The Definition of Economy

God’s economy is His plan to dispense Himself into His chosen and redeemed people as their life, their life supply, and their everything in order to gain a corporate expression of Himself, consummating for eternity in the New Jerusalem. This divine economy is the subject of the Bible, the meaning of human life, and the desire of God’s heart.

Most people, including many Christians, are unfamiliar with the application of the word economy in relation to God. Economy is the anglicized form of the Greek word oikonomia, which occurs throughout the New Testament (1 Timothy 1:4; Ephesians 1:10; 3:2; 3:9; 1 Corinthians 9:17; Colossians 1:25). Oikonomia is a compound of two nouns:

  oikos, which means house, and
  nomos, which means law.

Hence, economy denotes a household administration,
  management, or
  arrangement.

More generally, an economy is a plan to carry out a certain purpose. Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary offers the following definition of economy:

  6. Theol. a. The Creator’s plan;
the design of Providence. (emphases added)

God is like an immensely wealthy householder who desires to dispense His unsearchable riches (Ephesians 3:8) to all of His people, the members of His household. However, to accomplish this enormous task He needs a plan, an arrangement, an economy.