Economics in the Bible is somehting I had never particularly thought about. Before this class began, I remember thinking "how can there be Biblical integration in an economics class?" I had never stopped consider how God used economics in Biblical times as means to bless the people living in the Promised Land and to ultimately glorify Himself. Having almost finished the class, I have learned about economics and how it is a lot more complicated than I had previously though, never having taken an economics class before. The most interesting thing I learned was how God used economic means to support and bless His people by making Israel a great place for trading, arguably the most important part of any economy. Without trade, the economy suffers immensely. There would be little to no circulation of money and people would not be able to gain the goods they need for survival. In making Israel a location ideal for trade, the Lord ensured that their economy had the means to thrive. This can be seen by looking at textual evidence in Scripture. One example of this is the Queen of Sheba, who brought many valuable goods to Israel for trading during the reign of Solomon. Also under Solomon, there are mentions of goods being imported and workers being imported as well. Without economics, Israel would have suffered, which was not what was promised when the Lord promised a land "rich with milk and honey" to His people. This was possible in part due to trading with the surrounding nations and peoples.

Right around the start of the COVID lockdowns, Animal Crossing: New Horizons made its way into my hands through a convenient online Target order. Having played Animal Crossing games in the past, my older brother Matthew and I knew how to game the game and make millions of Bells, the in-game currency of all Animal Crossing games. The economy of the game does not function as a shop would in real life because you can sell infinitely, and the shop never runs out of Bells, nor do prices ever fluctuate. The only exception to price fluctuation is the Stalk Market, otherwise known as the turnip market. Every Sunday before noon, Daisy-Mae wanders around your island looking to sell turnips. The goal is to find her on a day where she is selling cheap turnips; let's say 72 Bells each. Every other day of the week, the island shop, Nook's Cranny, will buy turnips for a random price that changes at noon. So one day, Matthew and I were playing AC together as normal, and I stumbled upon turnip prices of nearly 600 Bells. Once again, let's say it was 575 Bells. Turnips must be purchased in stacks of 10, and you can hold up to 40 stacks in your inventory, totaling 400 turnips. When purchased at 72 Bells/turnip and sold for 575Bells/turnip, each full inventory will land you 201,200 Bells. (That's a significant amount, already, especially at the start of the game). Matthew time-traveled to a day where you could buy turnips for 72Bells and we traveled from island to island, each making over 200k Bells per trip. Keep that up for roughly an hour, and you can make almost 10million Bells, which is exactly what Matthew and I did. Essentially, using time travel, we cheated the Stalk Market to turn a huge profit. In-game, this did not cause any issues, but if this tiny, barely inhabited island with two shops (one general, one clothing) purchased nearly 20million Bells of turnips, they'd be in some huge trouble. All of the wealth would belong to the people who sold turnips and the shop would be so bankrupt that the entire economy would likely collapse, as there would be very little to no commerce on this particular island, which houses players, up to ten villagers, and any animal who works on the island (no more than ten or so regulars). Thankfully, the employees of Nook's Cranny, twin raccoon children named Timmy and Tommy, seem to have an endless supply of Bells, and no amount spent will change the status of how well the economy is doing, else there would be no sales and everybody on the island would have to leave or suffer the consequences of high demand but zero supply.