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Some Christians
just don't know any better and have not yet done the study (which means
they are spiritually immature), while others have been lied to (which means
they are deceived). But thankfully, those who continually seek
truth ought to be able to change their minds (which is what repent means)
when presented with what the scriptures really say; and this article is for
those who seek to understand some of the more perplexing Bible verses which
seem to be against silver and gold. I present this article as a means
for Husbands and Wives to go over together, so that they can come to an
agreement with regards to family finances, and to help understand the great
spiritual blessings of taking dominion over God's creation and provision of
honest weights and measures of silver and gold. My wife has also had to
come to grips with my job that I do in the "monetary world", and
has had difficulty understanding how what I do lines up with the Bible.
This article addresses the following scriptures.
Ezekiel 7:19 (The Stumblingblock
of their Iniquity)
1 Timothy 6:10 (The "love" of money)
Matthew 6:19-21 (Lay up not for yourselves treasures upon earth)
Matthew 6:24 (No man can serve two masters)
Matthew 25:14-28 (The Parable of the Talents; and evil servant who buried
gold.)
Mark 10:17-29 (The Young Rich Man told to sell everything)
James 5:1-6 (Woe you rich people, your gold is rusted; you withhold the
wages.)
I will start
with one of the most difficult verses that people often ask me about:
Ezekiel 7:19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and
their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to
deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy
their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock
of their iniquity.
After my wife
heard my explanation once, she had a joyful burst of insight, and wisely
summarized, "Their misunderstanding of what gold and silver are supposed
to be used for has led them to be slaves to our current monetary
system!"
For the longest
time, I had difficulty understanding the last part of this verse, where it
says "because it is the stumbling block of their iniquity". I
wrongly thought it was saying that silver and gold were somehow evil, because
it seems to describe the metals as a "stumblingblock"
of their sin, like it caused people to sin. I knew it was not saying
this, because it does not say that anywhere else in the Bible,
and the Bible wants us to use honest weights and measures in commerce, and so
on. But I was simply at a loss to explain it, and I put it off until
later. I'm excited that I finally figured out that perplexing verse,
after nearly ten years of seeking.
First of all, a stumblingblock is not evil, it's only mis-perceived
as evil. Here's an example: Jesus dying for our sins is described
as a stumblingblock.
1 Corinthians
1:23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock,
and unto the Greeks foolishness;
To the Jews,
Jesus is like a boogyman, or an evil
or misguided false prophet that they don't understand, maybe
because they were never taught by their Rabbis that Jesus fulfilled over 300
prophecies from the Hebrew Bible, and here are two links if you would like to
investigate that.
http://www.messiahrevealed.org/
http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/messiah.htm
The stumblingblock cannot be blamed. But people do tend
to blame the rock upon which they trip. In Psychology, they call this
the "fundamental attribution error", whereby people who trip on a
rock, blame the rock. But when people see another person trip on a
rock, they say the other person is clumsy.
So, the verse in
Ezekiel is saying that some people will blame silver and gold for their
own troubles; but their own sinful perspective, their own iniquity, is what
makes silver and gold into evil things for them, because they are blind
to the truth. The ultimate expression and final fulfillment
of this wongful view that is held by the majority
of the world will come in the form of the prophecy of Revelation 13, about
the mark of the beast, the 666.
But God's
created provision of .999 fine silver and gold, which are the opposite of the
666 system, cannot be evil. Inanimate objects cannot sin, nor do
anything wrong; they don't do anything.
Only people can
sin, or make mistakes, or "miss the mark", or go into debt. (Those
are other definitions of "sin".) Interestingly, people who
are in debt are the least capable of appreciating silver, because they cannot
see how they can afford to hold onto a "useless" luxury item when
there is debt that needs to be repaid!
According to
world experts, there is about $50 trillion of debt in the world, and only $5
trillion of gold, and probably only about $0.1 trillion worth of
silver. Therefore, it would be foolish to try to sell gold and silver
today to pay down debt, or other people's debts. If you have gold and
silver, do not spend them to give money to people who are in financial
trouble and who are in debt; because there is not enough gold in the world to
pay down debts today.
