Be Good Bankers: The Economic Interpretation of Matthew’s Gospel, with a Fresh Translation
By Michael Pakaluk.
Gateway Editions, 2025.
Hardcover, 340 pages, $32.99.
Reviewed by Paul D. Mueller.
Should we be good bankers?
Dr. Michael Pakaluk explores that question at length in his recent book developing an “economic” interpretation of the Gospel of Matthew. Be Good Bankers occupies an unusual space between philosophy, theology, economics, and hermeneutics. Besides an excellent (and lengthy) introductory essay, Pakaluk offers his own translation of Matthew, one laced with commentary. Whether you are new to Scripture or familiar with it, there is something here for you.
At the outset, Pakaluk argues for the importance of recognizing Matthew’s occupation as a tax collector. We can expect Matthew to be much more familiar with money, wages, and accounts than the other disciples. If Matthew was a reasonably good tax collector, which context indicates he was, we can expect his professional training and knowledge to shape his account of Jesus’ earthly life and ministry. Pakaluk argues that the Gospel of Matthew can be understood as two major parts: the crediting and the debiting of salvation by Jesus Christ.
The introduction provides motivation for the book, background on tax and accounting practices in the Roman Empire, and theological context for the Gospel. It explains that Christians have different kinds of debt obligations to Christ. Christians have a “debt of justice” due to “the savior’s rescue,” a “debt of love” due to the “mode” of that rescue, and a “debt of emulation or zeal” as a result of Christ’s “condescension.”
The first debt of justice relates to the fact that Christians are “bought” or “ransomed” from sin and death. A legal payment has been made on their behalf. As the Apostle Paul says, “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.” This debt of justice tends to be the centerpiece of Christian theology. But we have other kinds of debt.
Not only do we have a formal or legal obligation to obey God and do what is right, but the extremity of how Christ chose to suffer for our redemption demands an emotional or personal response—not only to obey God in externals, but to love him with our inner being. Not loving God in our mind and heart betrays or defaults on this debt that the extremity of Christ’s loving sacrifice places on us.
Finally, the debt of emulation or zeal arises from gratitude and a sense of reciprocity for Christ’s condescension towards us. It’s a desire, or even a duty, to “pass on” what we have received. It’s a living out of Jesus’ words that if he has washed the disciples’ feet, his disciples should go and wash others’ feet. These forms of debt create the basis for “the divine economy.”
Although he may borrow much from market transactions and economics, Pakaluk suggests this view gets things backward. Commercial society and exchange, even banking, are but copies or extensions of God’s divine economy. Far from being a forced analogy, economic terms and ideas might be central to how God relates to his people and vice versa.
Returning to our opening question, why should we be good bankers? Pakaluk argues that the term “good bankers,” which was used by many church fathers (“Origen, Clement of Alexandria, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, and other fathers”) to describe Christ’s teaching, fundamentally directs how we ought to approach the divine economy. Namely, each person has a duty to use his resources and achieve a good return with them. Good bankers illustrate Jesus’ exhortation in the Sermon on the Mount to store up treasure in heaven.
Bankers highlight many traits followers of Christ ought to have: “a spotless reputation for honesty,” “accurate assessment of value,” “venture capitalists,” and “trusted agents and intermediaries.” The banker’s profession fundamentally seeks (monetary) value. This includes:
- Acquiring value
- Conserving value
- Growing value
- Assessing value
- Trading for value
To assess value, we need a framework for understanding the different kinds of goods we can have. Historically, philosophers have talked about external goods, bodily goods, and character goods. But Jesus’ divine economy also includes “spiritual” goods at the top of the hierarchy of value.
Pakaluk divides the Gospel of Matthew into four parts. He calls the first two parts “The Deposit.” He calls the second two parts “The Payment.” The first half of the gospel has the “credentialing” or “Recognition of the Deposit” as well as the “Crediting of the Deposit.” In the second half, one part includes “Payments looked for in the Followers of Jesus,” and the other part describes “The Payment of the Redeemer.”
The author uses the terms of enterprise, bankruptcy, and recapitalization to explain how Christ’s payment restarts or infuses the household of God with new capital to continue serving as salt and light in the world.
The Sermon on the Mount lends itself to direct application of an accounting “lens” or interpretive framework. Pakaluk says that “misthos” is a favorite word of Matthew. It is often rendered as “reward,” but “[i]ts primary meaning is wages paid for labor.” This matters because Jesus seems to promise not that we will receive some undefined “reward” in heaven, but that we will receive payment connected in some way to merit, just as a laborer earns his wages.
Furthermore, the Sermon on the Mount abounds with tradeoffs, or literally trades. Persecution, hunger and thirst for justice, mourning, and poverty of spirit are exchanged for something better, for the kingdom of God. This pattern of sacrificing perishable goods in search of the imperishable fills the Bible. As the author of Hebrews writes,
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance…. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.
And the author of Hebrews also writes:
By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.
Be Good Bankers renders a translation and commentary on the entire Gospel of Matthew that shines an interesting light on many things Jesus said and did. Focusing on Matthew’s experience as a tax collector and keeper of accounts strengthens several of Pakaluk’s translation choices of words with commercial connotations—especially when it comes to payments, debt, profit, trade, etc.
Pakaluk does not present his economic interpretation as the definitive hermeneutic for Matthew—but it’s a hermeneutic that cannot be ignored. The church fathers were on to something when they exhorted their congregation to “be good bankers.” They were distilling an important part of Jesus’ teaching—assessing value according to God’s economy, making wise and prudent investments of one’s time, talents, and treasure for the sake of the kingdom.
Apart from God’s grace, people misunderstand the world, and they value things that are in fact worthless. Physical idols are the most striking example, but people also value worldly goods, reputation, and power over obedience to the Lord. This is why God sometimes describes people as not realizing that they are blind and naked spiritually when they value material goods over spiritual goods. In Revelation, God says to the church of Laodicea:
For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich.
God counsels the Laodiceans to be good bankers.
Believers ought to be shrewd with their possessions. Jesus said: “And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.” We should engage in careful calculation and risk-taking when it comes to the divine economy. Jesus was the model of this in his ministry and his Passion, going to the cross. He, “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Therefore, Christ’s followers should do the same: set their minds on things above, using their earthly and bodily goods to gain spiritual goods in heaven. Doing so requires that we judge value in the world rightly and prudently. Pakaluk’s account and commentary on Matthew’s Gospel helps us do just that.
Paul D. Mueller is a senior research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research as well as a research fellow and associate director of the Religious Liberty in the States project at the Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy. He taught economics at The King’s College in New York City. His academic and popular work has appeared in a large variety of publications. Dr. Mueller is also the author of Ten Years Later: Why the Conventional Wisdom about the 2008 Financial Crisis Is Still Wrong.
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