The Holy Bible, especially the Old Testament, has served as a guide for most of humanity for thousands of years. Its deep wisdom has led people to the promised land, guided people on the path to grace, warned of great dangers, and instructed billions on the tenants of a fruitful life.

Of course, one need only turn on the television, open a newspaper, or log onto the internet to be assaulted by the plagues of modern life. Amongst them is the growing worry of economic stability forecast from the four corners of every news agency.

Just like with other matters of strife and concern, one need only turn to the good book for added guidance. Indeed, the Bible lends many great insights on how to preserve fruits of your labor and your hard-earned investments.

If we look back to the ancient and even the medieval world there was no “Money” as we recognize it today. The idea of trading strips of colored paper with pictures on it for goods and services would be seen as foolish. In those times precious metals were the God-given form of currency.

Silver was used by most people for most small daily purchases. If you needed to buy your daily bread or a jug of wine, you need only carry a bag of silver coins with you. Throughout most eras gold was valued at approximately twenty times that of silver.

In biblical times, gold was primarily used for making large purchases, or for sequestering away your wealth in a more condensed form. It’s scintillating color and luster of gold as well as the fact that it does not tarnish or rust also made it the material of choice for elaborate personal jewelry and ornamentation. Gold was seen as the primary indicator of physical wealth in the Old Testament and new. In some cultures possessing gold was seen to be as valuable as knowledge, wisdom and faith.

The book of Genesis itself recognizes the value and divine origin of gold.

“And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pishon: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; And the gold of that land is good.”
Genesis 2:10-12a

One of the greatest Earthly examples of gold’s use in biblical times was in the construction and ornamentation of Solomon’s Temple. Historical and biblical records estimate that Solomon’s Temple was composed of over 3000 tonnes of gold.

It is further estimated that King David himself set aside 100,000 talents, which equates to 7.5-million pounds of gold and 75-million pounds of silver for the construction of Solomon’s Temple.

Chronicles 22:14

Many items in the Temple of Solomon were made from gold and silver including things like lampstands, dining utensils, ornate bowls, pitchers, basins, and more, were made from gold and silver. An overlay of gold was also used to clad The Cherubs in the Most Holy.

Kings 14:14

If we use today’s price of gold, which is around $1,200 per ounce, the gold in Solomon’s Temple would ring in at around $144 billion!

This is just one prime example, amongst many that demonstrates how in biblical times gold didn’t just have intrinsic and extrinsic value. It had a relationship to the divine!

Unfortunately, in the modern era man has moved away from gold and the precious metals created by God to be used as currency to incarnations of paper and even recent digital currency. Indeed, the 20th century was wrought with wars of all kinds, mostly driven by economic imbalances, and powers wishing to gain or distribute wealth promulgated by an arcane banking system.

Of course, the Bible warns against such things.

Proverbs 11:1

“A false balance is abomination to the Lord: but a just weight is his delight.”

Shockingly, today the world has gone so far astray from the ancient wisdom, that not a single country on the planet uses the gold standard to back its monetary system. Instead, fiat currency, which are primary forms of money issued by a handful of nationalized banking systems is the primary denomination used for transactions.

So, it should come as little surprise that once again stock markets around the world has started seeing massive selloffs in unsecured and speculative commodities. We even use strange terminologies to determine the health of our economies with things like the Greed & Fear Index.

In these confusing times, perhaps we shouldn’t look so hard at imbalanced systems of paper and digital dilemma created by man, and instead return toward a system of economy and daily life that values the gold given to us by God.