Discipleship in God's Economy

“One, two, three four, tell me that you love me more”

Sometimes I can’t help but chuckle at some of the strange ways we measure time, distance, and data. As a southerner chick-fil-as and churches both constitute units of measurement. For example, our suburban house is three chick-fil-as from our home church. There are three churches in between the library and my children’s school. As a mom of a type 1 diabetic, we jest that our family measures time in juice boxes. For example, I know that after 20 minutes or so of playtime at the pool, blood sugars will begin to teeter, and my kid will need to chug 15 grams of fast acting carbs to prevent a dangerous low and continue playing with minimal interruption.

We measure to make sense of our surroundings. We measure to keep our people safe. We measure to mark what matters. We measure to find rhythm in the chaos. We measure to remember. We measure to prepare. We measure because love pays attention. The way we measure things always reveals what we value, and when the church adopted the metrics of culture, these choices quietly reshaped how the church imagines faithfulness, discipleship, and God’s priorities.

One thing about being a member of a Baptist church is that we measure everything. From butts in seats to sewage water usage, from budgets to welcome cards, we feel encouraged when we see quantitative increases and discouraged during deficits. But while the fruit of our discipleship should be noticeable, it might not necessarily be measurable. God leads and we follow, but distance and speed aren’t reliable units of measurement in the Christian life. While Paul regularly relies on racing metaphors to illustrate focus, determination, and forward momentum in the Christian life, stretching the metaphor beyond it’s intended limits might cause us to think that the Christian life is a solo quest, a competition, or contextualized by linear progress. We need multiple metaphors to talk to one another so that we have fuller pictures. Paul also employes the imagery of safe sanctuaries, citizenship, family, and fellowship. He often refers to believers as co-workers, not competitors and fosters a sense of collaboration, shared mission, and mutual encouragement.

During the Enlightenment, the Church absorbed the tools of the age—systematization, logic, and quantification. Scholars diagramed doctrines. Priests measured morality. Church leaders charted salvation. Theologians dissected the divine. But in doing so, we traded mystery for mechanism, marvel for metrics, and perhaps most tragically, mercy for merit. Mystery was a weirdly shaped counterweight. Marvel interrupted analysis. Wonder bore prophetic witness. Mercy shatters our perceptions of fairness and replaces it with grace that is just. It’s the math God gets wrong on purpose.

There are examples in scripture where God instructs people to count things as a way to encourage faith (Gen 15:5), participate in God’s work of ordering & organization (Numbers 1:1-3), or even to set spiritual rhythms into motion (Leviticus 23:15–16). But there are also examples where unauthorized counting revealed a lack of faith or even a full on God-complex (2 Samuel 24:1–10). In Mesopotamian and Egyptian cultures, counting was tied to regal power, taxation, and military strength. Kings counted people and resources to assert control— often in contrast to the biblical theme of trusting divine provision. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the hero seeks immortality and tries to measure his strength against the gods. His inevitable failure reflects the futility of attempting to quantify the unquantifiable. The Book of Jubilees emphasizes how seasons, cycles of time, and sacred numbers reinforce that counting must sync up with divine rhythms rather than fall into lockstep with human ambition.

The truth is God weighs more often than God counts. And in the ancient world currency was weighed more than it was counted. This system relied on both trust and precision. God’s attributes— love, mercy, wisdom, justice—are described as infinite, not because they defy logic, but because they transcend human systems of valuation. God’s economy is relational, not transactional. It’s built on liberal generosity, and justice, not accumulation. Capitalism says: “If you can’t count it, it doesn’t count.” God says: “What counts most cannot be counted.” To live in God’s economy is to embrace Mystery over mastery, Presence over performance, Enough over excess. When we try to measure what only God can give, we risk contorting grace into a commodity.

