False Weight and False Measure

 

"A full and fair weight you shall have, a full and fair measure you shall have, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you."    Deuteronomy 25:25

 

"False weights and measures - both are an abomination to The Lord."      Proverbs 20:10

 

I was amazed how often God thunders against "false weights" and "false measures." when one of those verses came to mind, and I looked up what scripture says on the subject.

Amazed too the importance He puts on it.  I usually think of "abomination" as His characterization of major sin.  And isn't making "...your days...long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you" ordinarily His blessing to the notably righteous ?

It's an offense to God when we deceive and cheat each other; I get that.  God's command that we "...be holy, as I AM Holy" extends to every aspect of our lives, including our behavior in business and commerce.  But don't we all, buyers and sellers, today deal almost exclusively with things pre-weighed, pre-measured, pre-priced and pre-packaged ?

Doesn't it seem that God must be talking about Middle Eastern markets of three millenia ago, more than anything in our experience ?

The church I attend just recently left the denomination it had been affiliated with.  There was a vote to choose a new name, since we could no longer legally call ourselves "Worden U.M.C. Church."

I didn't really get much excited about what name was chosen:  I'll be worshiping with the same folks I already know, the pastor will still be teaching the Bible straight, and the church will still have its same (we'd all admit, still imperfect) heart for obeying God and loving our neighbors.

And I doubt our name-change with make any difference to our neighbors, who already know the folks of our congregation, and our deeds.

I suppose our name-change could make a difference to people who don't know us.  If someone new in town was looking for a church with a God-ward heart, and thought "U.M.C." in a church' name was a sign of that, they'd now pass us by.

But that doesn't seem a wise way to find a Godly church.  The labeling is, at best, only an assertion of what's inside.

Being called a "church" is, after all, to claim a relationship...indeed, an identity...with Christ.  But even "United Methodist Church" congregations vary in the interpretation and weight they give Christ's teachings.  That was indeed the main reason our congregation left that denomination.

Giving false weight is an abomination to The Lord.

Likewise "false measure."  It's not just "unwise" to pick a church on the basis of its denomination: it's a false measure...because not God's measure.

"Church" itself can be a false measure, and frequently falsified.  The "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" is the pre-eminent example, of course: but many less-overt heretics falsely claim a relationship with Christ   God commended the believers of Ephesus for rejecting such people (Revelation 2:2)...even if they swell the "congregants" totals.

Every "buyer" knows...or should...that some "sellers" give false weight and measure.  Wise buyers will therefore verify the labellling, looking beyond the name on the package.  Any human organization, individual, or theology may give deceptive weight and measure: none should be trusted to infallibly mediate God's true word...and wise buyers will act accordingly.

Come down to it, a "buyer" who trusts labelling or brand-name is not only unwise, but himself guilty of giving false weight and measure, to what is not God's weight and measure.

-- This is emphatically not, however, to endorse the popular gloss on basic "Protestantism," that every man should interpret God's word for himself: which has produced innumerable murderous heresies and idiocies.  We must "...know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation..." (II Peter 1:20).

Certainly no wise person would put his unquestioning trust in what someone else claimed God says.  Even more will the truly-wise beware the deceitfulness of their own heart (Jeremiah 17:9), and never unquestioningly trust his own understanding of scripture (Proverbs 3:5) --

Josephus wrote that the Pharisees were greatly esteemed by the people of Jesus' time.  They had the reputation of flawlessly teaching the Law.  And not just talking the Law: they walked it.  They followed the Law so scrupulously that they even tithed to God one-tenth of their kitchen-spices.  Jesus Himself testified to that fact (Luke 11:42).

Jesus also excoriated them as hypocrites and blind guides, who missed "...the weightier provisions of the law" in their punctilious religiosity (Matthew 23:23).

Giving false weight is an abomination to The Lord.  Jesus pronounces woe to the Pharisees on that score.

And what of those who falsely measured the Pharisees as godly, and falsely gave "godly" weight to their teachings ?

What of those in our time who will follow none but "conservative Christian" leaders, for their strict "Biblicism," and put their unquestioning trust in the godliness of that faction and its teachings ?

Does that faction's embrace of lies and liars, of murderous "opinions" and men of violence, make any Christians re-think the measure and weight they give today's "conservative Christianity" ?

It should.  False weight and false measure are an abomination to the Lord.