The Cross Section - RMB Blog

  This article will cover what the Bible says about two overlapping subjects, money and trade.  I define trade as two people exchanging goods or services either directly or through the use of money.  Money is simply a medium of exchange or trade.  It allows trade to cost less time, effort, and resources.   We all know trade can occur with or without using money.  We have all swapped lunch items in the school cafeteria or have seen it occur.  Maybe your mom wouldn't give you a dessert.  If you wanted a dessert and you had something else of value like Cheetos, there was still hope.  Maybe there was a kid at your table who didn't really like her Twinkies.  Now there was an opportunity for both to get what we wanted.  No money was needed to trade the Twinkies for the Cheetos.  However, you had to find someone who wanted what you had more than what they had.  You also had to want what they had more than what you had. This ...

One of the major themes in the Bible is God’s redemption of the nation of Israel.  God made a promise of land to the sons of Abraham, but generations later his descendants were enslaved in Egypt.  From Exodus to Joshua, you see the activity of God to bring them out of that slavery and into a new land that He had promised them long ago.  He promised them freedom.  On Mount Sinai God gave Moses the laws He wanted the nation of Israel to live by, so that they could experience freedom.  Previously, I focused on the laws against charging usury (interest) to the poor who needed to borrow money for necessities.  Now, I would like to look at another economic aspect of the Mosaic law, the establishment of private property. First, we will look at the books of Joshua and Leviticus to understand how land was distributed and who in effect had ownership.  Then we can think about why private property was so important to accomplishing God’s goals for Israel.  As ...

  Sometimes I write poems.  This is the first one I have put on this page.  Hope it sparks thought and encourages anyone needing encouragement. Bless me God!  Bless those around me! Not because we deserve it. We deserve pain and punishment Much less this abundant nourishment. "I live sweat but I dream light years", (D Boon forever) Such lofty thoughts piled on top of beers. Honest thoughts collect into seas of tears. No hope but for gospel tracks to erase those years. Be humble yet radical, pointed but not strange Tailor the message to one not the whole shebang. Caught by my own indecision, lost in the moment. For spirit and truth we pray in light of our lament. But the other party works independently the message whisked away from you so casually. Beyond hope beyond grace beyond imagination Inhaled and exhaled in rooms of stagnation I didn't die. I would  never kill! Where is the gospel when I breathe so freely? My sin apparent to eyes that peer more clearly,...

In my previous article I wrote about God’s prohibition to Israel against charging interest or usury in Leviticus 25.  It was such an important command that He gave it two more times in Exodus 22 and Deuteronomy 23.  To refresh our minds, please read Leviticus 25:35-37 again.   Leviticus 25:35-37 35  Now in case a countryman of yours becomes poor and his means with regard to you falter, then you are to sustain him, like a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live with you. 36 Do not take usurious interest from him, but revere your God, that your countryman may live with you. 37 You shall not give him your silver at interest, nor your food for gain.   Let’s think further about the results of charging interest, the alternatives to it, and why God made it such a point to prohibit the behavior in Israel. The first thing to realize is that lending with interest can increase the money supply.  It is common for banks to give out bank notes instead of hard curren...

  The summer of 1994.  Kurt Cobain was dead.  I was in my second year at the University of Texas.  I took a test on rock and roll history the week Cobain had died. I wasn't bothered, but others in my class cried openly.  I finished the Spring semester and decided to stay in town for the summer and find work.  I worked with my friend and roommate who got me a landscaping job. Other than my friend T Jay, I worked alongside felons and illegal immigrants.  The felons told stories about distributing cocaine while working at Tyson chicken.  Skeptical.  Not skeptical.  The illegals all liked Selena, not so much for her music.  I lived just North of campus on Medical Arts Parkway.  It was a flea infested place with a failing AC in the middle of a Texas summer, brutal.  Mid-way through the summer T Jay moved back to my hometown when the felons we worked for decided not to pay us anymore.  After asking them a couple of times fo...

