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What hath Bitcoin to do with Jerusalem? G.K. Chesterton once said, “I never discuss anything else except politics and religion. There is nothing else to discuss.” Given the secularity of our current world, this might sound strange. You can think of many things that don’t initially seem political or religious. But whether we realize or acknowledge it or not, religion and politics define the playing surface and rules that govern our lives and actions. Everything is political. Everything is religious. And money is one of the most powerful tools in enacting the wills of both God and governments. While Christians have done a great job articulating the moral dimensions of what we spend money on, there has been lamentably little done to expand on the ethical considerations and downstream effects of money creation. Although we all use money, few Christians have a Biblically-grounded, historically informed framework defining what money is and the principles that ought to govern it. This isn’t a problem without consequences. Christ laid “all kinds of evil” at the feet of a love of money. It’s an incredibly powerful tool, and disordered thinking about its design, nature, and end is equally destructive. This isn’t only true of the visible world under the sun. What you believe about money is directly connected to what you believe it means to be human, what you believe about the role of government, and ultimately what you believe about God. While discussions about the nature of money might initially seem boring or better reserved for “professionals” and academics, nothing could be further from the truth. The ethics of money production touch every aspect of the lives of every person you have ever met. It’s incredibly practical. This has always been the case, but the economic events of the last sixteen years have served to put in stark relief the long-term effects of allowing the discourse around such issues to take place entirely in ivory tower lecture halls. Debates thirty years go about balanced budgets have given way to the normalization of multi-trillion-dollar airdrops of money and an accumulation of debt in both public and private sectors that is impossible to pay back. The amount of annual interest that the US will pay to service its debt will surpass the entire military defense budget later this year. This is not normal. It’s not sustainable. There’s a temptation for us to look around at the sheer scale of insanity and wickedness around us with a certain resignation and say with an orc-encircled, Helm’s Deep-bound King Théoden: But just like Theoden, we need a word from our rightful King, who is no mere man. We need to look at money and economics through new eyes; through the Eyes from which all eyes in heaven and earth were named. We are blind, and he alone can give us the ability and willingness to see the Foster-Wallcean water that we’ve grown all too comfortable swimming in. It’s not enough to see these things as frustrating or less than ideal. The solution is first to identify and repudiate the sins at the root of the insanity we see. This isn’t a novel idea. It wasn’t until Luther said, “Indulgences are sinful, and I won’t recant,” that real change began to be seen. It wasn’t until Wilberforce had enough and said, “Continuing to tolerate and leverage skin-color-based slavery to enrich our nation is sinful and wrong,” that slavery within the British empire began to die. This is the situation we find ourselves in today. Until Christians recognize and refuse to continue to indulge and participate in an economic system that allows evil men to assume God-like power and speak new money into existence in order to fund their every whim both at the expense of normal people today and generations of their future kids and grandchildren, nothing is going to change. We are at a point of definitional crisis, and need the authoritative definition that only belongs to Christ. Our goal is to help Christians think clearly, consistently, Biblically, generationally, and eternally about God’s design for people, government, money, and economics. So we’re putting on a Christian economics conference at Rocketown in Nashville on July 24+25. On day one, we’ll cast a Biblically robust vision in defining what people, government, economics, and money are and to what end they exist. Then we’ll unpack exactly how God designed the world to work, where and why things have gone astray (especially in the last 100 years), and its consequences on life and discipleship both in the US and abroad. Then we’ll dive into what to do about it, and explain why we believe Bitcoin to be a timely, limited-yet-important part of that path forward. We’re not in Bitcoin for Lambos or because we want to get rich quick. We see it as a timely counter-insurgent tool to help the Church continue to carry out her mission. We want to look at Bitcoin through God’s eyes, regardless of how highly or lowly the rest of the culture might think about it. They don’t matter, but He does. And we think that like us, you’re going to be pleasantly surprised to find that the same God who has used foolish things to shame the wise for thousands of years is at it again, this time in the form of magic internet money. Who’s “we?” Economists, pastors, theologians, technologists, programmers, farmers, venture capitalists, missionaries, classical Christian college presidents, engineers, Hollywood producers, and more. It will almost assuredly be the most diverse and unlikely group of speakers at any conference you’ll see this year. Not everyone above is a fan of Bitcoin. The goal isn’t to circle the wagons and throw a party for the Bitcoin-crazed. It’s to create an environment where Christians can gather and talk openly about real challenges and questions about money, investing, economics, and the clown world we find ourselves in to find timeless wisdom and an eternal hope with which to faithfully navigate them all, for the glory and the good of people everywhere. Join us for TGFB24 in Nashville. It’s a full two day event (8:30am-5:00pm each day) and if you purchase tickets now you can receive 20% off by using the promo code BITCOIN.

