35 You shall do no wrong in judgment, in measures of length or weight or quantity. 36 You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.

Leviticus 19:35-36 (ESV)

In Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, Ivan said, “When there is no God, all things are permissible.” Indeed. But a holy and almighty God does exist, and because this is so, many things are impermissible. Some of those things relate to the practice of business.

Leviticus 19:35-36 teaches that merchants should “do no wrong in judgment.” One such wrong is the corruption of quantitative measure. The ephah was a volume of grain, the hin, a volume of liquid. A dishonest merchant would keep two sets of measure—one allowed him to obtain more merchandise than he actually purchased; the other allowed him to provide less merchandise than he actually sold. This is was a “sharp” practice, but God was not amused.

Why would it matter what God thought? First, and most obviously, He was Lord. A people who forget their accountability to higher authority is walking on very thin ice, especially when that higher authority is the Highest Authority. A disobedient nation could be “vomited” out of the land (18:27-28). (In fact this happened, as both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms were respectively sacked in 722 and 585 B.C.)

Second, all men are in His debt—“For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45b). And much as the Israelites were peculiarly indebted to God because of their liberation from Egypt, Christians owe God everything because He has freed them from the “Egypt” of their own futility and damnation. Believers should live as rescued and redeemed people, reflecting the moral reality of the God who has saved them.

Using just weights and measures is a way of telling the truth. Not to use them is to break the Eighth Commandment (Exod. 20:15). Furthermore, to lie by using “rigged” weights and measures is to treat your neighbor as less than God’s image bearer (cf. Gen. 1:26-27).

Dishonesty is often a denial of God’s sovereignty and mercy because it is rooted in the fear that if one does not cheat, his needs will not be met. A mature Christian can escape this danger, “for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (2 Tim. 1:7)—the anointed believer has the power to resist the siren song of unjust gain; he so loves those with whom he deals that he would never think of cheating them; in a world much taken with treachery, he exercises the self-control of one who centers on God’s pleasure and not his own.

The business world is often tainted by those adept at securities fraud, deceptive marketing, insider trading, kickbacks, pyramid schemes, and fine-print ambush. Innocent Christians can be seduced and victimized by these devices. Spiritually lax Christians may even stoop to such wickedness. Both victims and victimizers need churches resplendent with the counsel and glory—and fear—of God. Without this holy influence, men are much more likely to become either predator or prey.

The First Baptist Church of Perryville is located in Cecil County, 1 and 1/2 miles east of Rt. 222.