For those of you who don't know, I am pursuing a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Marketing. As a student in the College of Business, I am required to take many basic business and economics classes including microeconomics and macroeconomics. This semester, I am taking microeconomics, and while I have learned a lot about how economics works in general, I have also learned a lot more about Christianity through this class and have learned new terminology that I have found useful in explaining Christianity. I wanted to share this because I have found it fascinating and I hope you do too!
The first terms that I learned about and applied to the concept of Christianity were trade-offs and opportunity costs. Merriam-Webster defines a trade-off as "a giving up of one thing in return for another." The English Oxford Living Dictionary defines an opportunity cost as "the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen." Essentially what this means is that when you make a decision, you have to make trade-offs and those trade-offs result in there being an opportunity cost. Now that I have defined these terms, let's think about the trade-offs and opportunity costs involved with becoming a Christian. The first thing that comes to mind is that you give up a life of sin to live a life of obedience. You are also giving up your old life to be made new in Christ. These are two key concepts that relate to becoming a Christian, and I will go into more detail on them later, but let's think more about other possible trade-offs and opportunity costs of Christianity. Another one is that you could be sleeping in instead of going to church. You could also be saving up to buy something expensive instead of tithing. Instead of paying to go on a mission trip over spring break that is labor-intensive, you could be paying to go on a vacation over spring break to party and relax. Lastly, you could be watching Netflix instead of having quiet time where you are diving into God's word. While some of these things may seem silly, they are all examples of trade-offs and opportunity costs. While to some non-believers these examples would be simple sacrifices rather than trade-offs, this is where marginal thinking comes into play.
Marginal thinking is another term that I have learned so far in Microeconomics. Marginal thinking essentially is the concept of considering whether or not the benefit is greater than the cost. When we make decisions, we have to weigh the benefits and the costs to make the right decision. Let's look at the examples that I mentioned earlier of trade-offs and opportunity costs. The first example that I gave is that you give up a life of sin to live a life of obedience. If you are trying to think marginally, you would see that while you can fill your life with sin to try to fix what is missing, the truth is that only God can satisfy you. This is shown many times throughout the Bible, but a few examples can be found in John 6:35, Psalm 107:9, Psalm 22:26, and Psalm 16:11. Another example that I mentioned was that you are sacrificing your old life to be made new in Christ. While this may sound kind of sad, the reality is that you were dead in your sins, but God made you new and brought you to life (Ephesians 2:1-5). I also said that you could be sleeping instead of going to church and while sleeping in may give you temporary rest, only God can give us true rest (Matthew 11:28). Also, you could be saving up to buy something expensive instead of tithing, but Paul says that the love of money is the root of evil (1 Timothy 6:10) and by not tithing, you are robbing God (Malachi 3:8). While serving on a mission trip instead of going on vacation may seem like a sacrifice to some, most believers know that serving the Lord not only makes your heart happy, but your hard work will also be rewarded (Exodus 23:25). Lastly, I said that you could be watching Netflix instead of having quiet time and reading God's word, but by reading His word and spending time with Him, you are growing closer to Him (James 4:8). Now that I have explained all of these examples, it isn't hard to see that the benefits of following Christ far outweigh the costs.
I couldn't move onto the next topic without mentioning the ultimate example of trade-offs and opportunity costs: Jesus. As John 6:38 states, Jesus left heaven to come down to earth to save us. His opportunity cost of saving us was comfort in heaven, and he traded that for an uncomfortable and horrendous death here on earth. His life on earth was not all rainbows and butterflies. He was second-guessed, betrayed, tortured, judged, crucified, and spit on. Even though He was fully God, He was also fully man which means that He still experienced pain. The shortest verse in the Bible is John 11:35 "Jesus wept." This verse shows the pain that Jesus endured. Even after all that He endured for our expense and after the pain that we inflicted upon him, He still loved us enough to ask God to forgive us (Luke 23:34). Jesus came down to earth to save us even though his opportunity costs were high. He chose between being comfortable and painful death all for us. If that doesn't leave you in awe, I don't know what will.
If you weren't convinced about how much better it is to follow Christ than to not, keep reading! Another topic that I learned more about in microeconomics was incentives. While most of Y'all probably already know what incentives are, The English Oxford Living Dictionary defines an incentive as "a thing that motivates or encourages one to do something." There are an infinite amount of incentives for Christianity, but I thought I would list a few with some biblical references as well. As Christians, we are promised eternal life in John 3:16 and John 5:24 (as well as many other times throughout the Bible). An essential part of our gift of eternal life is that we get to spend eternity with God, as discussed in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. We are also given salvation, a place at God's table and grace as mentioned in Ephesians 2:1-8. God also gives us wisdom, as specified in Proverbs 2:6, and a personal relationship with Him.
As you can see, being a Christian is not just a sacrifice with nothing in return; it's quite the opposite. We are given so much as children of God and all we have to do is believe in Jesus. We are given so much, but we deserve none of it. In my microeconomics class, we would talk about the opportunity costs of different people producing different goods. We would discuss trading options as a result of specialization and whether or not each person would be happy with the proposed trade. If you think about it, we bring nothing to the table, and God brings everything. We are broken, but God loves us regardless. Our opportunity costs are quite low, so it would make logical sense for us to leave everything behind and follow Him, but it wouldn't make logical sense for God to save us when you look at His opportunity costs, yet He did it nonetheless. I am constantly in awe of God's endless love for us and I hope that y'all were able to see how viewing Christianity in economic terms can give you a new perspective on things.