Re-establishing the foundation for societal trust. One of the most impactful things I’ve ever heard about money came from (steel yourselves) a pastor. He was talking about the logic of money, and turned to one of my absolute favorite subjects to illustrate his point: etymology. “The word currency has its own history—it’s derived from the Latin, “currere” for, to flow, or to run—like a current of water or electricity. But what’s flowing in a market economy when we use currency? People use currency every day without a theory that would help them understand how a piece of paper that costs less than a cent to produce comes to be worth many times that—sometimes hundreds of thousands of times. And then, in some instances, they suddenly lose faith in a currency, and it is worthless…Ultimately trust is the real currency.” Wiley’s point seemed as staggeringly true as underappreciated. When was the last time you heard a presentation about trust being the bedrock upon which every lasting society has been built? We live in a world that, more than ever, prioritizes the seen, the touchable, the quantifiable, and the definable. At the same time, the cost of trying to compensate for the loss of societal trust continues to rise with each passing day. Just ask San Franciscans. Not them. That’s them. If you want to operate a store in San Francisco, you now have to factor in the cost of glass cases to protect your merchandise. You factor in a much higher loss percentage from the most brazen thieves’ willingness to shatter those cases. Business owners also have to factor in the risk to their lives to continue showing up every day. This is not normal, and San Francisco isn’t alone. This phenomenon is becoming commonplace in cities all over the country. Further, we are one day away from one of the most polarized elections of our lifetime, where a meaningful percentage of supporters on each of the two main sides are convinced that the other candidate would have them declared enemies of the state, have their children subjected to unthinkable treatment, and the most extreme representatives imprisoned if not killed. That’s the cost of disappearing trust. For as hopeless as this situation can feel, the tide might be starting to change. If it’s true that you don’t know what you have till it’s gone, then we might not be far from what we in the South might call, “bein’ learned a thanger two.” It sure would be great to expedite the process, though. But where do we go to learn about trust? Who are the trust experts, the wizened sages to illuminate the unseen ties that used to bind us? I’ve never heard of a trust expert. Maybe there’s a synonym for trust that might yield more fruit. Hey Grok. I’m starting to see a pattern here. Maybe a pastor isn’t the strangest person to raise this issue. But trust isn’t just like faith. Trust is faith. How do you know that your husband or wife isn’t cheating on you? Unless you hire a full time private investigator, monitor their devices, and spent every waking moment with them, you have to trust something that you can’t see. You have to walk by faith, trusting that they won’t betray the trust and break the covenant you made with one another. Like trust, the recognized value of faith is also at an all-time low. There are likely more avowed atheists today than at any other point in human history. There are also fewer explicitly religious figures in influential positions than at any other point in US history. Regardless of why, the fact remains that it’s true. We have self-selected away from a world where faith is as valuable as it used to be. Or rather, where it is perceived to be as valuable as it once was. The fact that a truth is ignored for a period of time doesn’t make it false. African slaves were every bit as human as their British and American slaveholders, regardless of what they tried to assert to justify their actions. If only there were a way to peek behind the curtain of that old world before our modern distrust-rial revolution. Some record of what it looked, felt, and sounded like. Something like a book. There’s a story in the first half of the Bible about Israel’s youngest king. Josiah took the throne at eight on the heels of a disastrous time in Israel. His grandfather, Manasseh, was one of the most wicked and violent kings in Israel’s history, and Josiah’s father, Amon, had been assassinated. Among their other duties, kings of Israel were required to read and write out a copy of the law during their reign to ensure they were being directed by God’s revealed will and not their whims. Imagine requiring each President to write a copy of the Constitution. That was the idea. Starting wars or getting handsy with interns is harder if your mind is otherwise occupied. But things devolved so far that by the time Josiah took the throne, there weren’t any copies of the Law around. Twenty years into his reign, Josiah ordered some repairs to be done to the temple, which had been damaged and neglected for some time. During that reconstruction process, one of the priests discovered a long-lost copy of the Law. Josiah began reading, and it blew his mind. A period of religious, social, and even economic revival in the land followed. The people remembered who they were and found a freedom that had long eluded them. Everything they needed had been sitting there the whole time, covered in dust in a run-down temple. So there’s a precedent for the type of situation we find ourselves in and a precedent for a certain book providing wisdom and insight to navigate droughts of trust. But Josiah lived several thousand years ago. One could be forgiven for thinking that the book that so transformed Israel had been lost to history. But it turns out that the final chapters of that book had yet to be written, and the completed book would go on to turn the world upside down and shape the world and the lives of billions of people over the last two thousand years. That includes up to the present day. We have the book.  It’s a big one. It talks about faith. A lot. It turns out that the book’s Author values faith much more highly than we do today. But your skepticism is palpable. It’s radiating so intensely that it broke the space-time continuum, and I can feel it as I sit here watching our 52nd president, Snoop Dog, being sworn in on a stack of rolling papers. Judge for yourself. “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire,” – 1 Peter 1:6-7 Faith is more precious than gold? Gold doesn’t hit with the same force it once did, with most people associating its value in terms of rings, watches, chains, and ad breaks during conservative podcasts and radio shows. Yet gold is still the second most traded commodity in the world by volume (behind only crude oil) and has a market cap today of $10 trillion | 89,555,981 BTC dollars. Interestingly, like faith and trust, gold is beginning to get its groove back as well. “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” – Hebrews 11:6 Faith is integral to pleasing God? Why? Because all relationships are premised upon trust, including relationships with God. Part of the reason we don’t value trust and faith like we once did is that some of the most popular guideposts for learning about faith are…actual signs. Behold the corny catechesis emanating from Etsy and Hobby Lobby. These signs convey that