I finally
understood this verse in Ezekiel due to seeing the overall wrongheaded
perspective of the occasional person who emails me with their claim that
silver and gold are evil, or that owning silver and gold are evil
actions. Almost everything they have to say about silver and economics
is totally wrong, and they also misunderstand other verses that I will cover,
below.
I finally also
realized that Ezekiel's prophecy is not only applicable for the future 7 year
tribulation, or "Day of the Lord". Many prophetic events
happen recurringly, partially, throughout man's
history. For example, in the book of Judges, the people went from
freedom, to being put under tribute and paying taxes to foreign powers, about
every 40 years.
For me,
while I had trouble understanding that part about how silver could be a
"stumblingblock", it was much easier
to put a time and a place to this prophecy, which I long ago was able to
place during the coming and future 7 year tribulation, after the rapture,
during this time will come the 666 mark of the beast of Revelation 13. I
wrote about my view of that in 2001:
Gold and Silver
in Bible Prophecy 12-01
http://bibleprophesy.org/goldsilver.htm
There is a
recurring theme that happens to men as described in this verse from
Ezekiel. After men reject gold and silver and all the basic economic
laws of honesty and freedom that they embody and teach, poverty tends to
follow. We saw that in the U.S.
during the great depression of the 1930's, when gold was outlawed in the U.S. in 1934,
and taxes were high, and trade was restricted. We saw it recently this
year in Zimbabwe,
when private property was confiscated, and when merchants were not allowed to
charge free market prices for their goods.
People who have
memorized all the institutional lies about silver and gold, and made them a
part of their own belief system, have the worst trouble. They who
accept without questioning what they are taught in business and economics
classes in college believe all the lies told to justify the current system of
paper money, and therefore may feel that silver is evil, that silver leads to
poverty, that silver is the embodiment of all that could be wrong and
primitive with an economic system, because everything they think about silver
is wrong.
They wrongly
think:
that silver is the easiest of all forms of property to steal (instead of the
hardest),
that it is the most expensive form of wealth to ship (instead of the
cheapest),
that it is the least convenient form of wealth (instead of the most
convenient),
that it is the least liquid form of wealth (instead of the most liquid),
that it is the easiest to counterfeit (instead of the hardest).
And the wrong
views continue, such that they ultimately think there is no way we could ever
return to using silver as money, despite the fact that the fundamental nature
of silver is money, and despite the fact that money is at least three things:
1.
a store of value
2. a unit of account
3. a medium of exchange.
We are using
silver as money when we use it as a store of value; simply by putting into a
safe, and not doing anything at all with it. That's using silver as
money; as a store of value. It is much more important to use silver as
a store of value than anything else right now. Why spend it, when
others will not appreciate it? Sure it's great if you offer silver to
others, but don't feel guilty if others won't accept it, we have no command
by the Lord to put this stumbling block into the way of sinners who can't
appreciate it.
I'm also coming
to realize more and more that money and debt are two entirely different
things; only one is property, the other is a promise.
But there are a
group of people who think that because silver is money, it can be borrowed
and lent, just like regular money, with nothing wrong about that; but they
are woefully wrong, and their folly will be exposed. This includes Jeff
Christian, President of the CPM group, who claims he helped pioneer futures
contracts in silver. This includes Jon Nadler, who worked hard to
develop and market products for Kitco and the Perth
Mint.
While I'm
clarifying Ezekiel, I feel I should clarify several other common verses that
are bought up by Christians who have wrong views about silver and gold, and
who forget that our commission is to set the captives free and to proclaim
liberty throughout the land so that we may be fruitful and multiply and to
take dominion over God's creation.
The only
Biblical way to store wealth is in some form of property, such as silver,
gold, land, food, or other goods, or investments with other people, and we
are not called to invest in and support frauds such as paper money.
The following
are scriptures that Christians often mis-interpret,
as if saving gold and silver are bad. (What follows is my
clarification.)
