#186916 - 05/17/10 09:12 AM
A Little Money Lesson
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ævory
Member
Registered: 04/04/05
Posts: 9657
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HONEST MONEY, THE BIBLE AND THE CONSTITUTION
By Doug Newman
May 12, 2010
Time and again, we hear that “America was founded on Christian values.” But we almost never hear any detailed explanation of what that means.
The following is brief introduction to the biblical basis of the following clause in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution:
“To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;”
How are money, weights, measures, the Bible and the Constitution all related? Let’s have a short look.
Money units are means of measurement, such as inches, ounces and gallons. Indeed, if you look at certain currencies around the world, such as the British Pound, the Mexican Peso and the Italian Lira, their very names refer to the concept of weight.
Let us now turn to the Bible. There are nine Old Testament Scriptures that demand honest weights and measures.
Leviticus 19:35-36 “Do not use dishonest standards when measuring length, weight or quantity. Use honest scales and honest weights, an honest ephah and an honest hin.”
Deuteronomy 25:13-15 “Do not have two differing weights in your bag—one heavy, one light. Do not have two differing measures in your house—one large, one small. You must have accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.”
Proverbs 11:1 “The LORD abhors dishonest scales, but accurate weights are his delight.”
Proverbs 16:11 “Honest scales and balances are from the LORD; all the weights in the bag are of his making.”
Proverbs 20:10 “Differing weights and differing measures – the LORD detests them both.”
Proverbs 20:23 “The LORD detests differing weights, and dishonest scales do not please him.”
Ezekiel 45:10-12 “You are to use accurate scales, an accurate ephah and an accurate bath. The ephah and the bath are to be the same size, the bath containing a tenth of a homer and the ephah a tenth of a homer; the homer is to be the standard measure for both. The shekel is to consist of twenty gerahs. Twenty shekels plus twenty-five shekels plus fifteen shekels equal one mina.”
Amos 8:4-7 “Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, saying, ‘When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?’—skimping the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales, buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat. The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: ‘I will never forget anything they have done.’”
Micah 6:10-11 “Am I still to forget, O wicked house, your ill-gotten treasures and the short ephah, which is accursed? Shall I acquit a man with dishonest scales, with a bag of false weights?”
Hence, the Lord takes the issue of honest weights and measures very seriously.
But I hear you asking “How does this relate to the value of money?”
Genesis 23:15-16 "’Listen to me, my lord; the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver, but what is that between me and you? Bury your dead.’ Abraham agreed to Ephron's terms and weighed out for him the price he had named in the hearing of the Hittites: four hundred shekels of silver, according to the weight current among the merchants.”
Exodus 30:13 “Each one who crosses over to those already counted is to give a half shekel, according to the sanctuary shekel, which weighs twenty gerahs. This half shekel is an offering to the LORD.” Leviticus 27:25, Numbers 3:47 and 18:16 and Ezekiel 45:12 also define a shekel as equal to 20 gerahs.
Jeremiah 32:9-10 “So I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel and weighed out for him seventeen shekels of silver. I signed and sealed the deed, had it witnessed, and weighed out the silver on the scales.”
Hence, biblical money is not fiat money that can be created at will. Biblical money is always tied to a specifically defined weight of a precious metal.
Let us turn now to the United States Constitution. While it is not an explicitly “Christian” document, it has profound biblical underpinnings. It says several things about money, including the following from Article 1:
1. Section 8, Clause 5, again: “To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures.”
2. Section 10, Clause 1: “No State shall … make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.”
Regulating the value of money as well as establishing fixed weights and measures are linked for a reason: the value of money was to be tied to a specific amount of a precious metal. The value of one ounce of gold was set at $20. Money could not be created on a whim, but had to have the backing of gold and silver.
Consider some quotes from our early presidents:
“Paper money has had the effect in your state that it will ever have, to ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice. If ever again our nation stumbles upon unfunded paper, it shall surely be like death to our body politic. This country will crash.” -- George Washington
“If the American people allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." -- Thomas Jefferson
“Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time, and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out.” -- Andrew Jackson
From the 1789 to 1913, the value of the dollar was constant. Twenty dollars bought one ounce of gold. This was fixed by law.
To be sure, fluctuations in supply and demand led to price rises and drops. However, the value of the money was steady, thus making saving and investing predictable.
In 1913, bowing to pressure from a clique of extremely wealthy bankers, congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, which was signed into law by President Wilson. America started its move away from biblical money to fiat money. The value of money was no longer tied to a fixed weight of a precious metal, as God demands. Money could now be created at will.
The Federal Reserve Bank is a private bank owned by a phenomenally wealthy clique of bankers, many of whom are foreign. Central banking has allowed them to increase their wealth not through the time-honored means of work, ingenuity, thrift and wise investment, but through lending money to the United States Government at interest.