faith is a cute, commercial thing. These vague, mass-market appeals treat faith like a container that can be loaded with whatever meaning consumers attribute to it. They want to sell as many signs as possible, and such vaguery allows them to do it. They also treat faith as an end rather than a means to an end. What is faith, then? “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” – Hebrews 11:1 Near the end of his life, 17th-century Christian minister Richard Baxter had a friend who attempted to comfort him by reminding him of all the people who had been served through his pastoral preaching and professional pen wrangling (writing). Baxter’s response? “I was but a pen in God’s hand, and what praise is due to a pen?” Faith is like a pen. Pens are teleological; they are created with a specific purpose or end in mind. They’re mediums of human expression; and are valuable insofar as they’re wielded to craft novels, hostage demands, love letters, and last-minute essays. Faith works the same way; it was designed and exists to be used in pursuit of specific ends. What are those ends? What are the love letters and hostage notes that faith exists to mediate? “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” – Hebrews 11:6 It’s like the scene where Indiana Jones steps into the void. The bridge is there, but he can’t see it. The only way to bridge that knowledge gap is to take a step. He had to believe to see. Where does faith come from? How does one accumulate this currency? “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” – Romans 10:17 In the case of Indy, he had a book too, which you can see him clutching at the beginning of the clip. Someone had preserved information about how and where to find the treasure he sought, but there was no shortcut to discover whether or not the journal was right, and whether or not the words guarded within actually led to life. But who is this Christ? Why is his word so important?“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible…—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together…” – Colossians 1:15-18 He’s the author of the book. Faith has a centralized Issuer who benevolently governs both the entire cosmos and your life, and Who is working to reconcile humanity and restore their trust toward God toward each other. But that faith isn’t a permanent feature.  It is a temporary means to know and be known by him. Faith will eventually be cashed in for sight. So follow me here: If trust is the real currency, and it comes through hearing and heeding Christ’s word, and we are at all-time lows in listening both to the word of Christ and to each other, should we be surprised when we find barren trust coffers? Trust is expensive. What could earn the trust of every man, woman, and child on earth? Who has that kind of capital? Who is sufficient for these things? Go back to the letter to the Colossians. “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” – Colossians 1:19-20 Would a death do it? Specifically the death of their Creator, motivated by a specific love of people made in His Father’s image? What if we devoted as much time to listening to God and those around us as we do to thinking about and expressing ourselves? If His death could bring such life, what might our living sacrifices and daily deaths bring? Could it also be followed by more resurrections, not just of individuals or families, but towns, cities, and nations as well?

"Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows." - The Tempest Wendell Berry might be the most unlikely Bitcoiner ever. While the philosopher-farmer, poet, novelist, environmentalist, and sober-minded cultural critic has written extensively throughout the second half of the 20th century, the fifth generation Kentuckian whose family has lived on and farmed the land in the same county for 200 years famously has not typed a single word of any of them on what many would see as the period’s greatest invention: the personal computer. Berry writes with pencil and paper. When he’s ready to send something to his publisher, he entrusts his hand-turned thoughts to the same person he presented the rest of his person to half a century ago: his wife, Tanya. She faithfully transcribes her husband’s inner workings on a Royal Standard manual typewriter. He has also written critically at great length regarding the overwhelming human and environmental costs that corporate America has been willing to pay with other people’s money while suffering none of the consequences. He is a fierce enemy of coal, which is one of the sources of energy used to mine Bitcoin. He has even been willing to put his person where his pen is and practice civil disobedience in protest over policies that he perceives to be unconscionably opposed to the public good. So, what on God’s good earth could lead me to think about Berry as a proto-Bitcoiner? There are far more reasons than I have listed below, but here are a few. His life and work have prioritized restoring the dignity of people and places used, abused, and forgotten by the powerful and shortsighted. So does Bitcoin. He pleads with his readers to acknowledge and embrace the limitations inherent in place, relationship, and nature. We shouldn’t strive to defeat reality but submit ourselves to it and reap the benefits. So does Bitcoin. https://twitter.com/streamgazer/status/1486895191667531777?s=20&t=G5pri-gxCTOX6hYiYOhtgg Bitcoiners are a crowd that understands the reasons for its discontentment. Bitcoiners understand that a debt-based economy where loans (and money in general) are created ex-nihilo (rather than lent out from the deposits of others) ultimately pits neighbor against neighbor. They understand that it eventually makes two different sets of rules; one for the rich and connected and another for everyone else. This phenomenon drives up prices of scarce goods over time and widens the gap between the rich and the poor, leading to worse educational outcomes (read: more easily manipulable people). The poor are less able to live according to sustainable low-time preference priorities (healthy food prepared in healthy ways, having children and prioritizing their care and education, etc.). They’re more likely to become consumers of cheap, easily prepared food that destroys both their bodies and the land upon which they live but (in the overwhelming majority of cases) do not own. Berry mused that an economy based on energy would do less damage both to the environment and its inhabitants. Bitcoin effectively monetizes energy. Berry understood the exorbitant costs associated with fiat currencies (including altcoins). I could go on, and perhaps another day I will do a Part 2. Berry and Bitcoiners have their differences, but as the Shakespeare quote above rightly states, misery acquants a man with strange bedfellows; we all see the damage that fiat money and fiat men have wrought upon the world and are eager to see it restored to its nature embracing senses. So I hold out hope that we’ll win him over, even if it takes a while. And if not, I’ll still be content to give Berry the same treatment that Dante gave Socrates and Plato: at worst, he’s in limbo alongside Gary North and virtuous no-coiner economists who lived before Bitcoin. If you’re a Bitcoiner looking for a natural intro to Berry, I recommend Home Economics.