Instead of counting the things we accumulate, God is much more concerned with finding what’s been lost. The God who is three-in-one leaves the ninety-nine for the one and nourishes the masses with a leftover lunch. Jesus declares that the kingdom of heaven is like a farmer digging in the dirt, a woman pounding yeast into dough, and adventure-seekers fishing for pearls. The kingdom of heaven requires patience, participation, and risk. The kingdom of heaven is not like the fully formed tree, the bun hot out of the oven, or the polished pearls— Jesus’ parables pair work with willpower. He appeals to them without presenting surefire formulas. He doesn’t talk in transactions, but in terms of transformation.

He doesn’t say, “alright, you’re done being field workers, now you need to preach three times a week, baptize twenty bodies, and hit your tithing goal.” He dignifies their vocation by resisting the urge to exploit it. Instead of counting one another, keeping score, or attempting to quantify our impact, God wants us to put our energy toward welcoming one another, making space, and resist the urge to rank and assign value based on cultural standards. The Holy Spirit doesn’t rearrange us according to our productivity. Discipleship is where the reliance on God’s provision meets our commitment to the farmwork. Discipleship is where God says that the work of women is essential to God’s kingdom. Discipleship doesn’t have a scarcity mindset. Dependence and participation are declarations of faith. The triune God isn’t trapped by tallies, totals, trackers, or even time. God’s love doesn’t add up, but God’s mercy overflows. God doesn’t keep score, but God always keeps promises.

How Capitalism Compromised the Integrity of the American Church

Why does it seem that the modern American church is uniquely susceptible to the influence of capitalism? The truth is, American Christianity has been tangled up with free market from the very beginning. When the American church broke from the state church in England, American churches lost their access to government funding— and with it, their insulation from market forces. To survive, they had to compete, innovate, and sell. The church in America didn’t grow in a vacuum— it developed alongside a capitalist economy.

As the U.S. expanded westward, built industries, and commodified labor, churches often mirrored cultural values. Prosperity was seen as a sign of divine favor. Hard work and individualism were spiritualized. Wealth accumulation was rarely challenged, especially when it benefited the institution. Certain strands of American Protestantism emphasized personal salvation and individual responsibility. This dovetailed neatly with capitalist ideals. The

“Protestant work ethic” linked labor and virtue. The rise of prosperity gospel theology taught that faithfulness resulted in financial security. Churches often relied on wealthy patrons, reinforcing a theology that failed to adequately critique inequality, exploitation, and the idolatry of the American Dream.

Because churches, particularly in the south, relied on their slave owning congregants and clergy to fund the church, many cloaked their white supremacy in biblical language to defend dehumanization. Historians like Edward Baptist note how chattel slavery was central to the rise of American Capitalism. Similarly, in the Antigreed Gospel Malcom Foley argues that the American church has long been complicit in a system of racial capitalism, where the desire to accumulate wealth has historically driven the creation of racial categories, the justification of chattel slavery, and the perpetuation of economic exploitation.[1]

The widely acclaimed trinitarian theology of slaveholder theologian Jonathan Edwards suggests that “It is common when speaking of the Divine happiness to say that God is infinitely happy in the enjoyment of Himself, in perfectly beholding and infinitely loving, and rejoicing in, His own essence and perfection.”[2] Jonathan Edwards’s chipper theology of a “happy God” collides with a savior who suffers and chooses solidarity with the enslaved. While Edwards sells his congregants on over the top divine joy— “God is the highest good of the reasonable creature... the enjoyment of him is our proper happiness”[3]— he does so while penning sermons on the backs of receipts for enslaved people he purchased.

The dissonance here should jar us. Edward built a whole theological framework about God’s beauty, while refusing to address the abomination in his own heart. He crafted inspirational prose imagining God’s limitless delight, seemingly oblivious to the fact that God cares deeply about how we treat one another. It’s not a stretch to suggest that Edwards’ missiology and dominionistic eschatology were both qualitatively exploitative as they were built on a foundation of worm theology and an anthropology that resisted the image of God in all people.

Predatory gospels rely on a God who smiles upon on our ministerial and financial successes but silence those who speak out, ruffle feathers, and undermine their supremacy. Like Edwards, they prioritize ecclesial authority and religious stability over confronting the moral and ethical crises.[4] Distorted portraits of God become theological permission slips for exploitation, allowing us to baptize greed and dehumanize image-bearers while cloaking distorted theology in the language of divine delight.

