Debasing the Kingdom
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Recording #46 Play or download
| Comments |
| This page is a continuation of the study Temples and Churches and Investing in Diana and Temples Banks and the Brokerage House. |
| More information about Ephesus and the pagan temples of the world order of Rome may give you insight into what the Gospel of the kingdom was really about and why and how the early Church were setting a different table. |
| Other related articles also include Money, Real_Money and Temple of Diana. While we may quote Plutarch because he was clever all of his ideas are not good for the people of society. |
| The patterns set by people of history like Anthony and Cleopatra have been followed again today all over the world. |
| Sitting in a network of Tens for the purposes of Christ as Jesus commanded is only a start. |
| We must also sacrifice in love trough fervent charity setting the table of the Lord which is the righteous Corban of Christ. |
| Questions |
| Have we returned to the Mire? |
| Have we committed the error of Balaam and the Nicolaitan? |
| If Ephesus was a pagan temple is the Federal Reserve and all its branch banks just heathen temples? |
| What are the Modern Christians to the Fathers of the earth? |
| What is a Sacred Purpose Trust? |
| Is Social Security a sacred purpose trust fund? |
| What is the unrighteous mammon? |
| Why Seven men? |
| Nicklas and the Nicolaitan? |
Debasing the Kingdom
The Temple at Ephesus, along with the Empire, were financially broke. The temples were not in need of animal sacrifice but cash. The stored animal bones found in temples like Ephesus were not so much proof of animal sacrifice but evidence of a crime.
According to Herodotus coinage originated with 7th century Lydia. The earliest coins were made of naturally occurring electrum, about 70 percent gold and 30 percent silver. But, hoards of such coins found in the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus in 1904 which contained “artificial” electrum coins with a much lower gold content. Their weight was uniform but the gold content was as low as 30 percent.
“The Lydians and Greeks had not only learned how to use ancient Egyptian techniques of metallurgy, but also how to overvalue coins by using less of the more expensive metal and exploit the monetary prerogative as a fiscal Device.” 296
They did this by a secret process known to master silversmiths called cupellation. Large amounts of bone ash was needed at the temple not to satisfy the gods, but to accomplish the subterfuge and fraud of debasing the coins of the temple. This adulterating of coins eventually led to runaway inflation which is a form of theft and a violation of the precepts of God concerning just weights and measures.297
Plutarch’s idea of taking all the substance of the nation into a common treasury and issuing iron coins was clearly not Biblical.298 Such schemes have historically been disastrous, besides contributing to the bondage of people like they were in Egypt. Jesus desires that we be free from all deception, debt and bondage.
Anthony and Cleopatra had lowered the purity of their coins by 10%. Nero reduced the weight of the denarii from 3.5 grams to 3.36 and their fineness from 98% to 93.5% silver. Before the middle of the third century coins had become 40% silver and by its end was just .02% silver.299 Inflation continued from 600% to over 40,000%. The price of a modius of wheat went from 8 drachmas to 120,000.300 In the fourth century Diocletian attempted to enforce price controls with capital punishment. Society was crushed. A pound of gold came to cost 2.1 billion denarii.
Central banking, usury, and debasing of coins were evidence of a problem that originated in the people. The governing powers created by the people were simply a manifestation of that same failing. People stray from the way of God when they are greedy for gain and covet their neighbors’ goods.
The Temple of Judea at the time of Christ was the center of a legal, monetary and welfare system of the government. We were warned about centrally controlled common treasuries by God and Christ.301 Many people continued to turn to the socialism of authoritarian benefactors and their unrighteous mammon and were plunged into hopeless national debt and depressions. But some trusted in the Gospel of Jesus and understood His kingdom and sought it in word and deed and were saved in spirit and truth.
“And there stood up one of them named Agabus, and signified by the Spirit that there should be great dearth [economic depression] throughout all the world: which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar.” Ac 11:28
The called out ministers of the kingdom, designated as the Church, had been trained and prepared for the inevitable decay and collapse of the Roman “world” system. The unrighteous mammon would fail. Christians were excluded from the benefits of the Pharisees and had developed their own system.
“Then the disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren which dwelt in Judaea: Which also they did, and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul.” Acts 11:29-30
Christians paid voluntary offerings to their ministers. They taxed themselves. At Pentecost, they had exited one government of control and entered another of liberty. With thousands turning to the fruitful tables of the Christians, is there any wonder that Stephen was the first recorded martyr. He was one of seven men chosen by the people to facilitate this system of national charity.302 The concept of seven volunteers assisting the financial union or communion of the people is still here today.
Churches do not attend to the daily ministration that was so much a part of the early Church. The people are commonly sent to the governments of the “world”. Those governments collect tribute of its entitled members. The people have prayed for the benefits of those civic altars or tables financed at the expense of their neighbors by benefactors who exercise authority.
Footnotes
296Uses and Abuses of Gresham’s Law in the History of Money, Prepared for publication in the Zagreb Journal of Economics, Volume 2, No. 2, 1998.
297“Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small.” De 25:13
298Leviticus 19:36 “Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall ye have: I [am] the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt.” [Deuteronomy 25:13 ] Proverbs 16:11 “A just weight and balance are the LORD’S: all the weights of the bag are his work.” Pr 20:10 “Divers weights, and divers measures, both of them are alike abomination to the LORD.” Pr 20:23 “Divers weights are an abomination unto the LORD; and a false balance is not good. Micah 6:11 Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances, and with the bag of deceitful weights?”
299In 1965 the silver content of coins was reduced from 90% to 40% and eliminated altogether in 1971.
300“By the reign of Claudius II Gothicus (268-270 A.D.) the silver content of the denarius was down to .02 percent (Michell 1947: 2). As a consequence, prices skyrocketed. A measure of Egyptian wheat had sold for seven to eight drachmas. In the second century it cost 120,000 drachmas. This suggests an inflation of 15,000 percent during the third century.” Bartlett, citing Rostovtzeff 1957: 471
301Ex. 22:25, 32:4-17, Lev. 25:36-37 Deut. 17:17, 23:19, Pr. 1:10..., Matt. 6:19, Luke 12:34, Acts 3:6, 6:2, James 5:3
302Ecclesiastes 11:2 “Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth.”
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The Free Church Report presents a unique path for the modern Church according to the nature of the first century Church by explaining the duty and purposes of that institution appointed by Christ. While Rome declined under runaway inflation, corrupt government, martial law, and endless threats of war, the Christians found an alternative to the men who “called themselves benefactors but exercised authority one over the other.”
The early Christian knew rights and responsibilities were indivisible. They sought the right to be ruled by God by taking back their responsibility, through the service of “called out” ministers who lived in the world, but were not of it. Their government benefits came through a divine network instituted in their hearts and minds by faith, hope, and charity under the perfect law of liberty as their Qorban of the unrighteous mammon failed the Roman society. Order
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