Abraham understood that the giver gets the glory. Giving creates grounds for boasting. This is part three in a series of articles examining the life of Abraham through the lens of economics and the ethics of personal enrichment. In part one, we established Abraham’s uncompromising commitment to his nephew’s good, even at the expense of his safety and financial security. Part two explored how Abraham responded when Lot’s life was endangered in a local tribal conflict and the first reason why Abraham was unwilling to accept any of the spoils of war offered to him by the rescued king of Sodom. In part three below, we will examine the second reason that Abraham saw accepting anything from the king of Sodom’s hand as coming at too high a price. Abraham responded to the king of Sodom by saying,“I have lifted my hand to the Lord, God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth, that I would not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that is yours, lest you should say, ‘I have made Abram rich.'”Genesis 14:22-23, ESV Abraham understood that the giver gets the glory. Giving creates grounds for boasting. Up to this point in the story, the relationship between Abraham and the king of Sodom had been one-sided. Abraham came to their rescue. It was Abraham’s soldiers who fought and rescued the men of Sodom. The king of Sodom contributed nothing to his rescue except the defeat that made it necessary. The story’s message up to this point is that the king of Sodom needs Abraham. Abraham at no point requires assistance from the king of Sodom. Abraham proves himself a superior military general by demonstrating uncommon kingly strength and intelligence. Abraham didn’t bear the title of king, but in a day in which kings led their armies into the fray, his character and battlefield prowess proved worthy of the distinction as he subdued his enemies, rescued his loved ones, and brought peace to a war-torn land.  The king of Sodom finds himself in a discomforting and (likely) novel situation. He was undoubtedly accustomed to others owing him money, loyalty, and honor, but the battle put that shoe on the other foot. It revealed his weakness, lack of strength, intelligence, and overall need. He was not omnipotent or self-sufficient. It was a tremendous shot at his pride personally and in the eyes of his people and the surrounding nations. The king of Sodom found himself indebted to Abraham and was desperate to rid himself of that debt as soon as possible.  That’s why the king of Sodom offered to give Abraham the spoils of war. It would erase his debt of gratitude, ease his gnawing conscience, and reverse the power imbalance with Abraham. It would serve the dual function of putting him in the king’s debt and allowing him to appear as though he was actually concerned with justice and doing rightly toward him. Many of us have experienced the frustration of receiving a favor from a family member, friend, or colleague only to have them hold it over our heads at a future point. Abraham refused to put himself in that situation. By refusing to accept anything from the king of Sodom, Abraham ensured that the power imbalance remained entirely in his (and, by extension, God’s) favor. He refused to absolve the guilty conscience of the wicked king, ensuring that the king of Sodom and his people were seen for who they were: needy, weak, and immoral. In so doing, Abraham’s and his God’s names were more respected throughout the land. Abraham’s refusal to be enriched by the king of Sodom announced to the surrounding nations and their rulers that there were currencies of more value than money. Abraham saw the value in honor, justice, righteousness, and faithful dependence. He was content with what he had and gave without expecting anything in return. The price of accepting wealth from the hands of wicked men was too high. This idea isn’t novel to the Bible. One of the benefits of independent journalists like Glenn Greenwald is that (ideally) you avoid many of the conflicts of interest that often exist today between journalists and the multinational corporations that commonly own them. It would be a lot harder for Abraham to stand against the wickedness of Sodom if someone could turn around and say, “Didn’t you take a bunch of money from the King of Sodom?” Abraham knew that he could enrich himself personally at the expense of God’s glory and the good of others, or he could practice in miniature when God does throughout the Bible to the wicked (including the people of Sodom a couple of chapters later):  Cut off the remembrance of his name. The idea of a name has maintained several different senses throughout human history. It can refer to someone’s actual name. It could refer to someone’s reputation. And finally, it can refer to a person’s life itself; that which represents the ability of a party to continue to inflict their will on both the people around them and the world in general. The king of Sodom is mentioned once by name (Bera) at the beginning of Genesis 14. The story refers to him four more times, but only as ‘the king of Sodom.’ Abraham refused to harm the wicked king physically, leaving room for God to handle that side of things. On the contrary, he overcame his evil with undeserved good for Lot’s sake. But his principled refusal to allow the king to launder his reputation ensured that that moniker would hang like a millstone around his neck for the rest of human history. This story is a treasure trove of wisdom and far more timely and applicable to our lives than it might initially appear. That’s the goal of the fourth and final installment of this series.

