“A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight.” Proverbs 11:1
A false balance is, for our purposes today, the Bible’s means of commanding us that the Lord hates inflation. Inflation, which you’re seeing at stores this very moment, is due to the government counterfeiting money. Christians have too long been “conformed to this world” instead of having our minds “renewed” by understanding, believing, and applying the principles of God to everyday life.
A false balance happened in antiquity when a merchant added weight to the scale. When a person would bring silver or gold coins for a purchase, scales were used to verify the weights. If one party added weight to the coin through some form of trickery that was a false balance. It was a form of theft and violation of property rights through fraud. The Lord’s civil magistrate exists to punish such crime. But the deadly lures of power and greed have brought nearly all governments – and especially our own today – into the game. A common tactic of governments was to debase the coin/currency by stealthily reducing the amount of gold or silver in the coins they issued. In fact, no government has ever been able to resist the temptation to monkey around with the money supply if/when they have the power to do so.
What’s funny is that God knows us well. God’s anthropology is the correct one. “But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. (John 2:24).” Because mankind is shot through full of sin, absolute power in the hands of any institution or person is as good an idea as giving an alcoholic a liquor store. The problem with all monetary theories (and theories of government for that matter) is that they omit this. Man has a serious sin problem. “See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes (Ecclesiastes 7:29).”
No government should have power over the money supply; it should merely enforce the law as God defines it (Romans 13). No free people can remain free if there’s a central bank because that bank will use its power to debase the currency and enrich themselves (and connected friends). What we’re seeing on Wall Street and in government is a drunken orgy of greed fueled by the evil spigot of false balances (counterfeit money). Indeed, per Solomon’s pearl of wisdom in the aforementioned verse from Ecclesiastes, we are surfing along a soon to be crashing wave of one of man’s crazy and sin-fueled schemes.
To mitigate against man’s tendency to sin and inflate the monetary supply, the government must never be in charge of the money and interest rates.
A decentralized monetary system is a truly free market. In such a market, fraud can be easily detected and, if the state does its rightful job, punished. Complex financial and tax schemes are evidence of the sin of greed. God’s economy is simple enough. We complicate things when we try and cover up impure motives and practices. This requires a “just weight” though, which is to say in modern language, a stable money supply. The reason that the “rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer” – a favorite complaint by the political left – is exactly because of their love affair with socialism. Interestingly, they aren’t wrong about the rich growing obscenely richer. Their problem is that their solution is the problem.
Many are simply confused on this point and end up supporting measures that lead to and increase the abuses. Christians should and must reach out and teach the world about God’s economic principles and call for the obedience of faith (Romans 1:5). The poor and middle class are absolutely victimized by modern economic policy. The problem is that they’re often like a lactose intolerant person trying to cure their tempestuous tummy by downing a big ol’ milk shake.
Fiat money is an abomination to the Lord. It allows the government to bring money into the market whenever it wants. A gold standard (or silver or any other scarce resource that can be used as money) limits the greed of governments, banks, and businessmen because the money they use has to have been earned. In other words, the money MUST represent real wealth. It cannot, as is our case today, be conjured into existence by a click on a keyboard. That’s counterfeiting if a person does it but Fed policy if Jerome Powell does it.
If a counterfeiter acts in a given geographical area he’s increased the money supply. On a small scale he’s defrauded someone out of their goods or services. On a big enough scale, if allowed to continue, he’d cause inflation because the units of exchange (money) chasing the goods has been altered. In a stable economy guided by correct (biblical) monetary theory, the cost of goods and services would actually decrease and/or be stable. The western world saw this throughout most of the 19th century. Rising prices are due to counterfeiting – either privately or through the state. At the heart of correct monetary theory is the Bible’s teaching on property rights (thou shall not steal), honesty (thou shalt not lie), contract rights (thou shalt not lie again), and a stable money supply (thou shalt not lie or steal…see…I told you this wasn’t all that complex). Monetary theory and economic practice are inextricably linked and are based on, not the confusing economic philosophies of man, but on God’s unchanging word/law.
