If we don't treat corporations as moral persons, and take a steal of a deal from them when they are in desperate need, are we not sinning against the corporation's employees? That Monet on the chair would pay a few annual salaries.

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In Christ's love and service

Mr. Tim Cunningham, Dip. CS (Regent College)
Member, First Baptist Church
Vancouver, BC

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"The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar of 1500-year-old, 200 proof grace—a bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the gospel—after all these centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your own bootstraps—suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home-free before they started. Grace was to be drunk neat: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale." – Robert Farrar Capon

Spurgeon was a supporter of the old British Liberal Party in the 19th century; this was a classical liberal and free trade party, while the Conservatives - at that time - were the protectionists (i.e. they wanted Socialism for the rich).

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Daniel Ritchie
Saintfield, Northern Ireland - Queen's University, Belfast:History/Politics
Member of Dromara Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland (Covenanter)

Well, I wasn't thinking of a corporation in desperate need. Does it change anything if they are living off the fat of the land?

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Ruben
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Does the OT prohibition against cursing the deaf or putting a stumbling block before the blind apply? Perhaps it is morally different if the seller is a minor or a bit retarded than if he or she is a competent adult who just chose not to do the required research to ascertain the true value of the item. In the case of a child or a retarded adult, one is taking unfair advantage of an inherent disability.

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Mary Vanderkooi
Kale Heywott Church (KHC)
Soddo, Ethiopia

How about a foreigner like me in a strange land....do we count as mentally deficient too?

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Pergamum


"If a commission by an earthly king is considered a honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?"
-- David Livingstone

A lot of it, yes. When we deviate from God's standards then the deviation compounds. Think of it like tiling a floor, a man may start off and think, "I'm off by a 1/16" of an inch here, but that will be covered up on the other side of the room by my moulding." But when he gets to the other side of the room he's off by 6" because that little deviation compounded all the way across the room and everything is off.

God's economic standard is the moral standard, when we deviate from that, all of our moral reasoning upon an immoral standard is skewed by the initial deviation.

The creation mandate in Genesis 1:26-28 is a religio-economic command. Adam was given a task that was a prototype for the whole earth, while he was limited to Eden, it was repeated to Noah, then Joshua and again by Christ in the Great Commission. Christ's temptation in the wilderness was an economic temptation - make these stones into bread, but He responded "man shall not live by bread alone but by ever word of God."

He specifically dealt with these pricing issues in the parable of the vineyard. He hired men at different times in the day, and at the end of the day he paid all the same. The men that worked all day felt cheated, because the men that had been there part of the day received the same wages. His response was:

"But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny? Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?" Matthew 20:13-15

In Biblical law every man is presumed to have responsibility and the agreement that a man makes with his mouth is binding, whether it is to his own hurt or not. So, the Psalm says, "He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not." (Psalm 15:4b) In English common law, from which our laws are derived, this was called a "beneficium." It presumes that every free man is responsible and has both duties and responsibilities to God and man, no where is a man ever irresponsible where his free actions, even from a lack of knowledge, impugn the liberty of another man depriving him of his beneficium.

John Wycliffe defined the beneficium this way: "Every righteous man is lord over the whole sensible world." It is this lordship we have in Christ that entitles us to own property and exercise dominion over it, outside of that we have no rightful claim to anything, even though many exercise an unlawful dominion over property - they do not have a rightful title.

In American jurisprudence the principle of the priesthood of every believer was further realized to where every believer also had the right to live in terms of his beneficium, hence, every believer is a lord.

The problem today is we are all slaves to the State and no one is willing to act in terms of his beneficium, or accept responsibility for it. Ultimately men hate freedom, but they merely resents slavery.

A good book on this subject is "Larceny of the Heart: The Economics of Satan and the Inflationary State" by RJ Rushdoony, he really ties this all together and demonstrates how the sin of larceny, or theft, is at the root of our entire economic system today and how that compounds and corrupts everything else we do.

Cordially,

Thomas

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Thomas Weddle
Member, Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church
Evansville, Indiana

I don't know, there are so many unknowns in these types of things. How did I learn of his so-called "mistake?" Generally, a buyer has the right to presume that every price is a bonafide offer and the owner of the property is responsible for setting the price. Consideration in a contract is to either accept the price or make a counter-offer, not attempt to accept the responsibility of every other man.

It's a gift that cost a price in which we are bought. (1 Corinthians 6:20)

Reading Numbers chapter 30 it's only heads of households, so there is a competence factor.

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Tim Vaughan, 48 years old, member Redeemer OPC, Santa Maria CA.

Can you explain what you mean by that?

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J Baldwin
Keowee Presbyterian Church, PCA
Pickens, SC
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Luke 10:27

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Hi, just what some others have said like taking advantage of kids, etc...an agreement made by someone in the household other than the head is not binding. So the slick vacuum cleaner guy tricks a wife or daughter into buying an expensive machine and she isn't bound by her word. If she is widowed and living on her own, then she is a head of household and bound by her word.

A person has to have the legal standing to act in accordance with his beneficium. A woman, for example, can make a pledge but it can be invalidated by her covenant head (father, husband) once he hears of it. If he doesn't act to invalidate her oath, for whatever reason, then it stands because he has heard of it and failed to invalidate it.

A good example. One of my daughters and my son were having an argument over the last piece of cake or something like that, my son agreed that he would do certain of her chores for a week in exchange for the cake. It was a ridiculous exchange that was merely a gross expression of his glutony. When I heard of it, I invalidated her part of the agreement and validated his, she ate the cake and he did her work, for the term he promised.

The reason was it was a perfect Esau example and when I explained that to him, his heart sank and he realized he had grievously sinned in the exchange. Even though he recognized his sin, he brought up the fact that it was a valid agreement and it wasn't fair that I not hold her to her part of the agreement. In other words, if I'm going to be an Esau in this exchange, at least I want the pot of the stew! That's not what he said, but his heart was not fully cognizant of the responsibility imposed by his word. Esau lost his birthright over a mere pot of stew and it was binding. So, we turned to Deuteronomy 30 and I showed him where I was invalidating my daughters oath and validating his, the purpose being to teach them both the lesson from the incident. Teaching her to be subordinate to her husband and him to be a man accepting responsibility for himself.

Silly incident, but it had a very powerful effect.

"....A person has to have the legal standing to act in accordance with his beneficium. A woman, for example, can make a pledge but it can be invalidated by her covenant head..."


Tell that one to the credit card companies.

You learned of his mistake (remember, there was if not a standard at least a calculable valuation based on the amount of years until the year of jubilee) because one of your wife's relatives just did the same thing with a comparable field and got a much better price.

Salvation did have a cost, of course; but a gift always costs the giver of it. I say that not to promote ingratitude, but because there is a different between receiving freely and buying.

This should probably be the subject of another thread, but I don't think that is the case with the law we have in this country.

I am going to stick my neck out here with the chance that it might get cut off. While I would agree with you in principle (in my family my husband has the final say on financial decisions, and it should be that way), I have to take issue with your choice of the word "competence". Just because this is the way God set things up does not make the woman incompetent to handle finances. In some cases, I've seen women who were more competent than their husbands, and in fact, if the woman doesn't at least know what is going on with the finances, it can be devastating if anything happens to the man.

Actually, the virtuous woman considers a field and buys it, wheels and deals with merchants, etc., gets food from afar, and so on?

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Heidi
Indianapolis, Indiana

After two days, he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.
Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.

Thoughts of Proverbs 31 were running through my head as well. Thanks