What does money have to do with the idea of worship? What does Bitcoin have to do with loving your neighbor? Everything. MereBitcoin exists to explore how the moral foundations of money (including magic internet money) shape societal goals, incentives, systems, and the economic participants themselves.They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” For he was saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him, saying, “Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.” So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea. The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs. And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region. As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him. And he did not permit him but said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.– Mark 5:1-20, ESV Economics of Glory exists to look at the spiritual and philosophical underpinnings of economics. Yet even for the most sympathetic of audiences, this passage might seem a strange one to examine through that lens. Demons? Pigs? Demonic pigs? Huh?  Trigger warning: This story talks about demons. As a result, there is a segment of people for whom it will be very tempting to dismiss outright the possibility that this story contains anything of value. Given the narrative arc, that would be an ironic tragedy. In keeping with the central idea of this piece, I plead with you: reserve judgment. The passage begins with Jesus disembarking from a boat and being accosted immediately by a demon-possessed man. The man’s existence was desperate and horrifying. He lived chained among the tombstones to minimize the damage he could do to the surrounding community, if not himself. Day and night, he cried out and cut himself with stones. However, the situation had grown so dire that chains and shackles were no match for his strength. Things had reached a tipping point. Something had to give. At this point, the Apostle Mark introduces us to a theme that repeats throughout the account: the revelatory power of pleading. Before exploring the specific details of each example in this passage, we must understand the logic involved in pleading. When do we plead? When the existence of someone/something that we love is threatened. Rich people don’t beg for money. Healthy people don’t beg to be healed. But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” – Matthew 9:12, ESV This desperation differentiates begging from merely asking for something; there is a sense of humiliation involved in begging that people generally try to avoid at all costs. Begging is an activity and posture assumed by those desperate to rescue something that they value even more highly than being perceived as self-sufficient.But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”– Matthew 9 Plea #1: The demons beg Jesus not to torment them, not to cast them out of the region, and finally beg him to let them enter the herd of pigs.12, ESV Upon seeing Jesus, the demon-possessed man ran toward him, threw himself at his feet, and sardonically asked him, “What do you have to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” Why? The passage tells us immediately afterward: Jesus initiated the interaction with the man, commanding (not begging) the demons that had long inhabited and tormented him (and all his neighbors in the surrounding area as a result) to leave. Knowing that the gig was up, the demons were terrified of being punished for abusing the man; the torturers were afraid of being tormented. The irony here could not be thicker; to what authority do the demons appeal? “I adjure you by God.” So these demons, which live in categorical opposition to God, nonetheless have the nerve to invoke his name (his character, authority, and reputation) as a defensive shield against whatever they perceive that Jesus might do to them. Amazingly, Jesus yields to them. He doesn’t destroy them. The demons go further. They beg Jesus not to send them out of the region. Reknown ANE studies scholar Dr. Michael Heiser has written at length about the concept of territorial spirits in the Hebrew scriptures. The basic idea is that demons were given territory and restricted to those regions. The demons were terrified that they would be exiled from their land due to their behavior. Again, Jesus grants their request. Their final request is the most audacious: they ask Jesus to allow them to take a new victim upon leaving the man: a herd of 2,000 pigs grazing on the hillside. Shockingly, Jesus again grants their request, allowing them to rush into the pigs. The demons laid themselves bare in their three pleas to Jesus. In begging Jesus not to torment them, the demons sought to preserve their lives regardless of how they had ravaged the lives of others. By begging him not to exile them, the demons demonstrated how much they craved the authority they possessed and feared losing it. By requesting a new victim, the demons demonstrated an utter lack of remorse and an inability to consider the good of others. They prioritized their sadistic pleasure above all else, no matter the cost. Plea #2: The Gerasenes beg Jesus to leave the region. Immediately after the demons entered the pigs, they ran down a steep bank and all 2,000 drowned in the sea. As horrifying as it is to envision 2,000 pigs losing their lives, the color added in the ensuing verses paints an even bleaker outcome. The verse that follows the story of the drowning pigs begins, “The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country.” These weren’t wild pigs; these pigs belonged to someone. This was no mom-and-pop business; 2,000 pigs today would be worth in the neighborhood of $1.2 million | 10.7 BTC. This business was likely an essential part of the Gerasene economy (which could explain part of why the herdsmen were so intent on spreading the news far and wide). And in a matter of seconds, it was gone. How do the people of the Gerasenes respond? They beg Jesus to leave the region. This would seem logical, given that Jesus’ actions resulted in a substantial hit to their economy. However, the reality is much more complicated. Jesus wasn’t a wanton menace. He had restored the formerly demon-possessed man to his senses