Surfing the Wake of Non-Rapture; What Is Gold Worth, Really?

Surfing the wake of the non-rapture this Memorial Day, thinking about my gratitude to my fellow citizens in the military who defend and preserve our freedom and liberty, I opened my Bible, as I really should do every day. It’s no excuse, but my lifestyle and work schedule makes it difficult to regularly read and contemplate “Basic Instruction Before Leaving Earth.” Yet, on this Memorial Day Holiday, I find the pace of life slowed enough for me to read the Word. My usual practice is to read a Proverb, a Psalm, then pick a chapter/verse from just anywhere else and begin reading. Sometimes, I just let the Book fall open and begin reading, as I did today. It ‘fell open’ to First Chronicles, Chapter 25, Verse 5. This passage is not particularly inspiring; it “chronicles” how King David setup ministers throughout the nation of Israel for service in the temple. But, at Chapter 29, it got “interesting.” The writers, Samuel, Nathan and Gad carefully inventoried the weights of gold, silver, bronze, other semi-precious metals, precious and semi-precious stones the soldiers and people of Israel donated for the glory of the temple. So, surfing the wake of the non-rapture, amidst news of rising prices, it’s because of this reading, I wondered how much JUST the gold might be worth calculated by the “worth” of our dollar in 2011. First, you should know the total weight of ONLY the gold; a staggering 600, 186 POUNDS. For comparison, that’s about the weight of TWO modern day train locomotives. At the present “per ounce” price, that’s $24,575.36 a POUND. So the total worth of Israel’s gold roughly 4000 years ago, valued in TODAY’s dollar is $14,749,787,016.96-fourteen billion, seven hundred forty-nine million, seven hundred eighty-seven thousand, sixteen dollars and ninety-six cents. Not chump-change by any accountant’s cipher. But my point is simply this: What IS gold worth, really…considering the lives given for liberty and numbers based in TRILLIONS regarding the U.S. national debt? Surfing the wake of non-rapture, and remembering the sacrifice of life for the ideal of liberty, an open version of that question might be: What is (insert ANY other commodity) worth, really?