Is Economic Thinking Relevant for the Church?

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by Kathryn Feliciano

When you have a master’s degree in economics, you get excited when you find economic concepts in unexpected places.

Not everyone shares your enthusiasm.

Case in point: the other day, I heard a sermon about leadership in the church, focusing on Acts 6. Hearing it I thought, “Look at that! The early church leaders were using comparative advantage!”

When I shared this insight with my husband, he half-laughed. Then he paused to see if I was being serious.

I was.

Here’s Acts 6:1-4:

Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”

Acts 6:2 seems odd at first: “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.”

It seems as if the apostles believe preaching God’s word is a higher calling and serving tables is beneath them. Yet they follow Jesus, the foremost example of humility (Phil. 2:6-8).

What we find is not that the apostles have a higher calling, but rather that the early church was facing a problem—the apostles could not do everything by themselves.

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