Measuring isn’t always sinister, but measuring does introduce comparison. Counting quantifies difference. Assigning value ranks worth. Valuation enables buying and selling. Commodification invites ownership and extraction. Exchange breeds desire. Desire distorts into greed. Greed justifies taking— by purchase, by force, or by neglect. When Jesus tells his disciples to “be on guard against all kinds of greed” that begins with resisting the urge to assign value, charge a fee, and measure worth on our own terms.

Patristic Scholar Amy Brown Hughes recently observed that for Gregory of Nyssa, “there’s no prevarication: it’s God’s vision of abolition and justice or evil.” Zero in between. It seems to me as though Edwards would have benefited from interacting with Cappadocian theology directly rather than relying on reformation era interpretations to influence his personal ethics. See, evil is interconnected too. Greed connects racism to ableism. Dehumanization fuels sexism and misogyny. Sinful systems satiate one another, prop each other up, and protect one another’s interests. And we have to be willing to name when these systems have clothed themselves in religious garb to cover up cruelty while touting personal piety, weaponizing God, and targeting threats to the status quo. Make no mistake, none of that makes God grin.

American Christianity didn’t just borrow from capitalistic culture— it was corrupted by it. In a 1967 Speech by MLK Jr to the Southern Christian leadership Conference in Atlanta, his statement “Capitalism forgets that life is social. And the kingdom of brotherhood (siblinghood) is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism, but in a higher synthesis.”[5] speaks directly to the ethical and spiritual foundation of his vision for the Beloved Community. This speech is one of King’s most visionary and radical, precisely because he wasn’t trying to persuade outsiders— he was challenging insiders to deepen their moral and ethical commitments in their faith communities.

Meanwhile, the religiosity of white evangelicalism absorbed technologies and ideologies that promised economic growth and blessed them. The result? Sanitized spirituality presented capitalism as politically neutral, sidestepping moral accountability by avoiding “controversial” topics like racism, poverty, or systemic injustice. By allegedly depoliticizing faith and removing justice from the gospel, capitalism and feel-good Christianity created a vacuum of sorts—one that Christian nationalism was eager to fill. When capitalism co-opted faith for profit, and churches traded their prophetic authority for quiet comfort, faith communities rolled out the red carpet for Christian Nationalism— a greedy and idolatrous entangling of God and country. Here, gluttony and greed are spiritual siblings with voraciously disordered appetites for consumption and accumulation under the guise of the American dream.

In our extra American gospel, the poor are blamed rather than blessed. We trash their tents, erase their encampments, and deport them to modern day for profit concentration camps. Instead of comforting sufferers, we coach them to manifest better outcomes and direct them to take their tears elsewhere. We vote away their access to lifesaving healthcare while wearing pro-life merchandise. We decorate the backdrop of our motivational speeches with crosses clawed by Eagles and smothered in American Flags. We replace cruciform life with callous entitlement. Jesus weeps.

Reconciliation begins when American churches stop asking, “How much can we grow?” and start asking, “Whom have we forgotten?” This is the work of discipleship. Repentance from greed includes letting go of our empires of excess and choosing to be people who share power, wealth, and encouragement. Instead of discipleship that, like consumer culture is fast, frictionless, and functional,[6] we need to remember the prophetic witness of the agriculturalists, the breadsmiths, and shell collectors.

When our discipleship makes space for slow growth, dependence on the divine, and tempered faithfulness to permeate the life of the church, the living God gets all of our worship, not just the parts that fit into our church’s business plan. Encouraging one another as siblings toward the heart and things of the Triune God means that instead of justifying the malleability of our metrics, we recognize when we need to relinquish idols that we’ve preserved for too long.

