How Christians Should Think About Economics
Dr. Brian Baugus joins Michael to discuss God’s view of our money and how Christians should approach politics in light of economics.
“In 1973, I was a student at Western Seminary. Dr. Douglas Young came to our campus and said, ‘Would anybody be interested in going to Israel and studying there?’ That piqued my interest. Two years later, Nancy and I went to Israel and stayed for the summer studying at the Institute of Holy Land Studies, which is now the Jerusalem University College.
It was a life-defining experience for me. I studied under Jim Monson. He had a love for the land, and what he communicated was his enthusiasm for the land. And I caught the bug. So from then on, I’ve been a student of the land of Israel. I did my Thm thesis on the geopolitics of the Judean Hill country and then my doctoral dissertation on selective geographical problems in the life of Christ. So it all started in the summer of 1973.
I wasn’t a real student until I got to seminary. After that, I graduated from high school by the skin of my teeth. But it wasn’t until I started studying the Bible that I became interested in academics and began to excel.”
“God has a plan to reach all the world’s nations, and when He chose a place to reveal Himself and descend His Son, He chose the land of Israel because it is the land bridge between the three continents, Africa, Europe, and Asia.
Anybody traveling in that region has to go through the land of Israel. So Jesus was sent to the land of Israel to reveal the light of the world to the world. Jerusalem is in the center of the nation, as mentioned in Ezekiel. This is the place where God revealed Himself.
It’s the place where redemption history has taken place. There are a lot of conflicts. We’re in a light vs. darkness, God vs. Satan conflict that continues today. There’s a lot of animosity against the people who live there.
The Arab-Israeli conflict is evidence of that. People are sometimes surprised that they don’t get along. However, there’s a spiritual battle going on in that land. God’s going to win the battle.”
“When the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, the Christians figured this was God’s judgment on the people who had rejected Jesus. So they left the temple site abandoned, which pretty much became a garbage dump. Then in the 600’s, the Muslim conquest took place. And they cleared the site and said, ‘We’re going to show that Islam supersedes Judaism and Christianity.’
They put the dome of the rock on that side of Mount Mariah, and they matched it to the Church of the Resurrection in terms of the dome. The domes are approximately the same size, so they were saying theologically that Islam has superseded Christianity and Judaism, and that’s why it’s there today. In 1967, the Israelis took East Jerusalem, but they left that dome under Islamic authority, so Islamic authority governs that site today.”
“It’s a wonderful experience. You get into the dirt of the land when you excavate, and you go back in history, and that’s what’s so fun about it. You begin to uncover the physical history and the cultural background of the land of the Bible. To me, it’s a labor of love because I love the land, and I want to help its history come forth.
Now we have the history in the Bible, but here you have physical, tangible material remains from the time of David, Abraham, and Jesus. In addition to the fun of exploring and uncovering interesting things, you also meet some wonderful people.
I remember excavating at Bethsaida with a Jewish man for two weeks. During that time, he learned about me, and I learned about him. Of course, I didn’t force the gospel on him, but by the end of the two weeks, he had heard the gospel, and we had some wonderful conversations about the Lord and God’s Word.
There are lots of finds that take place during an excavation. I have never found anything except broken pottery, but they found a cult center during the excavations I participated in. It was like the Holy of Holies with two stands on which were placed incense burners. So these incense burners were discovered and later placed in the Israel Museum.”
“The main conflict is who owns the land. If you believe that God gave this land to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as we see in Scripture, then you’ll say the Israeli people have a right to live on the land God gave them.
Of course, by the Arab people, that’s disputed because they say there was no real promise to Abraham. Instead, they believe it was a promise to Ishmael. The land in dispute now is the West Bank area, in Judea and Samaria, which is referred to as the West Bank because it’s west of the Jordan River. And Jordan originally conquered this land during the war of 1948, and they also took Jerusalem in 1967. Israel took that land back, and it became occupied territory that Israel now claims as their land.
Part of the promise that God gave the people of Israel. Now I can defend Israel’s claim for the land from Scripture, but I also can claim it from history. A war took place, and the Arab League lost, and Israel could take that land back. Now, there are a lot of settlements on that land.
Others are saying we need to give that land back to the Arabs, but they already got the state of Jordan, which was given to them by the United Nations when they divided up. This land has been divided, but it’s still disputed.”
“When I take people to Israel, I tell them not to form an opinion but rather to listen to the voices of the people who are there. It’s hard not to form an opinion. I certainly have an opinion myself. But we need to do a lot of listening instead of telling other people what we think. It’s an issue of the Israelis and the Arab people. I know that one day it’s going to be resolved justly. When the Lord returns, He’s going to take care of this.
There are Palestinian believers, and they’re brothers and sisters in Christ, and they’ve suffered a great deal through this conflict, as have Messianic Jews living in the land. So we’ve got brothers and sisters on both sides. The former student Joel Goldberg, who works with Israeli youth, says, ‘In Christ, you’re one.’ And he encourages a peaceful relationship between the Arabs and the Palestinians once they know Christ, which is the solution.”
