About

"In this book, I begin with God’s covenant, not humanism’s covenant I argue for methodological covenantalism, as opposed to humanism’s methodological individualism (anarchism)—nominalism—or methodological holism (socialism)—realism. I begin with God’s revelation, not human speculation. I begin with Genesis, not Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776) or John Maynard Keynes’ General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936) or Ludwig von Mises’ Human Action (1949) or Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom (1961). This may bother economists, but so what? I do not expect economists to read an economic commentary on the Book of Genesis." - Gary North

It took him 39 years to complete his 31 volume set economic commentary of the Bible. What gave him that kind of perseverance? Is it his eschatology? I really admire this man, but I personally know few "theologians" who ridicule him. They thought they knew him. Their theology made them despise the man.

The theology of his critics is contemporary. They admire Kant and transported his ideas into their seminaries through Barth and Brunner. They write and teach to spread the ideas of their "heroes" for they believe that their "heroes" have provided answers to the pressing problems of our time that my "hero" failed to provide. Besides Kant, Barth, and Brunner, they also admire Marx, whose economic theory was fallacious due to the impossibility of economic calculation without a price system coming from the market. Marx's economic theory destroys productivity, results to poverty and chaos, but the faith of his fans remains unshakable. 

Unlike the above "heroes," my hero provides answers to contemporary problems directly taken from biblical exegesis. He describes his approach in three ways: application of biblical text during Old Testament times, explanation for the relevance of the biblical text for our time, and examples of contemporary application. My hero is very ambitious. He wants to see his economic commentary to last preferably for centuries "as one of the key reference works on specific applications of biblical law in economics and jurisprudence" (p. xii). None has ever done this task before. 

My hero's critics may say that Bible commentary of this type is unnecessary; reading it is a waste of time (how much more blogging it?). Or maybe they do not like his "arrogance". He is too confident that he knows the answers and all humanistic writers are wrong. Besides arrogance, the size of the commentary is also a barrier for those who do not see its importance. For those like me who are also intimidated because of its size, but not a committed disciple of Kant and Marx, and are willing to give my hero a fair hearing, we have been given a tip how to consume it: read it as if you are eating an elephant.