory in your life. Wow! Look at the wealth you have been short changing or missing entirely in the pursuit of money instead of wealth. In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson used the common grace term “Pursuit of Happiness” contrasted with “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.”
Now there are over 6 billion people on the earth, and the same God of nature and of the Bible are one. That God has a plan for the life of each of those people down infinite levels, some in this life, most for the life to come. Now think of all the people who have died before, and how little of their personal wealth energetic they used. Likewise, how little of your personal wealth energetic, you have used.
The first step in adopting a lifestyle of symbiotic economics is to try to envision you and your wealth, not just your money, or your riches, but you in that community in time, but transcendent of time also. What a heritage, that only has one gate and that gate goes through a wooden cross on a rocky hill in the middle east 2000 years ago. I didn’t make the rules, and I surely can’t enforce them. But this website and this series is designed to point in that direction.
PDF copy
Modern worldly economics is based upon the book, “Wealth of Nations,” published in 1776 by Adam Smith. We have mentioned that book in a few of these Symbiotic Economics articles, but in the seventeen articles thus far they are pretty much all oriented towards people, rather than money, wealth, getting rich and the other reasons why people study economics. Since the title of the series is Symbiotic it must be directly related to life. Thus far, in worldly evolutionary dogma, only human beings can care about economics in the reasoned way, Symbiotic Economics is about how people react with one another, both positively and in a negative fashion.
As I write these words Wednesday, January 23, 2008, there is growing apprehension that all the wisdom of mankind still can not predict the financial future of civilization. Like, how far will the stock markets fall tomorrow, or? When you read this what will be the concerns about not only the economy of where you live, but how it may effect the rest of the world, and more to the point, directly what is going to happen to the lives of you and your family.
Symbiotic Economics, has a different worldview than classical economics and therefore could be subtitled “Wealth of People.” The wealth of people concept probably has a deeper meaning to you today than it has for a decade or two. If you are not a decade or two old, this time is going to be new territory.
Bluntly, evolution does not have an answer to what is facing the world, simply because evolution does not believe in, or has constructed any absolutes by which to design a sound natural order. Only the God of the Bible and creation, who created the whole thing really knows what is going on. That wisdom is not going to come from relying on God’s grace after you have done all you can do either. Furthermore, in evolution there is no basis by which to judge evil or good, or sin and grace. Actually, we have all been indoctrinated by our educational framework to only believe in relative choices as they relate entirely to self, with no thought to a wider world, other than what it can provide for me.
So just what is wealth in the symbiotic economic sense?
Wealth is the total energetics of all your assets of aspirations and liabilities, applied to the outward focus of your life.
“Boy, I didn’t hear that anywhere before, show me the money?
Starting with your last question first, the money will show up in due time and as required (not necessarily desired) as you apply your assets of your life toward the betterment of community. That community includes, of course, you as an individual created in the image of God, whether you believe that or not. If you do not believe that, that liability can be changed into an asset instantaneously, by the Creator. You don’t have to read too far on this website to understand how that can be done. Furthermore, you can call up that obnoxious Christian friend or acquaintance, that always seems to have it all together even though their life is way more in the pits than yours.
Furthermore, your wealth needs to be energetically focused outward. If you continually focus your energies on yourself, you will eventually find, or have found, that it is a tragically small, simple, and trite universe. So let’s look at two examples of wealthy people of the 20th century, Mother Teresa and Bill Gates.
Of course Mother Teresa has gone home to be with Jesus, but there is enough evidence recorded in this world to make you believe that she considered herself one of the most wealthy people in history, simply because she was called to work with some of the world’s materially poor.
Bill Gates is wealthy essentially because of his stock in Microsoft. Now publicly traded stock is not money, but can be converted to money, just by calling your broker and telling him to sell. Today (January 23, 2008) is probably not the best day however, you might not get through for a while. Bill Gates got ”rich” not by working at Microsoft as a job, but as Bill created Microsoft, wealth was created that has affected in a highly positive way the entire world, including somebody writing these words on a Mac.
Bill however, now no longer works at Microsoft directly, with more wealth than anyone can successfully handle, he now works full time trying to get rid of it, where it will make or do the most good. This in a world where poverty, sickness, and hunger are way too prevalent, because most of the people in the world look at their lives as an inward, and I think greedy is an appropriate word here, attempt to gain money at the expense of others.
So stating it another way, both Mother Teresa and Bill Gates had and have a calling to create wealth and apply it to the world’s problems. In our symbiotic economic sense you could argue who created the most wealth in the world, but anyone would be hard pressed to really even comprehend the scope of the whole discussion. Furthermore, God isn’t through with Bill Gates yet.
