Year 8, Day 311: Proverbs 20

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Proverbs 20 gives us some very interesting words of advice regarding humanity and business.  We already know that God respects righteousness.  He looks for people who handle themselves with maturity as well as with an outlook for the people around them.  Why shouldn’t this same view extend into the business world?

Unequal weights and unequal measures are an abomination to the Lord.  Note that this proverb gets largely repeated in verse 23, too.  God does care how we treat one another in business.  He doesn’t want us cheating each other.  He wants us to live in community where we care for one another, not where we care only for ourselves.

I think there is more to it than this, though.  When we cheat one another, we demonstrate self-interest more than love for the other.  In fact, when we cheat one another we share a lack of compassion at all towards the other.  We stop seeing them as a person and start seeing them as a means to an end.  No longer is business about a fair exchange between equals, when we cheat business becomes a way to deprive other people of what is rightfully theirs while giving them something unequal to what was taken from them.  When we cheat one another, we lose our humanity and become the basest of creatures who care only for their own selfish instinct.

There’s still another side to this.  Unequal weights are meant to do more than cheat.  Unequal weights are meant to deceive.  Unequal weights are only effective when they appear to be what they are not.  They may have hollowed out cores.  They might be made of a different material and then covered in thin plating or with paint of an appropriate color.  The point is that they are deceptive.

God doesn’t care for a heart that enjoys deception.  It’s one thing to make a mistake.  It’s another thing to plan out the downfall of another.  Deception shows intent to injure.  Deception shows a desire to cause another hardship.  It isn’t just the act that is wrong, it is the condition of the heart that has God concerned.

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