The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
A Real Value Pastor Doug Smith Flin Flon Alliance Church Back in the 1970s the small nation state of Singapore bought into the concept of an imminent population explosion. Humanity was on the verge of overpopulating earth, or so they thought. By the '80s a very different problem was emerging, their population was actually shrinking. So by the end of that decade the government was forced to reverse its strategy. Where they once paid people to voluntarily sterilize themselves, they now pay them to have children. But even that has not been enough to raise this generation's numbers to the level of replacing the previous generation. In response they have created a new position in government, the population czar. The job description for this new position? To get Singapore's population interested in romance again! What happened? Why was it relatively easy to encourage the people of Singapore to stop having children, but so much harder to get them interested again? The answer is simple: greed. The Bible reminds us that "The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil" (1 Timothy 6:10). The reason Singapore is struggling to raise its birth rate according to a recent Reutters news article is that it has become "a nation obsessed with cars, cash, and condominiums." The point is not to pick on Singapore, they are just the first to experience this downward population trend that is going to affect all of the industrialized world. The point is to look at our own grave errors when it comes to the way we live. Greed has so permeated our culture that it has literally altered our values. If we talk about the value of something we think of how much it will cost to buy. But it was not long ago that the primary meaning for value was very different and "value" was not a bargain but a belief we held dear. The love of money destroys our values for the simple reason that is a perversion. We were not created to love things. Note that it does not say that money is the root of all kinds of evil but rather the LOVE of money is the problem. Money is not wrong in itself, neither is having things, but when we love them instead of our neighbour or our God we are guilty of idolatry and destined for trouble. God intended that we use the good things he has blessed us with and love our fellow human beings. Instead we have loved things and used people. Jesus asked a question 2000 years ago, but it one we should ponder before it is too late... "What good is it to gain the whole world but lose your own soul?" (From Matthew 16:26). The worship of money has dehumanized us, if we are not careful it might yet depopulate us.