1 Timothy 6:10
For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted
after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with
many sorrows.
Some think that
money is the root of all evil, and if gold is money, then gold must be
evil. But the verse does not say that, it says the "love" of
money is the root of all evil. And that is translated wrong, it does
not say "love", it's really speaking of the "lust/greed/averice" of money. It is the lust, or
covetousness, of money that is the root of all evil. It is when men are
willing to break all of God's other laws to get money because of unchecked
greed, that the greed for money is the root of all evil. After all,
greed, or coveteousness is a violation of the last
commandment:
Exodus 20:17 "Thou shalt not
covet thy neighbor's house; thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's
wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor
anything that is thy neighbor's."
Furthermore, I
have outlined how the use of paper money has led to the violation of each one
of the ten commandments.
The Use of Paper Money Violates
All of the Ten Commandments July 2, 2006
But the
appreciation of money, the use of money, is not evil, if it is used to create
fruitfulness; but can be evil if you are paying other people to violate the
commandments.
Here is another
often misunderstood verse:
Matthew 6:19 Lay
not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt,
and where thieves break through and steal:
20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust
doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Some think Matt
6:19 means that we, as Christians, can't store money for the future, despite
other clear verses that show that to be a virtue, such as Matthew 25, Dueteronomy 28:8, Proverbs 21:20, Proverbs 6:6-8, and
Proverbs 30:24-25.
It is good to
store up money to further the gospel kingdom; as ministry and service costs
money.
Jesus also warns
against storing money in a location where thieves are known to break in and
steal--this would include banks, which are institutions of theft. Banks
are the modern day "money lenders" in the Temple whose tables Jesus overturned, the
modern thieves, because they only keep a fraction of deposits on hand. The
Federal Reserve is stealing value from people who hold paper money or bonds
in banks through inflation. (Hint: Do not store your precious metals in
a safety deposit box in a bank. Why store it in the viper's den, where theives are known to break in and steal, or where laws
can change and they can assess or tax or steal the contents of such a box in
the future?)
Buying gold or
silver is a way to store up treasures in heaven, since buying gold is an act
of righteousness and obedience and dominion, and is a rejection of false
weights and measures, and is a rejection of usury. Neither moth nor
rust affect silver and gold.
Here is another
often misunderstood verse:
Matthew 6:24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will
hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and
despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
Some think this
means that Christians should live in poverty. Not so. There were
rich disciples.
Matthew 27:57
When the evening was come, there came a rich man of Arimathaea,
named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple:
Christians are
called to be able to relieve the poverty of others, and that takes
wealth. How can you have extra to give to others, unless you have extra
to give, or more than enough for yourself? (2 Corinthians 8 speaks on
this, the giving of one's abundance, or surplus.)
The whole point
of free trade and capitalism is to be able to trade away the surplus of your
production. Matt 6:1-4 is about giving alms for the poor. I
believe that to "serve mammon, or money"
means making money your master instead of making God your master. We
are called to master our money, to make our money serve us, instead, and take
dominion, once again.
I believe Matt
6:24 is warning about how you must have a right view of money; that the wrong
view puts money in front of God, the right view puts God first, us second,
and money third.
Furthermore,
consider those who are in debt. All who are in debt are serving a
different master, they are serving their present and past selves as they seek
to repay the money they borrowed and spent in the past, rather than serve the
God of the past, present and future, and they enslave their future selves as
they go into debt.
And how can you
give to others while you are in debt? To do so means that you take away
from what is due to your lender.
Proverbs 22:7 The rich ruleth over the
poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.
1 Corinthians
7:23 Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men.
Next, the
parable of the Talents is often also misunderstood as being "against
owning gold" since the evil servant burried a
gold bar; but, in fact, it is the clearest example of how we are to take
dominion and be fruitful and multiply while the master is away.
The Parable of
the Talents
Matthew 25
14"Again, it will be like a man going on a journey,
who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. 15 To one he gave
five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent,
each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. 16 The man who
had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and
gained five more. 17 So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. 18
But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the
ground and hid his master's money.