and saved the region from untold damage. So why did the people beg him to leave? It was a business decision based on economic calculation. What did they know? Jesus had rescued one of their citizens from suffering. Jesus was unpredictable, and guided by a value hierarchy radically different than theirs, which had cost them a lot of money. How does Jesus respond to their pleas to depart the region? He does as they ask. He gets back in the boat he arrived in and prepares to leave. That brings us to the final plea. Plea #3: The restored man begs Jesus to let him accompany him. As Jesus got into the boat and prepared to leave, the man he had rescued pleaded with him: Let me come with you. Why? It was a business decision based on economic calculation. Put yourself in his shoes. He had suffered for years. Estranged from family and friends. Living in a graveyard. His body covered in painful cuts and a lifetime of scars from cutting himself. Incapable of controlling his thoughts and actions. In a moment, he’s free. How does he want to deploy his freedom? The only thing he wants is to be with and serve the one who freed him. This is a no-brainer, “Yes,” from Jesus, right? The Gospels are replete with examples of Jesus calling people to follow him who don’t, for one reason or another. Yet there’s only one thing that this man wants, which seems to align precisely with what humanity is supposed to want. These are Edenic desires; he wants to be with Jesus. Jesus says no. What is going on? Jesus seemingly says “Yes” to the people who want bad things and “No” to the one who wants good things. It’s baffling. It seems like there is no pleasing this Jesus. If we’re honest, there’s probably still a lot here that seems opaque, confusing, and/or outright immoral. Why would God allow a man to be tormented by demons for years in the first place? Why did Jesus give the demons what they asked for, not once but three different times, instead of destroying them? Why did Jesus allow the demons to enter the pigs and permit them to immediately run down and drown in the sea, knowing that it would destroy a vital part of the local economy? Why didn’t Jesus allow the one person who “got” what he was doing to do accompany him and the other disciples? Famed investor Charlie Munger once summarized part of how he approached investing by saying, “Show me the incentives, and I will show you the outcome.” It turns out Charlie has been pretty successful for a reason. Incentives matter immensely. However, more fundamental questions lie at the heart of the quest to discern someone’s motivations:  Who are they? What do they most value? What are they most afraid to lose? Each of us has a baseline currency that sits enthroned at the core of who we are. Someone who lives in the United States for the first twenty years of their life and then does a semester abroad in Europe during college will find that living in a different currency is a constant challenge. Every price needs to be translated into “real money”: the currency they have known and used their entire life. This same reality exists more foundationally across everything that has value. All individuals, families, and groups develop hierarchies of value. These hierarchies serve as a skeletal system upon which habits, hobbies, (and eventually) cultures, economies, and civilizations are built. They can’t simply be changed at the drop of a hat; they are rooted in a conviction about the nature of reality itself. The fact that everyone has a value hierarchy does not mean they are all equally in touch with reality. A man who consistently consumes sugary foods will eventually find his physical health suffers. A family that does not appreciate and prioritize intentionally teaching and training its children will lose them to those who do. A nation that lionizes the accumulation of wealth and control will eventually sacrifice its citizens to pursue that goal. A culture that does not value having children will soon cease to exist. So how was Jesus’ value hierarchy arranged? What did he want more than anything? Someone once asked Jesus a very similar question, to which he replied,“…I always do the things that are pleasing to (my Father).”John 8:29, ESV What pleased his Father? What was of greatest importance to Him?“And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40, ESV When Jesus spoke these words, none of the New Testament scriptures had been written yet. So the phrase “the law and the prophets” was shorthand for “the Bible from beginning to to end.” In saying that “on these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets,” Jesus is effectively saying that God’s value hierarchy can be summarized in those two commandments. What was Jesus most afraid to lose? In Jesus’ last moments the New Testament authors record Jesus asking God, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” – Matthew 27:46, ESV Jesus’ moral framework was built upon an alloyed foundational commitment to the glory of God and the good of those made in His image. This was his calling. It was his life and joy. This twin commitment to the low time preference good of others frequently set him at odds with high time preference people. Jesus was free enough to be able to speak the truth and do what needed to be done without being crippled by fear over what others (including government officials and influential religious leaders) might think or do to him. He didn’t live to accumulate earthly wealth, influence, or fame. He was homeless and ministered primarily to those who could not repay him for his ministry to them: the poor and the sick, children and the elderly. He traveled the countryside and spoke free of charge to whoever would listen. He repeatedly tried to convince people not to follow him and refused to stoke the flame of his celebrity for personal gain. Jesus’ life and priorities were as radical in his day as they would be in ours. Yet even two thousand years ago, his ideas weren’t novel; they had simply been bureaucratized and forgotten. Now we know what motivated Jesus. So why did he allow all those things to happen to the Gerasenes? They were all business decisions based on economic calculation. Jesus cared for all of the people in this story and was so committed to their good that he was willing to say and do what they needed at the expense of their short-term happiness. Firstly, why did God wait so long to do something about the demoniac’s suffering?  