Thursday, October 18, 2012

This is Fascinating

“Perhaps the Lord needs such men on the outside of His Church to help it along,” said the late Elder Orson F. Whitney of the Quorum of the Twelve. “They are among its auxiliaries, and can do more good for the cause where the Lord has placed them, than anywhere else. … Hence, some are drawn into the fold and receive a testimony of the truth; while others remain unconverted … the beauties and glories of the gospel being veiled temporarily from their view, for a wise purpose. The Lord will open their eyes in His own due time. God is using more than one people for the accomplishment of His great and marvelous work. The Latter-day Saints cannot do it all. It is too vast, too arduous for any one people. … We have no quarrel with the Gentiles. They are our partners in a certain sense” (Conference Report, April 1928, p. 59.).

Friday, October 5, 2012

Economic Principles from the book of Ruth...

I have prayed for direction in understanding what God's principles of Economics are.  I was led to the book of Ruth.  Upon my initial reading of the first two chapters, here are some of the principles that I have found....roughly the most elementary ones I am sure.

  • God blessed the land with bread.  
  • Stayed within family units for help during difficult times
  • Agriculture ran by the men of the family was the factory
  • Harvest and work was expected of both men and women
  • Generous gifts given
  • Freedom to travel where needed for maintenance
These principles do remind me of Nibley's Approaching Zion.

So my next question is....How exactly do these get applied to my family?  Can these principles be applied in our modern setting and still be pleasing unto God, or more accurately, is our modern economic system pleasing unto God in any way?  What ways?  It seems we could operate our families with these basic guidelines inside the complex structure that we now live in, but could a someone wanting to influence Economic theory and policy use these points to develop anything that could actually be implemented in the system that we have now...could these points be used in a Macro-setting or only in Micro?

Doesn't sound very Keynsian does it?