19 "After a long time the master of those servants
returned and settled accounts with them. 20 The man who had received the five
talents brought the other five. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with
five talents. See, I have gained five more.'
21 "His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful
servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge
of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'
22 "The man with the two talents also came. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with two talents;
see, I have gained two more.'
23 "His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful
servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge
of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'
24 "Then the man who had received the one talent came. 'Master,' he said, 'I knew that you are a hard man,
harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered
seed.
25 So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the
ground. See, here is what belongs to you.'
26 "His master replied, 'You wicked, lazy servant! So
you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not
scattered seed? 27 Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with
the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with
interest.
28 " 'Take the talent from him and give it to the one
who has the ten talents. 29 For everyone who has will be given more, and he
will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even
what he has will be taken from him. 30 And throw that worthless servant
outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of
teeth.'
Some just think
it's wrong to store wealth in the form of gold. However, gold and
silver are the only things you can use as money that you can weigh out and
measure. An unjust weight and measure, such as the dollar, remains an
abomination.
Why is the evil
servant evil? First of all, the talent was not his money,
it was his master's money! His master was sowing with him, giving him
money to be wisely invested. A "talant"
was 66-90 pounds
of precious metal. It was a large amount of money. The master,
representing Jesus, acted as a capitalist, who was investing his money in the
man's ability to invest money. (Like an investor who buys a silver
stock fund, that in turn, invests in stocks.) But the evil servant did
not respect his master's capitalist ways; and he made a false accusation, he
said the master reaped where he did not sow. But the master was sowing
into the man, rather than into the ground! So, in a sense, the evil
servant valued himself as less than dust, because his false accusation
implied that it would be better to sow into the ground than into himself!
The silver or
gold became a stumbling block to him, because his heart thinking wrong
things.
The capitalist
who invests with men is not doing an evil thing as the evil servant
accused. The evil servant represents a man who despises capitalism, the
foundation of which is private property. He despised his master's ways,
and he was covetous of his master's potential gain. But meanwhile, as
one of his master's servants, he was consuming some of his master's wealth,
just to live! He was lazy and didn't want to work for anyone else's
benefit, but felt no guilt about taking benefits from others.
But all work, to
be profitable, must be to the benefit of other men!
So, the story
does not condemn storing gold, the story is an overwhelming support of all
the many principles of Biblical Capitalism, which is different than the
so-called capitalism we have today that is dominated by moneylending
and fraudulent weights and measures!
Some people
wrongly think that Matthew 25:14-28 justifies usury, because the master says
to the evil servant: "you should have put my money on deposit with the
bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with
interest."
But this is not
a justification of usury, it is a condemnation. Clearly, the master
could have deposited his money with the usurers himself; he didn't need a
servant to do that for him. But the master clearly wanted to try to get
a better return than with the usurers, and expected that to be possible,
which is why he trusted his servant, instead. Also, that would teach
and test his servant about the nature of productivity. He even expected
his most lazy servant, to whom he entrusted the least money, to do better
than the local usurers.
The comparison
of the evil servant to the usurers does not justify usury. It is a way
to highlight the comparable evil of the evil servant. For example, if a
man had a wife who cheated on him by sleeping with someone else for free, and
then, to highlight the evil of that, her husband bitingly remarked that she
should at least have charged the man like an honest harlot would, that's no
justification of the practice of harlotry, and the man is clearly not saying
he simply wanted his wife to get paid! But rather, it is assumed that
harlotry is bad in such an example, otherwise, the comparison and excoriation
makes no sense.
It would make no
sense to say to the evil servant that he "should have at least put the
money into a stock that went up ten times," because that's very hard to
do. To show the evil servant his own evil, the comparison has to be to
something that is actually evil, such as depositing money with the usurers.
Some ask about
Mark 10:17-29; Jesus told a man to give away all his money to the poor.