If that’s your question, you are not the first person to object to God’s role and timing in allowing suffering. The book of John records the story of Jesus’ disciples passing by a blind man and asking Him, “Teacher, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” The disciples can only fathom one possible point of origin for suffering: direct punishment for sin. Jesus responds by blowing up their faulty paradigm by attributing it to God’s desire to display his power in healing him. As modern western people, that idea offends us; are we just playthings to God? Does human suffering not move him? There are two things to consider: First, our being offended is not an indication of a proposition’s rightness or wrongness, goodness or badness, truthfulness or falsehood. The truth often offends because it forces shortsighted, self-interested people (in whose number all of us can be counted) to acknowledge that they aren’t nearly as wise as they believed and have built their lives upon an inaccurate understanding of the world. Jesus frequently offended people, and His response was simple:“…blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”Matthew 11:6, ESV The Judge of all the earth will do right. At the same time, there is another response to those for whom that question is borne out of genuine confusion and pain: the cross of Christ. In the cross, God demonstrated just how deeply moved he was by the devastation marked in so much of the human experience by tracing it to its source: a lack of trust in His own wisdom, kindness, and goodness that bore itself out in disobedience to his revealed will. In the cross, Jesus demonstrated his confidence in his Father’s trustworthiness by entrusting himself to him completely, even unto death. And he only had to wait three days to see if God would accept the price that he was willing to pay for the world. Second, why did Jesus allow the demons to destroy one of the pillars of the Gerasene economy? We get our answer in how the Gerasenes responded. The pig herders went into town and told everyone who would listen what Jesus had done. Many came running to see Jesus for themselves. Upon arriving, they heard the story recounted again: how Jesus had both healed the oppressed man and cast the demons into the herd of pigs, who ran down the hillside and met their demise in the sea. After taking a minute to assess the situation, they gathered together to ask Jesus to leave the region. What was going on here? In that moment, the Gerasenes gathered on the hillside went into the risk management business. Having lost their livelihood at Jesus’ hands, they sought to mitigate future losses as well. The equation as they saw it was simple: $1.2 million | 10.7 BTC worth of pigs was worth far more than the life of one man. Jesus’ actions were a net negative in their minds, and they acted accordingly. However, this was shockingly shortsighted on their part. How? Jesus had also miraculously healed the man that had terrorized their region for years.  There was a reason that they had chained the demon-possessed man; he was a mortal danger to them, their wives, and their children. In a moment, Jesus had not only rescued one of their brothers, but them as well. He brought peace to their region. They could only see what they had lost and were blind to what they had gained, which was of far more value than many pigs. This moral blindness led Jesus to do what he did; he was trying to help them see that they had gained the world but were in danger of losing their souls. That wasn’t the only way their spiritual blindness had borne itself out. Think about it: Jesus was the most powerful man they had ever met. He stepped in to rescue a man who had lost his livelihood through no fault of his own. Yet it never occurred to them to ask Jesus to do the same for them. In investing terms, they saw the downside risk of Jesus, but couldn’t get past the loss of their herds to see the potential upside. Their love for and trust in the prosperity that their herds afforded enabled them to look Jesus (and the reality-reshaping power he had demonstrated) in the face and say, “Leave us alone.” This is honestly one of the most terrifying passages in the entire Bible. In the same way that Jesus had broken the demonic chains that bound their countryman, Jesus allowed a pilar of their economy to be destroyed in the hope of breaking the seemingly more innoculous (yet equally demonic) mammonic stranglehold on their lives. Why? Ultimately, so that that their “spirit(s) might be saved on the day of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 5:5). Jesus responded by giving them what they asked. He was no tyrant, capriciously acting in self-interest. He didn’t need their approval or validation and thus wasn’t destroyed by their rejection. Every action and inaction on his part was for their good, and if they didn’t want him around, he was more than willing to depart. The Scriptures don’t even record that he said another word to them. That brings us back to the reformed demoniac himself. What possible reason could Jesus have for denying his request to accompany him and his disciples when they departed? Why would Jesus reject the sanest man in the entire region? Throughout the gospels, Jesus calls people to follow him, articulating the high cost involved. In Luke 14, Jesus states that following him involved renouncing anything that would compete with the absolute allegiance deserved by the King of all the earth. His disciples needed to be willing to forsake everything for him, whether parents, spouses, children, jobs, riches, or comfort. This seems to be what the former demoniac was doing. The contrast between his desires and the self-exalting desires that marked the demons and the residents of the Gerasenes could not have been starker. Could it? A phrase found in Luke 14 and Matthew 16 helps clarify what Jesus was doing.Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”Matthew 16:24 What does that have to do with the healed man? Christ taught his disciples to pray, “Hallowed be your name. May your kingdom come, and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” It wasn’t that the man wanted something terrible. Not by a long shot. But his will didn’t align with Jesus’. Jesus had higher, different, and bigger plans for him. He told him that he would be of much more use to his kingdom by staying in his home region and being a living testimony to his kindness, power, and grace amid a people in desperate need of it.  As difficult as Jesus’ words may have been for him to hear, the man’s response demonstrated that there was indeed a cavernous expanse between his new desires and the selfish, high-time preference ones displayed by the demons and Gerasenes. Rather than protest and insist that he be allowed to accompany Jesus, he submitted to him and did as he asked, to the desired effect:And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.Mark 5:20, ESV The restored man wouldn’t be the only one to beg God for something and receive a divine “No.” A short time later, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus himself would beg his Father to let the metaphorical cup (representing his atoning death on the cross by which he would satisfy God’s wrath toward sin) pass before him undrunk, and he too would receive a divine rejection. Why? Did it result from some act of disobedience or selfishness on his part?  No. It was the death by which he would most glorify and demonstrate the immeasurable value of his Father’s love, patience, and goodness toward his disobedient people. It was the way that Jesus would most vividly display the most accurate value hierarchy ever. But his plea was equally as revelatory as the other three in the Mark passage above. Immediately after asking for God to let the cup pass, Jesus prayed, “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” The boy who (in his first recorded words in Scripture) told his parents that he had to “be about his Father’s business” had grown into a man and completed that work in motivation, word, and deed, proving himself a faithful son in his Father’s household economy. His reward for the humiliation he suffered was his exaltation as ruler over the entire universe and an inheritance denominated not in silver or gold but the most valuable of all God’s creations: people, redeemed and remade to embody the same righteous priorities that we had.  Unlike the first Adam, who needed to plead mercy for himself, Jesus, the last Adam, was able to freely fulfill the greatest commandment through earnest, selfless, love-borne pleas for his Father’s glory and interceding on behalf of his needy neighbors. It’s at this point that we need to hear the words God spoke to Adam and Eve following their taking and eating of the forbidden fruit: “Where are you?” – Genesis 3:9, ESV Who do you most see yourself in among those who interacted with Jesus in this story? Some questions to reflect upon: What do your pleas and desires reveal about who you are and what you believe to be most real, true, and of utmost value? Whose kingdom are you building? Whose will do you want done? (Matthew 6:10) Where does your ultimate loyalty lie? What is the baseline currency in which you’re denominating your life in that kingdom? How sound is that currency? What kind of fruit is service of that kingdom producing in your heart and life?

What does money have to do with the idea of worship? What does Bitcoin have to do with loving your neighbor? Everything. MereBitcoin exists to explore how the moral foundations of money (including magic internet money) shape societal goals, incentives, systems, and the economic participants themselves. What does money have to do with the idea of worship? What does Bitcoin have to do with loving your neighbor? Everything. MereBitcoin exists to explore how the moral foundations of money (including magic internet money) shape societal goals, incentives, systems, and the economic participants themselves. On one occasion, an expert in ESG stood up to test Wisdom. He asked, “What must I do to inherit a better world?” “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” He answered, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” “You have answered correctly,” Wisdom replied. “Do this, and you will live.” But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Wisdom, “But what type of energy should I use?” In reply, Wisdom said: “There once was a small city in the Congo. War broke out, and for years it was cut off from supply lines and infrastructure by guerilla fighters, leaving the people impoverished and without reliable energy sources. Several energy companies heard about their plight and came to see how they might help. The largest solar energy providers in the world came to visit but realized upon arriving that the Congo was home to some of the largest cobalt reserves in the world. So they hired local children to help extract the cobalt (destroying the land in the process), and maximized their profit by selling it to wealthy, comfortable clients in the US and Europe.” “The biggest producers of wind energy in the world considered the project, but due to the lack of infrastructure and the fact that they could make far more money in Latin America, China, and Europe, they too passed on the project.” “The people were desperate when an oil and gas company came to survey the Congo. After running tests throughout the country, they realized that the Congo was home to some of the largest oil reserves in all of Africa. The people of the city negotiated a contract and began to produce, refine, and use the oil domestically, and signed a profit sharing agreement in order to benefit from the oil exported overseas. Access to a cheap and dependable energy source generated tens of thousands of jobs and enabled greater independence and stability across Congoan society. With their daily needs not constantly in the balance, Congoans could dedicate more time to their marriages, children, and other lower time preference pursuits.” “Which of the three energy sources made a better world for the people of the Congo? The expert in ESG replied, “The one that served them in their time of need.” Wisdom told him, “Go and do likewise.”