It is no accident that our national debt is almost $13 trillion. Not only can we not pay this off, the moneyed few do not want this debt paid off. The interest on $13 trillion is enormous and allows them to further amass wealth.
Without paper money, we could not have the world’s most profligate welfare state nor could we afford to be perpetually at war.
Henry Ford had this to say: “It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our Banking and Monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a Revolution before tomorrow morning.”
Indeed, almost all countries have a central bank. The following Scripture summarizes the current world situation very well: “The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.” – Proverbs 22:7
It is also no accident that the value of the dollar has declined by 96 percent since 1913. Even the French philosopher Voltaire, who was no Christian, observed that “Paper money always returns to its intrinsic value: zero.”
The prophet Hosea lamented as follows: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” -- Hosea 4:6. This is just profoundly true in America today. People are so ignorant of what God’s Word has to say on so many issues. They don’t even know that it serves as a handbook on how to live all of life!
Oh sure, they may know about the Golden Rule and forgiveness and adultery and a few other things. But they do not know that it covers health, education, politics, government, criminal justice, law, economics, and so on.
John Adams said the following: “All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, nor from want of honor or virtue, so much as downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.”
These words are just as true today as they were 200 years ago. America suffers profoundly from a lack of economic knowledge. This is not the economic knowledge one might find in the Wall Street Journal. Rather, it is the True Economic Knowledge that is spelled out in God’s Word and that serves as the basis for our constitutional definition of money.
Our freedom in America is under assault in many ways and for many reasons. One of the main reasons is our basic ignorance of the Truth as spelled out in the Bible. Let us look past “arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God” – II Corinthians 10:5 – and spend more time reading our Bible and applying it to the modern world. As our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ says:
“And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” – John 8:32
http://www.thefot.us/honest.html
I got straight A's in Economics...the macro & the micro [failed many other subjects]
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#186918 - 05/17/10 10:15 AM
Re: A Little Money Lesson
[Re: ævory]
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ghoti
Member
Registered: 04/06/02
Posts: 8469
Loc: Ishpeming, MI 75.128.229.255
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First of all, the use of scales to measure weights dates back FAR before the Bible was written - at least to the ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians several thousand years BC. The rather archaic unit of weight called a "grain" dates back to those days when a single grain of wheat was the standard measure. Just because it's mentioned in the Bible doesn't mean it originated there.
Secondly, if you're suggesting that we go back to the gold standard it flat out wouldn't work. That was fine in simpler times when our economy was much smaller, but we're far beyond that. There isn't enough gold in the entire world to back up the US currency, let alone those of the rest of the world.
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Feisty survivors populate this site. Avoid controversies unless you have a very thick skin.
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#186921 - 05/17/10 11:15 AM
Re: A Little Money Lesson
[Re: ghoti]
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Paulwa_dup1
Member
Registered: 02/12/05
Posts: 4951
Loc: Washington
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Just watched a Ken Kline video lastnight. He studies prophecy and I have to admit seems kind of farout there but he is brilliant for an ex football player. The title ofthe video was'Cracking the Prophetic Code'. He really gives me pause to think that he may be exactly right. He pretty much proves by scripture that the second beast that rises frm the earth with two hornss America and Britain (Britain being the head that was woundded unto death..you know the sun never sets on the britiish enmpire and its possessions...But it did and now they have revived and rebuilt in a limited way.)Well this beast is the False Prophet, the beast being the world system of government that has been evolvng under satans tutelage for some 6,000 years. The 666 is mans number 6..not a man's number. It is tied to the system of government. This business of beiing marked in the forehead or hand with a number so that you can be a part of the system and be able to buy and sell is an very real upcoming development. It will kill out I.D. theft, germ carrying money passed through who knows where or what, it will destroy the drug cartels and it will allow governmental trackiing of every iindividualon the face of the earth by computer. All transactions will be moneyless so if you don't have the RFDI chip inserted in your body you will be an outlaw on the face of the earth and if you eat at all will be forced to steal your food.
Three specifics indicating this falseprophet is it will be able to call firedown from the heavens in the siight of man. Check with Japan if you don't think america for one has such a power.
Number two he will make an image of the beast and cause all to worship it. Image is actually the word ICON as in the icon on a Roman coin is Caesar. He will give this image a life like sprituality.TV directly bypasses the conscious level in mans mnd and goes directly to the subconscious or spirit of a person. All that is left is to make this image tobe in every home and for man to worship and learn from it or be put to death. I can see where a two way video machine could be a tool used by a government to control its peoples.