When the Apostle Paul said that “the love of money” was the root of all kinds of crap in society (the Greek word he used is kakos, by the way), this is what he meant. He didn’t say that the love of production, or the love of making shoes, or farming, or the love of writing (although that’s weird and lonely) was the root of all kinds of evil, but the love of the unit of exchange used to buy those things. The truth is that covetousness is the heart of the problem. It’s the love of something for nothing. It’s the desire to have what you didn’t earn through the service of your neighbor by producing something they’d freely trade for.
Yes, economics is that easy. Seriously.
The problem is that covetous people can’t print farms, shoes, houses, or books into existence. There’s no such thing as fiat farms. All of these things require labor. The temptation to print money is, therefore, the covetous desire to bypass God’s law of labor and service and have something for nothing. It’s an extremely crafty form of thievery. Why risk an armed confrontation in order to gain wealth if we can print money? See! Everyone’s happy.
But not so fast. God, as you may have heard, isn’t mocked. When we violate His law – and the command to love our neighbor means developing skills in life to serve them economically – we get hit with the boomerang of sin. In this case, God’s law of economics comes back to bite us in the bum.
Have you noticed empty shelves at the store? Have you noticed prices rising? These are consequences of the government sending out all those “stimulus” checks. Sin has so blinded us that we truly thought we could tell people to stop working and then send counterfeit money to stave off starvation. Talk about a god-complex! Donald Trump did it. Joe Biden did it. And before them, Barack Obama’s Fed pumped trillions into the markets through a fancy scheme called “quantitative easing.” And before that, George W. Bush’s Fed started pushing interest rates low (to encourage lending and debt) and sent out $300 stimulus checks (which seems so tame by comparison to today’s drunken sailor level spree).
Oh, and before all that, on August 15, 1971, Richard Nixon closed the Gold Standard in America once and for all. Until that point the U.S. was still limited by the reality of a rational monetary policy. Since that time, however, and with the noted exception of the late Carter and Reagan era Fed chairman Paul Volker’s high interest rates, we’ve been in a counterfeiting cycle unlike any other in world history. Last year alone, due to government overreaction to COVID, we sent to American homes and into the economy over $6 trillion that never existed before! And we wonder why there are shortages and inflation!
The way out of this mess is for America to repent of its covetousness. The poor are greedy and then victimized by the lies the politicians use to get their votes. The politicians and connected class – the bankers and corporations drunk on the excesses of things like stock buy-backs, etc. – must all repent of their lies and deception. God’s economic theory is based on the family. It’s based on working with our God-given talents for His glory in the service of our neighbor. We aren’t meant to be served but to serve. The government is ordained by God to punish crime. It is never to play favorites or show partiality to any group of citizens over another. To that end, the magistrate is not granted by God the right to print money – only to enforce property rights and contract law.
Presently, we’re all drunk on the fantasy of funny money. We’re all drunk on the life of lies our inflationary culture is providing. Rising home prices and ridiculously low interest rates – both artificial – combined with blind money printing that’s enriched the connected-class are going to bankrupt America. Yes, bankrupt it. Totally. Utterly. But God loves mercy and not sacrifice. He’s a forgiving God who yearns for the heart devotion of His children. So, be warned.
“The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul;
the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;
the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes;
the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever;
the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.
Moreover, by them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.” Psalm 19:7-11
Yes, we’re warned that violating His perfect law leads to catastrophe and pain. The most unloving thing any man or woman can ever do is not tell their children about the righteousness of God’s law. The most treacherous thing a Christian can do is not speak to the world about Jesus Christ – about judgement of sin and deliverance through faith. And, yes, the most foolish thing to do is to say, “the Lord doesn’t see…He doesn’t care about money.” The stupidest thing in all the world to do is to doubt the authority, righteousness and love of the Lord.
So, memorize Psalm 19:7-11 and repeat it to yourself when you face the varied particulars of the world. Economic theory isn’t outside of His law and you can/should know it. And remember, we’re told that our reasonable worship is to present our entire self as a living sacrifice to Him. Rich and poor need to repent of the sin of making money a god. Rich and poor need to repent of being “bought off” and corrupted by the inflationary state. America is soon to face a severe reckoning brought upon it by God’s moral law. As individuals we must be warned. Get out of debt. Live within your means and devote your hands to do your work, whatever it is, as unto Him, not man.
“Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice (Proverbs 16:8).”
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