Written by Donald J. Boudreaux |
Saturday, July 16, 2022
No one could possibly know – the exact number of persons whose efforts were devoted to producing your smartphone and keeping it operational. But I’m confident that this number is much greater than one million – in fact, it’s likely multiple times greater. When this number is added to the number of strangers whose efforts were devoted to producing your living-room couch, your HVAC system, the latest medicines that you ingested, your automobile, and the commercial-air flight that you’ll next take to visit your parents or to close that business deal, the number of strangers who routinely work for you likely numbers well over a billion.

If there’s a particular purpose for my presence on this earth – other than being a loving and responsible father for my son – that purpose is to teach principles of economics. Even adjusting (as best as I can) for professional bias, I have no doubt that no body of knowledge is more important for understanding society than is economics, with few bodies of knowledge being as important. And the part of economics that, far and away, is most important is economics principles, popularly known as “Econ 101.” Probably as much as 90 percent of the many harmful government policies being pursued or proposed at any moment would grind to a halt if a majority of the populace had a solid grasp of basic economics.
At the beginning of each semester, I – unlike most teachers of economics principles – devote a couple of hours to the task of impressing upon my students (most of whom are still too young to purchase adult beverages) just how very different is the world they know from the world that was known to most of their ancestors. I identify four ways in which the lives of those of us in the modern, capitalist world differ categorically from the lives of almost everyone until just a few centuries ago.
Astonishing Prosperity
The most obvious way in which our lives today differ from those of our pre-capitalist ancestors is that we’re fantastically wealthier. Ordinary people today sleep beneath hard roofs and walk on hard floors in homes equipped with indoor plumbing and electric lighting, and featuring cupboards full of food, closets full of clothing, and garages or driveways full of automobiles. We’re so wealthy that it’s quite plausible that our pets today live materially better lives than did our human ancestors before the industrial age.
Although recounted frequently, this truth about modern standards of living cannot be told too often. We’re so accustomed to our spectacular wealth that we take it for granted. And that which is taken for granted is seldom appreciated and correctly understood.
Reliance on Strangers
A second way in which our lives differ categorically from the lives of nearly all of our ancestors is that we, unlike our ancestors, depend for our survival almost exclusively on strangers. Prior to capitalism, Jones personally helped to produce many of the goods that he or she consumed. Jones likely had a hand directly in the hunt, building the family hut, weaving cloth for the family’s clothing, or tending the crops and animals destined to become the family’s meals. Most of the other goods and services consumed by Jones but not directly produced with his or her labor, were produced by people known personally to Jones, such as the village blacksmith, cobbler, cooper, butcher, tailor, tanner, carpenter, and wheelwright.
Today in stark contrast, we denizens of capitalist economies not only do not personally directly help to produce the goods that we consume, we have no idea of the identities of nearly everyone who did have a hand in producing the goods that we consume.
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The Holy Spirit inspired the sufficient revelation concerning the elements of gathered worship, and so we should expect that he would naturally work through those elements—reading the Word, preaching the Word, praying the Word, singing the Word, and visualizing the Word through baptism and the Lord’s Supper. This is why Christians have traditionally called these prescribed elements the “ordinary means of grace”—these are the primary means Christians should expect the Holy Spirit to ordinarily work his grace into our lives.

Lots of confusion reigns today regarding how we ought to expect the Holy Spirit to work, but it does not have to be this way. Careful reading of Scripture gives us a robust picture of what should be our expectation for how the Holy Spirit works today.
The Spirit Brings Order
First, the Holy Spirit’s purpose in all he does is to bring order, to both individual Christians and to the Body as a whole. The descriptions in Scripture of the Holy Spirit’s activity overwhelmingly attest to this purpose. The Spirit brought order to the material God created at the beginning of time, and he brings order to time itself in unfolding God’s plan in history. He worked to bring peace and blessing to Israel as he dwelt among them in the Old Testament temple, and he does the same as he dwells within the New Testament temple. This was his purpose in special empowerment given to Israel’s kings and prophets and his purpose in the foundational gifts he gave to the apostles and prophets during the formation of the church.
And that purpose remains the same today. The Spirit brings order to the disordered minds and hearts of his elect when he convicts them of their sin and gives them new life, when he unites them into the triune communion and particularly to Christ himself in his Body. He continues to order the lives of his people in empowering them to submit to his Word and be sanctified by it, conforming them to the image of Christ and producing fruit consistent with the harmony and beauty of God’s character. And he builds up the unity of Christ’s body through providentially gifting his people with abilities to use in service of God and one another in the church, particularly in corporate worship, where he forms his people through filling them with his Word read, preached, prayed, and sung.
The Spirit Works Through His Word
Second, one of the most influential and long-lasting works of the Holy Spirit to bring order to his people was the inspiration of his Word; this is why the most frequently described act of the Holy Spirit in Scripture is the giving of revelation, and why his work of “filling” a believer (Eph 5:19) is paralleled in Paul’s writings with the Word of Christ “richly dwelling” within a Christian (Col 3:16). Thus, believers should expect that the Holy Spirit will work today primarily through his Word, and he will never act contrary to his Word.
For this reason, we must never conceive of any work of the Spirit today apart from his Word. If we expect the Spirit to do something apart from Scripture, we will inevitably subordinate Scripture itself to a subjective experience. We may say we believe Scripture to be sufficient, but ultimately we will ignore the objective Word, always seeking for subjective experiences, feelings, “inner voices,” or impressions that we assume to be the Spirit’s illuminating work. Likewise, we will also find ourselves frustrated when we don’t experience some sort of feeling that we assume to be the Spirit’s work. We will wonder why he isn’t “speaking” to us.
Rather, we must recognize that he has already spoken to us through his sufficient Word—we ought not expect any further revelation. We must simply pray that he gives us wisdom to appropriate his Word and then actively apply and submit ourselves to what he has already spoken.
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Sometimes seeking the Lord and fighting the good fight takes time. We are commanded to “grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord” (2 Peter 3:18), not spontaneously transform. Jesus tells parables to teach us to “pray always and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1). Paul instructs us to keep sowing that good seed and not grow weary, because, “in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Gal 6:9). 

For twenty-three years… the word of the LORD has come to me, and I have spoken persistently to you, but you have not listened.”
Jeremiah 25:3
I can cook a potato in eight minutes. (I’m sure you’re very impressed). It’s true. Place the potato in the microwave. Heat for 4 minutes. Turn potato. Heat for another 4 minutes. Voila! It’s ready for you to eat! As a fresh college graduate, this was a game changer. What used to take hours, now took less than ten minutes. Granted, it didn’t have that fresh baked potato taste, but it sure was fast.
And honestly, I’ve never had the patience for a baked potato. I always seem to either cook it too fast and burn it, or lack the thoughtful preparation to start cooking it soon enough. You’re probably wondering why in the world I’m talking so much about baked potatoes. I think this little example is indicative of the culture we’re living in. We live in a microwave culture. Here’s what I mean.
In a culture where you can have a baked potato in eight minutes, a 15-minute potato feels like an eternity. And once we’ve grown accustomed to eight minute expectations, our tolerance for things that take longer lengths of time is diminished. And boy does it show. I can text my wife and be wringing my hands when she doesn’t respond within 5 minutes. (Did you know people used to write letters, send them in the mail, and wait for a response? Barbarians!)
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