April 30, 2013
What Next?
A few weeks ago I
unhappily had to replace my three-year old washing machine because a bearing
had gone out of the motor. Our nine-month old refrigerator is scheduled for its
third service call to replace defective parts. A few days ago the lifetime warranted
furnace died and it will take two weeks to get in the part. I’m now keeping a
suspicious eye on the dishwasher. One repairman told me that today most
appliances have a life expectancy of only about three years. In warning about
greed Jesus noted that treasures on earth are destroyed by moth and rust. Boy, wouldn’t
I just love to have an appliance around long enough for it to succumb to moth
or rust! “Do not store up for yourselves
treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and
steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do
not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.”
(Matt 6:19-20 NIV)
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----I’ve read three very insightful authors explain economics in a simple, understandable manner. They all started with the situation of a person needing to survive. We all can grasp that. But where Thomas Sowell placed capital in the mix with labor and time, Ayn Rand placed savings, turning up the lights a bit more. What does economics have to do with storing up treasures on earth? Your washing machine is economics. So is your refrigerator, furnace, dishwasher, my oven (which needs a thermostat, but will just get replaced) and my main waterline (which is dug up and half-way repaired.) Thomas Sowell would call these items capital. They are what we’ve invested in to produce the effects we need to survive. Ayn Rand, however, calls them savings, which opens the door to a line of thought seemingly opposite, but which actually is the other side of the same coin, the side having the useful differentiation between wise treasure of the ant (Prov 6:6) or the five maidens with extra lamp oil (Matt 25:4) and the treasures Jesus dissed.
-----She introduces the man needing to eat. Outside our environment, where a ten dollar bill in the pocket at anytime becomes a meal in the tummy, this man must do something to eat, like catch a rabbit or fish. But to do that he must build a snare or make a line and hook. The time and effort he puts into doing this is invested into capital, tools, that is. Tools will decrease the time he must spend catching the fish or rabbit. So, the snare and the fishing line are his efforts saved towards future meals so he will have time to make more investments into his survival, like clothing, a hut, and a pot to cook in.
-----All these things are treasures. It is the most fundamental law of physics, the second law of thermodynamics, which is the rust and thief. According to that law, everything seeks its lowest state of existence (thus the thief.) How completely to the most fundamental level of the physical universe did the effects of man’s sin reach! The rust analogizes a plethora of physical reactions, all releasing stored energy. The thief steals in many ways. In the complexity of man’s social interactions, any consumption without at least an equal amount of production is theft. We have been thrust into an existence wherein survival itself must be snatched from the fingers of rust and thieves.
-----Have you ever stopped to think about how much is treasured up in a washing machine? Millennia ago, Tubal-cain became the forger of iron and bronze. His treasure is in all its metal works. A little of Benjamin Franklin’s treasure is in its electrical works. A lot of other people’s efforts are stored up in fashioning all its components into a working unit, then delivering it through a circuitous route to your utility room. Which is another treasure. The fact rust and thieves consume your washer, refrigerator, dishwasher, my oven, and my main water line does not delineate them as accursed. It merely evidences where we live, where survival is the struggle to produce, quite opposite of the natural provision that was in Eden and is in heaven. These treasures are good because they produce survival, and are therefore worthy of their maintenance. Treasures beyond the tools of survival are the ones unworthy of their own maintenance. And they are the ones potentially turning hard working men into non-productive consumers, thieves, that is, like those who build three-year appliances.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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