  I hope I waited long enough to write this.  I have already had one bad turn since I was infected with the COVID virus.  But here I go, wanting to start getting this down while I am still feeling the effects. It all started on a Sunday morning.  I woke up with two things on my mind.  And only two.  I had to get up in front of my church and say a few words about why we give thanks to God.  I also had to get on a plane the next morning and spend the week away from home for work.  Everything started normally.  I went up on stage and said a few words, I talked to friends, and I helped pray for a friend who was moving out of town.  This friend had helped us start the church and been through a lot in life.  I put my hand on his shoulder as I prayed.  Like normal. What wasn't normal was how I started to feel sitting at What-A-Burger for lunch after getting my drink.  My lower back and hips ached and my energy level was obviously...

Even before the people of Israel entered the Promised Land, God gave them the system of laws He wanted their new nation to live by.  If you read through the Mosaic Law in Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy you notice that most of the laws are about how to worship Yahweh properly, how to treat each other on a personal level, and how to make restitution to victims of crime.  There isn’t much law governing their economy, but the idea in the Leviticus passage below shows up several times. Leviticus 25:35-37 35  Now in case a countryman of yours becomes poor and his means with regard to you falter, then you are to sustain him, like a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live with you. 36 Do not take usurious interest from him, but revere your God, that your countryman may live with you. 37 You shall not give him your silver at interest, nor your food for gain. This law is about loaning money at interest.  The word usury or usurious means simply, interest....

The Vision Of The Mark Of The Beast Revelation 13 16 And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, 17 and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name . 18 Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six . The idea of the Mark of the Beast has probably captured the imaginations of pop culture even more than the Beast himself.  Nothing has ignited more fear and inspired more art ranging from thought provoking to brain dead.  I found some fun comic book cover art on the subject and interspersed it through the article for your enjoyment.  You can judge where in the provoking-to-brain dead spectrum they fall.  In this article I will first address wh...

The thesis of the previous article was that the Beast in Revelation is also the 4th beast in Daniel 7, so we can look in both books to learn about the Beast.  The Beast is a specific character in end time events.  But due to the composite nature of his image, we can apply some aspects to human political power more broadly whether they be kings, politburos, or representative governments. To start,  describing kings as beasts communicates something worth noting.  The word beast has a connotation of something that is wild, dangerous, hungry, and aggressive.  The beast images in Daniel and Revelation reinforce this intuition by describing the beasts as conquering, eating, and destroying.  What is true of any beast is emphasized in the image of the Beast Daniel sees. Daniel 7 7 After this I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrifying and extremely strong; and it had large iron teeth. It devoured and crushed and trampled...

  If you take a cross section of the book of Revelation in the Bible, you will find that several different subjects come into to play.  Up front there is theology, since it's in the Bible, duh.  Next you start to notice how some of the imagery which is mentioned in other parts of the Bible comes into your microscope's focus.  That leads you to consider history.  As you continue to scan the samples on the glass slides you cut out of Revelation, you notice things like government or politics come into view.  Then you have to adjust the focus some more to think through how that applies to today. The samples of Revelation I plan to focus on describe The Beast.  You know, that character that has inspired so many mediocre B-movies and heavy metal album covers. We have all known high school drop outs who giggled any time they saw the numbers '666' scrawled on a bathroom wall.  But there are some important lessons we can learn from studying who the Beast i...

A 2017 poll found that Americans under 30 preferred an economic system based on collectivism (socialism, communism, or fascism) to capitalism, 58% to 42%.  There was not an explanation for why poll participants replied the way they did.  However, when you look at today’s economy I can think of a few: Ever increasing cost for health care, higher education, and real estate Slow economic growth and the resulting lack of jobs for new college graduates Stagnant growth in salaries and wages Higher income equality between working class to upper middle class If a capitalistic economy produces the issues in that list, why shouldn’t we look for an alternative?  Can we truly say the US economic system is built with their needs in mind, when it seems like the rich and powerful are taking advantage of the rest of us?  Before I say anything else let me provide common definitions for “socialism” and “capitalism”. Socialism is a political and economic theory of social organization ...