An Analogy

What happens when the government needs to collect more taxes? There are two economic opinions on how to achieve this.

The obvious answer is to raise taxes. After all, if you need to collect more taxes, then raise everybody's rates so that everybody will pay a little more. Then the government will reap a little more.

The bizarre answer is to lower taxes. Some people scoff at this. Obviously, they say, lowering taxes will put fewer coins into the government money-bags. Weird thing is, though, lowering taxes is the plan that actually works. Lower taxes and less government regulation stimulates the economy. As the economy grows healthier, businesses and individuals earn more. Even though people are paying a smaller percentage in taxes, they end up paying more in actual dollars. So the government has more to spend, while the tax payers also have more disposable income.

Conservatives have seen this happen in our own country, as well as in other countries, as well as throughout history. Some people believe in making a bee-line for more taxes. Other people believe that doing what's beneficial to the economy will circuitously result in more tax revenue for the government. Those who insist that they cannot let go of their "give us more money" mantra are the ones who actually diminish the money coming in to government coffers.

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Some people believe that the way to get Christians to do more good works is to tell them directly to do more good works, which works they should do, and how they should do them. This seems like an obvious way to get people to do more good works.

Other people think the preaching should be directed instead toward the health of the Christian and strengthening his faith. There will be pruning and fertilizing (the call to repentance). There will be watering and sunshine (the forgiveness of sins in the preaching and sacraments). Then, bizarrely and circuitously and weirdly, the Christian (whose faith is vivified and whose sinful nature is crushed) will abundantly bear the fruit of good works, even when he's not intentionally trying to do so.