Mark 10:17-29
New International Version (NIV)
The Rich Young Man
17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his
knees before him. "Good teacher," he asked, "what must I do to
inherit eternal life?"
18 "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is
good—except God alone.
19 You know the commandments: 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery,
do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.'"
20 "Teacher," he declared, "all these I have kept since
I was a boy."
21 Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack,"
he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you
will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
22 At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great
wealth.
23 Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it is
for the rich to enter the kingdom
of God!"
24 The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again,
"Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!
25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for
a rich man to enter the kingdom
of God."
26 The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other,
"Who then can be saved?"
27 Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible,
but not with God; all things are possible with God."
Mark 10:17-27
leads many people to think that if you are rich, then you can't get into
heaven. But Jesus never said that. Note the last part in the next
verse:
28
Peter said to him, "We have left everything to follow you!"
29 "I tell you the truth," Jesus replied, "no one
who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or
fields for me and the gospel 30 will fail to receive a hundred times as much
in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and
fields—and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal
life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last first."
It seems to me
that Peter was looking for a pat on the back. Peter was saying that he
and all the disciples had done exactly what Jesus was asking the rich man to
do. Peter was probably expecting Jesus to say something like,
"Yes, Peter, and that's exactly why I will give you eternal life, well
done."
But Jesus didn't
say that, either. Jesus' response is rather a correction, not a
confirmation that Peter understood anything significant. Jesus says
plainly that real, tangible, physical wealth will come to all who leave it
all behind to follow Jesus, and that the real wealth comes now, in this
world, a hundreds times as much!
It is far harder
to believe Jesus's last statement,
that you will get 100 times more than you leave behind if you follow
him. It is much easier to "condemn the wealthy for being
wealthy," which is not the lesson at all, and is a misunderstanding.
Jesus's concluding remarks prove that having money does not
exclude one from heaven, since it is a result of pursuing the kingdom of
heaven.
Matthew 6:33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God,
and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
In fact, in
Matthew 25:14-30, the earlier parable of the talents, echoed in Luke
19:12-26, Jesus makes it clear that having money and managing it well is to
be rewarded with authority over cities.
We are to be
faithful and wise with money, to be rewarded with both worldly and spiritual
blessings as Luke says in Chapter 16.
Luke 16:10
Anyone who can be trusted in little matters can also be trusted in important
matters. But anyone who is dishonest in little matters will be dishonest in
important matters.
11 If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous
mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?
12 And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another
man's, who shall give you that which is your own?
So, perhaps the
real question is, "Why did Jesus tell that particular man in Mark 10 to
give up his money?" And perhaps another question is, "Why
didn't Jesus tell all other rich men to give up their money, such as Joseph
of Arametheia, who burried
the body of Jesus after his death?" And why didn't the disciples,
once they became apostles, teach that people who wanted to become Christians
had to give all their wealth to the poor?
Here is a
possible explanation for why that particular man had to give away his
wealth. It looks to me like it was conditional for that one man. According
to the law, theives had to pay back stolen
money:
Exodus 22:7 If a
man shall deliver unto his neighbour money or stuff to keep, and it be stolen out of the man's house; if the thief be found, let
him pay double.
We do not know
the source of the man's money in Mark 10. As others have noted, the man
was "self-righteous", boastful, probably a liar, claiming to follow
all the commandments. I claim I'm responsible for breaking all 10 of
them daily, merely in using paper money, as I did here:
http://www.silverstockreport.com/email/commandments.html
But if the man's
money was tainted money, earned unjustly from the poor, then Jesus was
telling the man to obey the law, and to get rid of it by giving it back to
the poor. I think it was probably a situational case, and the further
details of the case are revealed in how the man presented himself to Jesus,
as a righteous man.
Here are more
condemnations of the "self-righteous man". Matthew 9:9-13
"I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners".
Luke 18:9 To
some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on
everybody else, Jesus told this parable:
10 "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other
a tax collector.
11 The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I
am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like
this tax collector.
