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Did You Know God Has an Economy?
March 18 2019
Have you ever heard that God has an economy? The word “economy” usually brings to mind things like money, resources, financial budgeting, and so on. However, the Bible’s use of the word “economy” doesn’t refer to such physical things, but to something far more profound.
In the foreword of his book, The Economy of God, Witness Lee explains the meaning of this word according to the Bible:
“The word ‘economy’ used in the title of this volume may sound somewhat strange to the reader. ‘The economy of God’ is a quotation from 1 Timothy 1:4, according to the Greek. ‘Economy’ is the Greek word ‘oikonomia’ which primarily signifies the household management, the household administration, arrangement and distribution, or dispensation (of wealth, property, affairs, etc.). It is used with the intention of stressing the focal point of God’s divine enterprise, which is to distribute, or dispense, Himself into man.”
God has a divine enterprise, but it has nothing to do with material things and everything to do with Him being imparted, or dispensed, into man.
On page 8, Lee defines the economy of God:
“What is God’s economy? The Scriptures, composed of sixty-six books, contain many different teachings, but if we would make a thorough and careful study of the Scriptures with spiritual insight, we would realize that God’s economy is simply His plan to dispense Himself into humanity. God’s economy is God’s dispensation, which means nothing else than God dispensing Himself into the human race.”
When we see that God’s economy throughout the entire Bible is to dispense Himself into us, our lives will be changed. Lee goes on:
“In this divine dispensation God, who is almighty and all-inclusive, intends to dispense nothing other than Himself to us. This needs to be repeated many times in order to impress us deeply!”
We need to be deeply impressed with God’s desire to dispense Himself into us. In our Christian life, we can be distracted by many things, even things that are good or scriptural, and miss the mark of God’s economy. On page 20, Lee says:
“What is this mark? It is simply the all-inclusive Holy Spirit dwelling in our human spirit. During the whole day, learn how to contact and follow the Holy Spirit. Learn how to fellowship and deal with Him. Christianity teaches us to deal with forms, regulations and doctrines. Even the Scriptures are read in a wrong way, since little or no contact is made with the Holy Spirit in the reading. We merely learn doctrines in black and white letters. We need to read the Scriptures by exercising our spirit to contact the Holy Spirit, not by using our eyes to see the words and exercising our minds merely to understand its teachings. From morning to evening, we must deal with the One dwelling in us, for He is the bountiful supply of the Lord Jesus.”
In God’s economy, Christ is the center. When we’re saved, Christ is dispensed into our spirit. He wants to continue to dispense Himself with all His riches into our whole being until we’re filled with Him and He truly becomes our center.
On page 23, we have this exhortation concerning Christ from Lee:
“We must learn to grasp one thing and to be grasped by one thing—Christ Himself. We must learn how to grasp Christ in the Holy Spirit and be grasped by the Holy Spirit. Although we can certainly receive help from doctrine, the main center of God’s economy is not doctrine, but the living One in the Holy Spirit.”
Day by day, we need to grasp just one thing: Christ!
In this post, we’ve only touched a little on the subject of God’s economy, which is a great matter in the Bible. To read more about this wonderful topic, we encourage you to read the full text of The Economy of God. You can download this book for free on the books page of our website.