By Pastor Paul LaValley

It’s the economy, dude!

For most of us Economics class in high school or college may not have been the highlight of our academic life. At the risk of yawns and rolling eyes, let me venture a super-quick economics lesson to help us understand the value of a soul.

In economics the price of anything is a function of supply and demand. The price of something is determined by what someone is willing to pay for it (demand) and how much of it is available (supply).

Let me give you a basic (and perhaps rough) example of price determination.

Let’s suppose you have teenage sons at home. First of all, you are to be commended that you and the teens survived to the point they could even be called ‘teenagers.’

I’m not sure how Teen Spirit smells, but I can assure you the smell in a teenage boys’ room can be toxic!  Having your HazMat certification is essential to raising teenage boys.

Now, let’s suppose you want to get some work out of those boys. How about the boys cleaning their rooms? Again a very commendable thing, but not always met with success.

At this point we must employ some parental wisdom about what we know regarding teenage human nature. What is the consistent default setting of teenage boys?

Hungry! That’s right! Which is why we now shop for food in large warehouses and require the use of forklifts and pallet jacks to get the groceries home.

So the challenge is to get the boys’ room clean; something they are not always thrilled to do.

But we, the parents, have a tactical advantage. We own everything in the house… including the food!

So it’s a simple economics problem. If you want to eat in this house, you will clean your room.

That seems like a small price to pay for something so simple. But to fully appreciate this dilemma from the perspective of the teenage boy you have to understand that they, at times, seem to be genetically and physiologically incapable of picking a dirty pair of socks up off the floor and placing them in the laundry room.  Research scientists could perhaps study this phenomenon!

The boys may protest and go on strike for a meal; however after the smell of Momma’s good cooking catches their attention they are usually compliant and obedient to the point of task completion and, in turn, proceed to consume mass quantities of food as the payment price for their duties fulfilled.

Now I’m not suggesting you starve the little darlings if they won’t comply, but I have yet to have this tactic fail.

So here is our economics lesson on the value of something. Price is simply a question of how badly you want something.

If you want it enough, you are willing to pay any price for it.

Let’s consider something much more sobering and infinitely more important: the value price that God was willing to pay for your soul.

Let’s look at some scriptures. Leviticus 17:11: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.”

Ephesians 2:13: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

Hebrews 9:22: “And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.”

The word blood occurs 357 times in the New King James version of the Bible.

Blood is the price God is willing to pay for your soul, because that is the value of your soul. Blood-bought means that someone has given their life for the redemption of another.

I Peter 1:18-19 says: “Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.”

Not only does He gladly pay that price; my experience is that He does not flinch in His expectation that you and I should be willing to shed blood – both figuratively and perhaps literally – for the salvation of souls.

At a minimum, we should be willing to give our lives and spend our strength in the service of the work of the ministry. We are all called to do our part in the work of reconciling souls back to their Creator through the purchase price of the blood of Jesus Christ. That is the value of a soul.