1302) When my three siblings and I were young, my mother often had the privilege of taking all four of us to the grocery store. It was a time we children found an adventure, but I’m pretty sure my mother did not. (I understand this now, Mom!)
There were many entertaining things to do at the grocery store. We could go over to the oranges display and see who could take out the “right” orange so there would be a golden avalanche in the fruit section. There was the pickle barrel (and yes, young readers, they used to have pickles floating in brine, waiting for you to pluck them out) where we could continually try to push the pickles down and see if they would float back up. (They always did.) And, there was a soda aisle with shining cans just waiting for us to pick up and shake.
There was one more thing I found fascinating, and that was the hanging scale in the produce department. I would pick things up and place them there, just to see what each thing weighed. It is this weighing remembrance that the word “proud” conjured up.
Paul tells us in the last days, many will be proud. This does not mean to recognize any achievements you may have accomplished. Instead, it means to weigh your value and when you are underweight in your assessment, it causes many to try to either add to their own weight or they can try to make the “weight” of others to be less than theirs. A proud person will often downplay the value of others to help compensate for the low value they have for themself.
Why would these actions be of note here in Paul’s list of characteristics in people in the last days? If you have a society that constantly must make up for what they feel are inadequacies, they will often try to build themselves up (pride) and the more the depletion, the more frantic people can become. A society that is constantly weighing itself against the scales of others produces little good.
Remembering that our value should not be weighed on scales we make is important. It should be weighed on God’s scale, which reveals you are valuable enough for him to send his son to die for you.
Which scales are you using? Yours or Gods? 2 Timothy 3:1-4