Three a one world government and control and a one world reliigion will be brought about by this world system. I can see it all coming about very plainly.The bible says the fiinal government will be the eighth world governmental system and we are in that system right now.We are waiting for the final Pope who will bring about the one religious system and it will be interestingto see what occurs with Amerca and Britains government iin the next few years.
Franklin Graham (who was kicked off the Prayer Day platform for things he said about Islamic culture, and the council on Muslim/American relations said they were resposible for cancelling Franklin from that position)) says America's christians are moving into persecution now and it will happen that whoever points to Jesus as the saviour of the world will or can be arrested for hate speak and the bible will be banned as a hate speak book.
Well it looks like a pretty close scenario and one that may happen for the most part.
Jesus is soon to return.
Paul
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#186922 - 05/17/10 11:26 AM
Re: A Little Money Lesson
[Re: Paulwa_dup1]
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ghoti
Member
Registered: 04/06/02
Posts: 8469
Loc: Ishpeming, MI 75.128.229.255
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Paulwa, all this stuff has been trumpeted about so much, don't you think Satan would be smart enough to try a completely different approach? Why on earth would he just follow the outline presented in the Bible when it clearly shows him losing.
If Satan exists you'd think he'd be smart enough not to embark on a pointless campaign that he knows he's going to lose, anyway.
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Feisty survivors populate this site. Avoid controversies unless you have a very thick skin.
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#186924 - 05/17/10 11:38 AM
Re: A Little Money Lesson
[Re: ghoti]
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Paulwa_dup1
Member
Registered: 02/12/05
Posts: 4951
Loc: Washington
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Good points Ghoti but he has no other choice than to fight with all his might rather than to just give up.Where there is life there is hope and in his arrogance and pride he may feel he has a chance of overturning God's predictions and he is an eternal being. In terms of relationship with the Godhead Lucifer was next in command and was called the covering angel because he was perfect and most beautiful of all the angels till he became enamored with himself and envied God's throne for hmself. No he will fight and attempt to overcome God and in hiis sickness may think he can do it.
Paul
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#186926 - 05/17/10 01:36 PM
Re: A Little Money Lesson
[Re: Paulwa_dup1]
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ghoti
Member
Registered: 04/06/02
Posts: 8469
Loc: Ishpeming, MI 75.128.229.255
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And here's the thing I can't get my head around. Supposedly Satan has free will to make choices just like the rest of us, so he COULD choose to do something totally dfferent than what is outlined in Revelation, right? But prophecy says he's GOING to follow that script regardless since it's been pre-ordained.
That just seems mutually contradictory to me. IMO he either DOES have free will, in which case the prophecy only tells us what MIGHT happen, or if the prophecy is GuARANTEED to come true then he really has no choice at all. In that case free will is just an ilusion.
I just don't get how there's any middle ground between those positions, and that's why I don't buy into the idea of phrophecy. I just can't accept that free will is just an illusion.
I know we've gone around in circles about this in the past, but I've never found your answers convincing. Am I missing something here?
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Feisty survivors populate this site. Avoid controversies unless you have a very thick skin.
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#186933 - 05/17/10 05:18 PM
Re: A Little Money Lesson
[Re: ghoti]
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Paulwa_dup1
Member
Registered: 02/12/05
Posts: 4951
Loc: Washington
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OK Ghoti, suppose you stand around one morning and see a train leaving the train station. You can fly so you race out ahead of the train seeing its tracks and trajectory and meet that train at the depot in say Boston that afternoon. Now you know where the train has gone too though you had nothing to do wiith routng that train so you know what happens at its arrival without any contact or influencing in any way. God does the same since He is outside of our time loop he see's how mankind is going and then he can go down the timeline to any point of his choice and see the results of all our free will choices. He hasn't necessarily influenced us in any way though He may at times add a little bias by moving one of His servents in mankind into the fray to acheve His particular wants.
You watch an ant hill and you see an ant dragging a bug along. Later you see where the ant is gong and maybe even see the ant chewing on that bug. Now unlike God you can't go back to the beginning of that ants travels and write a book with prophecy of where you saw that ant wind up, but God can because He is not subject to our linear time and has access to any point on our timeline. He wrote the bible filled with prophecies telling us what will happen centuries before they occur and so far they are all absolutely right and on the money for those who check out those prophecies.
So free will is alive and well, God just knows ahead of our time when cetrtain things wiill occur without having anything to do wth achieving that end.Though sometimes He does because He has a plan, but He allows us to follow our own course totally.
Paul
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#186934 - 05/17/10 06:15 PM
Re: A Little Money Lesson
[Re: Paulwa_dup1]
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ghoti
Member
Registered: 04/06/02
Posts: 8469
Loc: Ishpeming, MI 75.128.229.255
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To me, free will means that there are TRILLIONS of possible futures depending on choices we make today. IMO life isn't like a railroad track but rather a forest with pathways leading in nearly infinite directions.