“One of the safest places in the world is the land of Israel. It’s safer than downtown Portland where I live. I go to Jerusalem, and I find there are soldiers with weapons. There is security, but you find children playing in the streets late at night in the playgrounds. And I’ve never found any situation in Israel where I have felt fear. The people we go with know the land and the places to avoid. We’re not frequenting the borders where there can be conflict. We go to the archeological sites, and we find nobody there.
And the Palestinians who are against Israel are not against American tourists. We come bringing dollars. And they’re glad to receive us. I’ve found that the Palestinian people can be very hospitable.”
“The biggest reason is that we were commanded in the Hebrew Bible to go up to Jerusalem three times a year. Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles.
And this was a great cost. It took time away from work and agriculture. There was a command to go to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast and see what God had done. Over a lifetime, we, particularly as Americans, have the resources to buy houses, cars, computers, and diamonds.
In the biblical period, at least 1/10th of annual income was to be spent going up to the feast in Jerusalem. So take some of that money that God has entrusted you and go to the land of the Bible. It will make the Bible come alive in your reading; you’ll walk in the footsteps of the apostles and Jesus.
It’ll enhance your spiritual life like nothing else I know. Going on a tour to Israel is like going to seminary for a year. You sink into the Scripture and begin to read the land of the Bible as you read the Bible. Seeing the places where Jesus ministered, standing on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, just brings to life your experience. Everything changes when you read the Bible in black and white, and suddenly, you see it in living colors.”
“In Israel, you see the beginnings of our faith. You see its connection with Judaism and how Jesus, a Jewish Messiah, was born in Bethlehem. You see the importance of Bethlehem to Biblical writers. Luke’s gospel mentions Bethlehem in the birth narrative five times. These places are central in Biblical history and the revelation of God’s plan of salvation. When you visit those sites, you see how the Scriptures connect with the land.
And to me, that’s the exciting thing. How does the Scripture connect with the land, and how does the land help us to better understand the Scripture? To me, it’s life-defining. If it cost a million dollars, I’d be saving to go to Israel.”
“Are there promises that have been given to Israel that God will fulfill? Or are those promises transferred to the church? If they’re transferred to the church, there is no future for Israel as a people.
There is no future for the land of Israel as a land. So these things become unimportant, and God is just concerned with the church without any future for the people of Israel. But I think that that’s a faulty hermeneutic. That’s taking the promises of God and undermining God’s integrity as a promise keeper. I believe that God when He makes a promise, will keep a promise. He’s the original promise keeper.”
“Bethlehem is important because it’s the city of David. That’s where David was born, and David is a prototype of the Messiah.
God told David that he would have a son who would sit on his throne, rule, and reign forever. So it has to come from David’s hometown, Bethlehem. Micah predicted that the promised Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. 2 Samuel 7:12-16 is the key to who the Messiah is. Interestingly, when the angel Gabriel reveals to Mary that she’s going to have a Son, he quotes that passage to her.
He reminds her that this son comes as a descendant of David. Mary was living in Nazareth. But, they had to get to Bethlehem for the prophecy of Micah to be fulfilled. So, God arranged for the emperor of Rome to require these people to gather in their hometowns where their ancestral residence was and to register for the census.
So Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. But, of course, Jesus wouldn’t have made the impact had He been born in Nazareth. Nazareth was an out-of-the-way place. It was just a little burg in an isolated farming community in the hills. But when Jesus began His ministry, where did he go? He went to the Via Maris, where travel and interaction with the whole world could occur along the international highway.”
“I hope that they will have an introduction to the land of the Bible that will prepare them for their visit to the land. The book is a guide based on what I teach when I go to Israel. I’ve been making this as a PDF file to send to my travelers and students, and I decided I ought to put it into a book and make it available for a small cost. So I made the maps, developed the teaching, and published some interesting facts about Israel’s history and key figures. I also included some discussion of the politics of Israel, which is controversial, but I felt that people want to know. So I laid it out there for them to consider. “
Dr. Laney was born in Georgia and moved to Oregon at a young age. While attending the University of Oregon, he met the love of his life, Nancy Lilly, whom he married in 1971. They have been blessed by four grown children and four grandchildren.
Raised in a Christian home, he expressed his faith in Jesus at a young age, but it was not until his days at the University of Oregon that he entered into a more personal relationship with God. It was during his junior year that he sensed God leading him into Christian service and upon graduating from college he attended Western Seminary.
Dr. Laney has served as the Professor of Biblical Studies at Western Seminary since 1977. He has also spent time abroad as a visiting professor at seminaries in the Philippines and the Netherlands. On his travels, he has visited Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Dr. Laney enjoys teaching Bible classes and courses that focus on the historical, geographical and cultural backgrounds of the Bible.
Every Man’s Bible Commentaries from Moody Publishers
Laney’s Israel Guide by J. Carl Laney
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