Weight? Greenwich sucks!

I remember distinctly the day as a little kid in grammar school  I learned that in a magical place called Greenwich, England there were official weights upon which the world looked as the "standard". It even housed a world clock, and a magical line running through the grass made of bronze measured the earth!

Why did we need this magical place?

Ever since humankind began to collect and make stuff or sale or trade stuff we ripped each other off. The human heart is just that way (Matthew 15:19). So we began to make measures and weights to standardize things. God was pretty clear about this stuff. Our hearts were on ourselves (Genesis. 6:6), we cheated and lied (Proverbs 11:1). No one really was seeking after honesty (Matthew 15:8).

Don't believe me? Archaeologists have found systems dating back to 2600 BC in the Indus Vally.

Sure, we need standards to know what something should equal, but really...when you walk onto a car lot, do any of us really trust that we are getting the best deal?

So God isn't so much concerned about properly calibrated things as he is about our heart condition. He doesn't hate dishonest scales because it's bad business, he hates them because one person is devaluing another. A false scale says ethically "I am more important than you. I deserve more than you. You are stupid. I am smart. I should have the bigger piece of pie."

The standard has moved from an outside magical place into myself. The cocktail party words here say that we have moved from a deontological ethic that is based on an obligation to an outside rule to teological ethic which aruges that the standard is constantly changed to meet my interior desires.

so we have two problems here;
1) Who is allowed to define the standard
2) What, if any, is the penalty for using a false weight?

In our system of "democracy" ( I would argue that we are actually a republic where our deepest national desire is to care for the oppressed minority) we rule that the majority sets the standard. This in itself denies the standard of a standard.

If we have no clear standard for a standard, how can we cry foul?

Clearly there must be a magical place that knows what justice really looks like. I would say, it looks like a sacrificial hill upon which a spotless lamb was slaughtered because the weights do not lie or change. (Numbers 23:19)....

But here's the Good Deal. We came up a day late and a dollar short as always. But someone made up the difference for us.