Victor Claar and Robin Klay introduce students to the basic principles of economics and then evaluate the principles and issues as seen from a Christian perspective. This textbook places the economic life in the context of Christian discipleship and stewardship. This text is for use in any course needing a survey of the principles of economics.

Theologians virtually ignore the economic commentary in the Bible. In the few cases where it gets any attention, economic commentary in the Gospels and other New Testament writings tend to lapse into simplistic class warfare nostrums. Liberation theologians import Marxism wholesale (but they try to sell it retail) into theology. Academic historians of 1st Century Palestine/Judea have been pushing an account of a poor peasant Jesus leading a poor peasant's revolt based on the idea of mass displaced workers in Lower Galilee. The problem is the actual archeological findings paint a picture of an industrious and entrepreneurial economy during Jesus's time there. Reading the Gospels in light of archeology and history, which are now available to us, gives us a very different picture than the one you’ve been told regarding what Jesus taught about work and money.

You know people around the world are struggling. A homeless man holds a sign that reads, “Anything helps.” A poor child lives in a slum swarming with flies. A refugee mother is on the brink of starvation. You ask yourself, “But what can I do about such big problems?” You’re looking for long-term solutions. John D. Barry shares incredible, and often shocking, stories about working among the impoverished and unchurched in the U.S. and abroad. And since Barry is a Bible scholar, Jesus’ Economy is also deeply rooted in the Scriptures. It is a personal, sometimes funny, often heartbreaking account that presents a revolutionary pattern for lasting change. Jesus' Economy is based on self-sacrifice. His currency is love. It’s called Jesus’ Economy because it’s about creating a spiritual and physical economy for those who need it most. Here is a thoroughly biblical and compassionate pattern for addressing issues of poverty and offering the hope of the gospel. Jesus’ Economy: • Shows how you as an individual can best encourage renewal in your community. • Demonstrates how your church community or any group can alleviate poverty. • Presents a unified plan for creating jobs, spreading the gospel, and meeting basic needs. • Focuses on community development and sustainability—lasting change, globally and locally. Jesus’ Economy is a call to address our own spiritual poverty—as people who can too easily become distant from Christ—and it is a call to address the physical poverty all around us in a smart and sustainable way. Jesus’ teachings show that with simple, everyday choices, you can make the world a better place and create enduring change. Here’s how to live Jesus’ economy—a currency of love. 100% of author's proceeds go to the nonprofit Jesus' Economy, to fuel the movement of creating jobs and churches in the developing world.

A study of the social conditions of first-century Palestine that explores the economic context of the historical Jesus, focusing on: issues of production and economic distribution; the Jesus tradition from an economic perspective; comparative material from Biblical and Hellenistic authors; Jesus' occupation and the settings a carpenter might have encountered in finding work; the social contracts that could have resulted in Jesus' becoming a broker or bridge between social classes; and reflections on the economic values in the words and ministry of Jesus.

God does not appear in the modern market. For most economists this is as it should be. It is in no way necessary, according to modern economic theory, to consider God when thinking about economy. Indeed, the absence of God in economic matters is viewed as necessary to the great advances in modern economy. The difficulty with modern market economies, however, is that human livelihood is also left out of the theory and practice of the market economy. ?"I propose to bring the church's teaching about God, the doctrine of the Trinity, to bear on the masked connections between God and economy. I will treat the Trinity as the way of understanding what the Bible calls the 'economy of God.'?

"The reasoned and insistent exhortations of a man with a cause who, rather than mellowing with age and wisdom, continues to grow in forcefulness and vision." —Booklist Over the years, Wendell Berry has sought to understand and confront the financial structure of modern society and the impact of developing late capitalism on American culture. There is perhaps no more demanding or important critique available to contemporary citizens than Berry's writings — just as there is no vocabulary more given to obfuscation than that of economics as practiced by professionals and academics. Berry has called upon us to return to the basics. He has traced how the clarity of our economic approach has eroded over time, as the financial asylum was overtaken by the inmates, and citizens were turned from consumers — entertained and distracted — to victims, threatened by a future of despair and disillusion. For this collection, Berry offers essays from the last twenty–five years, alongside new essays about the recent economic collapse, including “Money Versus Goods” and “Faustian Economics,” treatises of great alarm and courage. He offers advice and perspective as our society attempts to steer from its present chaos and recession to a future of hope and opportunity. With urgency and clarity, Berry asks us to look toward a true sustainable commonwealth, grounded in realistic Jeffersonian principles applied to our present day.