“Well money talks!” Well sort of, someday, and it may not be in the too distant future, it will talk for the very last time. Those last words of money, will be to all who spend their entire lives in pursuit of it’s illusion of wealth, “Ha, fooled you, you pitiful mass of almost dead protoplasm.” Sounds like a line from C. S. Lewis’ “Screwtape Letters” and it probably was part of the conversations he edited out, but that is a whole story unto itself. And a very deep an wealthy story I might add, well worth investing some of your wasted wealth of time to read.
So my NKJV of the Bible uses the word money 149 times in 132 verses. Jesus uses the word “mammon” four times in the New Testament gospels. We also find the word wealth 37 times in 37 verses. What I didn’t know until I did the software search, (somewhat a contributed wealth of Bill Gates) is that they are never used in conjunction with one another.
If you look at the Bible, most of the time it shows that money’s talk is isn’t too flattering, both to itself and into sinking it’s claws into the world generally and specifically.
Wealth, much less used and more transcendent, speaks more into the context of assets beyond just money. The context of wealth we have been trying and will try to continue to convey as we continue to look at wealth in the symbiotic universe.
In Deuteronomy 8, just as the children of Israel were about to enter the Promised Land, we find one of our three main Biblical discourses we will be using as the context for this wealth series. Those verses are Deuteronomy 8:11-20. Please read those now in your own Bible, or from where we have posted it on the website, or both to get a more wealthy insight.
Specifically, the passage beginning in verse 17-20 gives us both the indicative law and the imperative application:
Beware lest you say in your heart, 'My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.' You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. And if you forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the LORD makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God.
In context, the passage refers to Jews about to the enter the soon to be nation of Israel, however in the true broader context of wealth, both temporal and eternal, it states a real absolute reality of creation. In other word’s these words state truth in both the specific revelation of the Bible, but also in the natural law and common grace attributes of the wealth of the world. In other words this mixed up world in which we now find ourselves, may look chaotic, and it is, but God will use this chaos, for His glory, to show to those who desire to know Him, that His ways are better and higher (more wealthy) than our ways (Isaiah 55:9).
Riches will be the last concept we look at this week. It is used 92 times in 89 verses. Sort of midway between wealth and money, leaning heavily toward the money side. If you look specifically at each of the individual passages you find that same context also. For lack of a better description riches are only temporal wealth.
Riches are what we leave behind when our pilgrimage in this world is over. That part of our wealth which is not invested in riches, we can take beyond the grave. That will be, as we described in the definition of symbiotic wealth, both assets and liabilities.
Now the religions of this world state that if your wealth balance sheet is positive you will go to heaven, if it is negative you will go to hell. Sounds pretty straight forward. If I asked, I can get an Amen from just about all the human community on earth.
To illustrate this, a quotation from the Book of Mormon does a great job of describing not only the focus of Mormonism, but sadly most of Christian evangelicalism that is visible in the world today:
For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do. 2 Nephi 25:23
This “latter revelation” is not found in the Bible, but is really just a better statement of Benjamin Franklin’s original, some half a century earlier, and the operating slogan for achieving the riches of the American Dream: “Heaven helps those, who help themselves.”
In the context of America’s on going political debate and eventual election of a new President, Martin Luther’s comment about temporal governance comes to mind: I would rather be governed by a competent Turk, than an incompetent Christian.
Finally, as an exercise to help you begin to understand your wealth status in an energetic fashion, prepare a diagram or an outline of what you consider important in life. Look at your life not really as a business, but as an eternal enterprise and put that in the center. From there choose three primary loci that you think most important, then under each one of those, three concepts that flow out of those, down to three levels. At that point you will find that starting with you at the center there are 40 boxes, circles, or points on the outline. That is about as complicated as you can handle. Furthermore, you will begin to understand that this point over here also relates to a lesser degree, to that point over there. If you swap this with that, what would that do to the total picture?
If you would like to look at such a diagram, go to the Community tab on the website where we have posted a Wonder Springs energetic at the bottom of the page (the only page under that tab that exists as of this writing).
Now, you are beginning to understand the complex diversity, God has programed or let you develop for His glory in your life. Wow! Look at the wealth you have been short changing or missing entirely in the pursuit of money instead of wealth. In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson used the common grace term “Pursuit of Happiness” contrasted with “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.”
Now there are over 6 billion people on the earth, and the same God of nature and of the Bible are one. That God has a plan for the life of each of those people down infinite levels, some in this life, most for the life to come. Now think of all the people who have died before, and how little of their personal wealth energetic they used. Likewise, how little of your personal wealth energetic, you have used.
The first step in adopting a lifestyle of symbiotic economics is to try to envision you and your wealth, not just your money, or your riches, but you in that community in time, but transcendent of time also. What a heritage, that only has one gate and that gate goes through a wooden cross on a rocky hill in the middle east 2000 years ago. I didn’t make the rules, and I surely can’t enforce them. But this website and this series is designed to point in that direction.