The Ethical Implications of Capitalistic Christianity

Idolatry always comes with a high cost. It always exploits others and leaves us in debt. For example, right now there’s currently a record number of people in ICE detention (upwards of 73,000 as of about four days ago). The Trump administration is currently planning to expand detention capacity, refurbishing warehouses and industrial spaces into concentration camps. “More detentions = More revenue. More custody = Guaranteed payments. Longer detention = Higher profit.” According to We Choose Welcome. “Human confinement is a lucrative business model.” The inhumane conditions of these facilities are well documented, where detainees have described torture, unsanitary conditions, and spoiled/ infested food. The Christian ethical position is clear: any system that profits from human suffering is an affront to the God who became flesh.

The Dilley, TX detention facility currently holding five-year-old Liam from Minneapolis (who’s immediate release was ordered by a federal judge earlier today) is owned by Target Hospitality (no, not that Target). Notably, they recently entered a five‑year lease and services contract with CoreCivic. This agreement is projected to generate more than $246 million in revenue for Target Hospitality alone. Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street—three firms most consumers recognize from their retirement accounts and index funds—collectively hold a significant share of CoreCivic, with Vanguard alone typically controlling around 10% of all outstanding shares and BlackRock and State Street each holding several percent more through their broad‑market index products. Together, these household‑name asset managers make up well over 20% of the company’s institutional ownership. Liam’s detention is part of a revenue stream, and that revenue stream is supported by investment structures most of us participate in without realizing it.

This isn’t about blaming individuals for owning index funds. It’s about recognizing how easily human suffering can become embedded in ordinary financial systems—and asking whether we’re willing to examine, question, or divest from practices that conflict with our values when people’s dignity is at stake.

Philoxenia > Xenophobia

Where xenophobia urges us to protect what is ours, Scripture calls the church to philoxenia—the costly, creative love of the stranger that reflects God’s own character. Romans 12:13 succinctly communicates the full range of this concept. “Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.” Paul isn’t instructing the Roman Christians to only practice hospitality to “the Lord’s people.” That greek word philoxenia refers to actively loving and welcoming those who are unfamiliar or outside your immediate circle— including strangers and foreigners, not just fellow believers. Furthermore, the word structure pairs together the concepts of philos (‘friend,’ ‘dear,’ ‘loving’) and xenos (‘foreign,’ ‘stranger’) which essentially means “friend of strangers.”

This looks like sharing with the Lord’s people who are in need and also “showing hospitality to strangers as if they are already dear friends.” Eugene Peterson’s own transliteration invites readers to be “inventive” in hospitality. Inventive hospitality looks like the example of French pastor André Trocmé & his wife Magda who led their Huguenot village to shelter thousands of Jews fleeing Nazi persecution. Their community rescued the lives of thousands by practicing inventive hospitality— hiding Jews their homes, farms, and schoolhouses. Polish Catholic Irena Sendler led similar efforts to smuggle Jewish children out of the Warsaw ghetto underneath the noses of the Nazi regime. Her faith fueled creative hospitality saved over two thousand lives showing how functionally, philoxenia is how the scripture inspires believers to counter xenophobia.

Back in the US, dozens of Catholic and protestant churches who call the border towns of El Paso and MCAllen, TX home regularly convert sanctuaries into shelters, partner with nongovernment organizations for medical & legal aid, and offer trauma-informed pastoral care. And across the country, right now inventive hospitality looks like networks of neighbors coming together creatively to keep their communities safe from ICE terrorization.

Inventive hospitality is the intersection where spiritual and physical needs converge. This is the heart behind the passages in Matthew 25— distinguishing willingness from unwillingness, because compassion and care aren’t currency.

Discipleship in God’s economy looks like philoxenia—loving strangers as neighbors and neighbors as kin.

May we practice creative hospitality as a full-bodied expression of our faith.

Be well, beloveds.

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Full disclosure, most of this began as a section for my book on the Trinity, but due to length, we had to kill a few darlings. Interwoven Discipleship: How the Trinity Redefines Power, Belonging, and Christian Community is a different kind of theology book, and I’m so excited for you to read these words later this year.

If you’re curious about how our thoughts about God impact our discipleship, follow along for book related updates and other fun projects I’m working on.