12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'
13 "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up
to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'
14 "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified
before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be
humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
The man who said
he followed all the commandments was defintely a
liar, since the Bible testifies that all men are sinners. Even
Psychologists add a specific question to their tests to determine if
people are liars. They simply ask, "Have you ever
lied?" If the person says, "No", then they know that the
person is a liar.
So if that particular man in Mark 10 accumulated his money dishonestly, and
he probably did because he was a pathological liar by falsely claiming
to have always followed all of the commandments, then he had to give it all
away in order to follow Jesus, as Jesus said in Luke 16:11, as we saw above,
"If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who
will commit to your trust the true riches?"
There is another verse that condemns the great moneylenders of the earth, that people ask me about, people who are unsure
about the righteousness of getting physical gold or silver.
James 5 (NIV)
1 Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that
is coming upon you. 2 Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your
clothes. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify
against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last
days. 4 Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields
are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears
of the Lord Almighty. 5 You have lived on earth in luxury and
self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. 6 You
have condemned and murdered innocent men, who were not opposing you.
In the KJV,
James 5:4
4 Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields,
which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the
cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.
Gold and silver
do not rust, they do not "canker". How then can such rust be
a witness, and against whom? This is a witness against the
moneylenders, who lend out gold in our day, to depress the price and control
the market, to prop up the false value of their currencies. The current
economic system, which is so far away from true Biblical Capitalism, is
filled with ways that the "hire of the laborors"
is "kept back by fraud", including the following:
1.
Paying wages every 2 weeks, instead of the
"daily wage" of Lev 19:13.
2. Holding back "worker's compensation" insurance.
3. Holding back "tax withholding".
4. Holding back "social security withholdings".
5. Holding back "pension contributions" into 401k plans which
are often either raided (and the money stolen), or invested into the company
stock which can go bankrupt as did Enron and Bear Stearns.
6. Dollars themselves, as they go down in value, steal from the laboror in two other ways, first as their set negotiated
wages constantly go down in value, and second, as any savings that they
manage to save are also taken from them.
For James 5 to
actually be a condemnation there has to be a way to pay wages
righteously. Wages are supposed to be paid in full,
with payment in full, and not promises to pay, and the only things
that can be used for payment in full are an honest weight and measure of
silver and gold. So, once again, upon full examination, we see that it
is impossible for James to be condemning gold and silver; he is supporting
the honesty of using silver and gold in commerce, and James is condeming usury and wage withholding.
The paper dollar
itself today is a defaulted and broken promise to pay a distorted measure of
silver or gold.
Thus, the advice
to "buy gold refined in the fire" is a very appropriate, literal
and spiritual message for Jesus to give to the Church of our age that is
"rich" with so many things, but has so little real silver and gold,
and is so lukewarm. Buying literal physical gold is a spiritual action, that carries with it the full embodiment of so
much of Bible Prophecy, and Biblical Law about the importance of honest weights
and measures.
Revelation 3:17
Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with
goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not
that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
Revelation 3:18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou
mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do
not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
So, what are the
rich called to do? Are the rich called to give all their money
away? No.
When preaching,
the disciples were told to not bring any money with them when
preaching. This assumes they have money to take, and it would make it
impossible for them to give money away.
Luke 9:3 And He
said to them, "Take nothing for your journey, neither a staff, nor a
bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not even have two tunics apiece.
4 "Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that city.
So, what are the
rich men, who are righteous, called to do? Communicate.
Preach. Help people.
1 Timothy
6:17-19 Command those who are rich in this present world not to be
arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put
their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command
them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to
share (communicate-KJV). In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves
as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the
life that is truly life.
We are called to
communicate, to share the good news, to do good deeds; to preach, to inspire,
to help. I hope I just have.
For further information about what the Bible has to say about money, please
see www.bibleprophesy.org and www.silverstockreport.com.
Due to the controversial nature of Bible interpretation, I would be
interested in hearing from you, and also perhaps publishing such responses
in the future.
Sincerely,
Jason Hommel
Silver Stock Report
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