Economics of human lives

By -
As I work in MOH, there is a need for me to understand the economics of healthcare. And as work required, I was made to attend an in-house MOH training course which Economics of healthcare is one of the modules. Moreover, recently,, due to work, I have kena some repeated telecast of the same lecture by the same lecturer. But that's not the point I want to draw out here.

In one of the readings that we have to read for the module, there is this very interesting chapter from the book 'More sex is safer sex' by Steven E. Landsburg. In the chapter, 'Matters of Life and Death', Landsburg made the argument that we place an absolute value on human lives. Here's the crux of his argument:

If putting a dollar value on human lives strikes you as cold-hearted, grow up. You implicitly put a dollar value on human lives every time you but a candy bar with funds that could instead have been donated to the local fire department. No matter who you are, there is a limit to what you're willing to spend to save lives; the only question is whether you're willing to think honestly about what the limit is....
As I read this, it is almost an echo of us, as belivers, who have to make the choice on how to spend our time.

Let me explain why this is a related issue. We are commanded by the bible to reach out to people who have not heard the gospel. You can google the statistics on the death rate in the world. There is a likelihood, every second in the world, there is someone dying who never has the chance to hear the gospel. How we spend our time is a direct function of how we perceive the eternal well-beings of the people around us. For example, the one hour we spend to play computer games at home or the one hour we used to have some private time with our girlfriends/boyfriends is one hour which we could have used to spend on sharing the gospel and advancing God's kingdom. Implicitly, we place a cost on our time, and made an implicit choice, even when we do not realise it.

Before one comes to me and start screaming at me at my reasoning, let me just first clarify that I am not saying we should not take rest, or deliberately spend time with our loved one to improve our relationship. However, the bible is quite clear on how we spend our time. In Ephesians, it admonishes us to be wise in how we live our lives, as the days are evil (5:15-17). In essence, how we spend our time should be part of a bigger picture within the Kingdom of God. This sounds iffy, but essentially, if I have spent one hour playing computer games, and it achieved nothing except to make me feel more empty, tired and not refreshed, then I cannot call it a rest.

The key thing I want to say is this, we place an economic value on our time, and as a result, on the Kingdom of God, whether we realise it or not. Yet, are we purposefully using and maximising our time? I think it is time for us to start to think about this seriously.

Comments

  1. yeu@nn1:22 AM

    I like this! :) Hmm... of course, there's also the need to wait for God's timing... the kairos moments... but when that timing comes, then we must make the most of every opportunity.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Parable of the 'Good Samaritan'

By -
Once there was this man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among thorns, and the thorns spring up and choked him. And as he went on, he didn’t have money, and he met the Queen of Sheba, and she gave him 1,000 talents of gold and 100 changes of raiment. And he got into a chariot and drove furiously, and when he was driving under a big juniper tree, his hair caught on a limb of that tree, and he hung there many days, and the ravens brought him food to eat and water to drink, and he ate 5,000 loaves of bread and two fishes. One night when he was hanging there asleep, his wife Delilah came along and cut off his hair, and he dropped, and fell on stony ground. But he got up and went on, and it began to rain, and it rained forty days and forty nights, and he hid himself in a cave, and he lived on locust and wild honey. Then he went on ‘til he met a servant who said, “Come, take supper at my house.” And he made an excuse and said, “No, I won’t. I have married a wife, and I c
Read more

Of Teaching and Learning

By -
Image
Over the past two weeks, I was invited to attend a block class on "Learning to Teach." After two weeks of class, here are some reflections that I have. We thank God Bro Casey is a pretty humane teacher... :P  Firstly, teaching needs to meet the changing challenges of the 21st century. This is especially pertinent with all the advancements in technology as well as the worldview changes with the generation today. There is simply no room for the teacher to remain stagnant and not be able to keep up with times so as to engage their students and to facilitate learning. Applying to theological education and Bible school, we have to consider what kind of ministers we are training for the churches in the 21st century. If we are training ministers who are able to engage today’s generation, then we need to review the current methods of teaching and train ministers to be savvy in social media and technology and be able to make use of them in their ministries. Reflecting back on
Read more

Of Exegesis, Wedding Preparation and the Whole Lot of Things: Another Reflection

By -
Image
To those who know what happened, the past months since the start of 2016 had been very stressful to me. In the preparation to my impending wedding this coming October, my future father-in-law decided to throw a few spanners into the wedding preparation by declaring that he was not comfortable with me as a life partner to his daughter because I am a full time Christian worker and more importantly because I come from a different family background from her.  The latter means that there are certain practices in my own family which are unthinkable in his worldview on how a family should function. This led to intense tensions between Angelina and myself. To compound the stress, NT Exegesis class was not that easy also and the stress of meeting the deadlines mean that I sometimes did not have the time to reflect deeper into the situations I was facing in my relationship.  However, studying the text of Philemon 15-20 reminded me of the way we should conduct our relationship in Christ
Read more