Every decision we make is a change in our pathway and means that the final destination will be different. Multiply that by 6 billion people and the future possibilities are endless.
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Feisty survivors populate this site. Avoid controversies unless you have a very thick skin.
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#186937 - 05/17/10 07:34 PM
Re: A Little Money Lesson
[Re: ghoti]
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ronniechoate34
Member
Registered: 02/06/10
Posts: 540
Loc: tennerida
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Re:4:11: Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.
Praise the Lord Jesus Christ! Hallelujah.
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#186941 - 05/17/10 08:24 PM
Re: A Little Money Lesson
[Re: ronniechoate34]
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Paulwa_dup1
Member
Registered: 02/12/05
Posts: 4951
Loc: Washington
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And God see's the end of every one of those trillions and trillions of pathways and knows exactly where everything winds up in the physical world at its end.
Paul
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#186944 - 05/17/10 09:16 PM
Re: A Little Money Lesson
[Re: Paulwa_dup1]
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ghoti
Member
Registered: 04/06/02
Posts: 8469
Loc: Ishpeming, MI 75.128.229.255
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Fine, but if he also knows every turn we'll make in advance then free will is just an illusion. Why waste everybody's time playing the whole thing out when the outcome is already known? We're just acting out a danged script.
Might as well just pull the plug right now.
Edited by ghoti (05/17/10 09:17 PM)
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Feisty survivors populate this site. Avoid controversies unless you have a very thick skin.
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#186950 - 05/18/10 11:55 AM
Re: A Little Money Lesson
[Re: ghoti]
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Paulwa_dup1
Member
Registered: 02/12/05
Posts: 4951
Loc: Washington
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It is free will to us whatever way we choose but God holds all the marbles in His game so you are saying if there is a God who created us then you don't want to live in his world and by His rules because He knows our every move no matter the direction? That is a weird way of looking at things Ghoti, I must say. So if God pulls the plug on this game you will just no longer exist. Since God is love I would think you would want to make an attempt at life and not be put out at His Omniscience.
Paul
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#186952 - 05/18/10 02:06 PM
Re: A Little Money Lesson
[Re: Paulwa_dup1]
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ghoti
Member
Registered: 04/06/02
Posts: 8469
Loc: Ishpeming, MI 75.128.229.255
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What I'm saying, Paulwa, is that a world where everything is predetermined and outcomes already known would be pointless, so I'm confident that things don't work that way. Creating humans with free will and then judging us on our choices only makes sense if the outcome is uncertain and we are able to choose for better or worse.
It's certainly possible to PREDICT likely outcomes from a given situation, and people do that all the time. That's not the same as PROPHECY, however, since there's always a chance that predictions will fail to come to pass but prophecy is supposedly guaranteed to happen.
I believe that causes come before effects and that the future is an entirely open book yet to be written. Prophecy, precognition, horoscopes, etc. all assume that the future is somehow pre-determined and I don't believe in any of them since they are violations of the principal of cause and effect.
The Bible even warns against false prophets and says that anyone who makes predictions that don't come true should be put to death. John (the author of Revelation) made his prophecy nearly 2000 years ago and it hasn't come true yet. How many more years are folks going to give him?
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Feisty survivors populate this site. Avoid controversies unless you have a very thick skin.
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#186955 - 05/18/10 05:32 PM
Re: A Little Money Lesson
[Re: ghoti]
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Paul I
Member
Registered: 02/24/00
Posts: 7913
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It seems that what Paul is saying is that God is a time traveler. If he goes into the future and looks to the present he can follow all the random, non- predetermined events that occur, see the outcomes and then go the present with that info and inspire people to write books about what will happen because he SAW what will happen not because he caused it. To those in the present, from their time frame, it's prophecy. It's not unlike a Connecticut
Yankee in King Arthurs's court.
Edited by Paul I (05/18/10 05:33 PM)
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"...only the shadow knows"
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#186977 - 05/19/10 11:35 AM
Re: A Little Money Lesson
[Re: Paul I]
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Paulwa_dup1
Member
Registered: 02/12/05
Posts: 4951
Loc: Washington
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Exactly PaulI, God is outside of time and can go to any point of time He desires. He can see what happens and not do anything to change the outcome of the event. Then go back in time and report his findings in prophecy. Allplayers in the event followed a course of freewill. God just saw the outcome. Also God did not give enough prophecy of events to make the outcome plain to all but some of these things people who study prophecy can discern. Bible prophecy has been proven true many times and when time is involved some have happened to the day it was prophesied centuries before.
Paul
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