by Garry Ingraham

This first verse of my daily chapter reading in the book of wisdom drew me in to quietly linger over the deeper meaning of it. I have read this verse countless times, and almost immediately think of Jesus’ explosion of anger when He toppled the tables dumped out the coins of the merchants and money-changers in the temple, and drove them out with a makeshift whip.

Interestingly, all four gospels record this bold and risky event. I often hear and speak about the way Jesus spoke about the sin, hypocrisy, and legalism of the Pharisees and religious leaders of His day, but this is one of the times Jesus dealt directly and harshly with sin in the lives of the merchants and traders. Doubtless, the religious leaders were allowing the merchants to set up shop in the temple area as a way of lining their own pockets (or gaining some other advantage) but Jesus rebukes and drives out the common worker in this case, because of their complicity with sin and diminishing the glory of God’s house as a place of worship and prayer for all nations (Mark 11:15-19).

As I continued to ponder Solomon’s words, I was reminded that the point of a “true balance” or “just weight” is to clearly reflect what is true and accurate. Any deviation from that end is sin. Solomon stresses the seriousness of it by calling the act an abomination to the Lord.

I thought of my previous life as a self-identified “gay man” and all that that entailed, in the way I was living my life according to what “felt” and what seemed right to me at the time. I thought of how our nation and world have fallen so far from the simplicity and beauty of God’s design and intention for humanity. I thought of the way we use one another, according to our greed and craving for pleasure and meaning. We practice sin and then cover it up, or more so these days brazenly justify it with pride marches, glorification, and amplification of sin — even the murder of innocent human life while we as a nation “shout our abortion” (adding to the 65,000,000+ victims).

We are like that false balance and unjust weight. We shamelessly declare with our lives and our bodies that which is utterly false. As a post-Christian, pagan country, we have rejected our Creator and Savior for the idol of self. Rather than our lives reflecting His design and purpose for our lives, we have our thumb on the scale and the result is a lie that does not in any way accurately reflect Him.

Like the temple of God, we were made to be a habitation for worship and prayer. As sons and daughters of God, we have become His temple in which the Holy Spirit now resides( Romans 8:9, 1 Corinthians 6:19). How are we treating and stewarding this temple? Has it become occupied with compromise and patterns of sin, or are we a clear reflection of the love and life of Jesus?

We have been “blessed to be a blessing” (Genesis 12:2). As Christ-followers, we have been called to be salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16). But in our compromise and peacemaking with both personal and cultural sin, are the scales/weight of our lives proclaiming what is true and good, or do our lives proclaim wickedness to be good and goodness to be wicked (Isaiah 5:20-21)?

Where we have compromised and fallen short, we need to fully repent and turn to the narrow way that Jesus has called His followers to walk.