SUNDAY: Bible Study - 9:00 AM | Worship - 10:00 AM | PM Worship - 6:00 PM WEDNESDAY: Bible Class - 7:00 PM ~ 8110 Signal Hill Road Manassas, Virginia | Office Phone: 703.368.2622

japplaneThis may be the first time you've ever heard the term "Christian Economics."  And while the first thing that may come to mind is collection plate, economics need not refer only to monetary values.  Economics has been defined as the "allocation of scarce resources with alternative uses."  At the onset of WWII, Japanese pilots overwhelmed American fighter pilots.  The reason for this was Japanese pilots were veteran combat pilots who had fought over the skies of Manchuria, China and Mongolia.  American pilots were new pilots with little or no combat experience whatsoever.

The tides began to turn mainly due to Japan's misuse of scarce recourses - their veteran pilots.  While the Japanese had adopted a "fly till you die" philosophy with their pilots, the American Navy recycled their pilots to train new pilots.  This gave American pilots the edge in combat teaching the new pilots how to better survive air-to-air combat situations, while the veteran Japanese pilots were lost to attrition.  The Japanese were not bad pilots; they just employed a poor use of scare resources!

As Christians, we also have within us scarce resources with alternative uses.  Those resources are the talents given to us by God.  In Matthew 25:14-29 Jesus gives us the parable of the talents, teaching us that we are given talents according to our own ability (vs. 15).  In almost every case, the servants took the talents they had and used those talents to develop other talents; good alternative use of scarce resources.  The exception is the servant who buried the talent in the ground, horded and hidden from the world.  The number of talents was not the issue.  The point of the parable is how you use your talent to produce within yourself, and in others, more talents.

If you compare the "fly till you die" concept with hiding or burying your talent, you can see that in each case a talent represents a poor use of a valuable and scarce resource.  In the late 1930's, experienced Japanese pilots became wasted assets, while American pilots made good use of the resources they had.  We are given talents by God to better serve the church as soldiers of the cross. If we horde those talents out of pride, selfish ambition or laziness, then we too will suffer needless attrition and leave much less for future generations.

We are called to fight the good fight (1 Timothy 6:12) and to invest our talents in the work of the church.  It follows Christ's desire for us to share, to give, to teach, to do whatever is necessary in building talent upon talent.  It may very well be your talent that brings out the talents in others!  Imagine if everyone fully committed to using their God given talents.  Our stores would be running over…you do the math.  How are your Christian economics?

NewManassas Side

8110 Signal Hill Road | Manassas, Virginia

Let us know about your interest in Studying the Bible

Members Login

Bible Study

biblestudysd

Top
                                                                       © 2013 Manassas Church of Christ