Not all that glitters is Gold

Did you know that in vaults of the Bank of England there are around 400,000 bars of gold worth over £200billion! Only the Federal Reserve in New York has more gold than that! It’s so heavy that there are special purpose-built shelves to hold it all up, and of course lots of security, and as a result no gold has ever been stolen from the Bank of England. Italian Job, Oceans Eleven, sorry!

However, in Victorian times there was a close miss! You can read about it on the Bank of England’s website. In 1836 the Bank of England’s Directors received anonymous letters from someone claiming to have access to their gold. In fact they offered to meet those directors inside the vault whenever they chose. Sure enough at the appointed time there was a noise heard from beneath the floor, and a man popped up through the floorboards.

He had been doing repair work and had discovered an old drain that ran underneath the gold. Billions of pounds worth of gold was at his disposal, but he chose not to touch it, but rather to tell the owners - very honest, and he was rewarded with £800 (worth around £64,000 in today’s money!)

Well “not all that glitters is gold” anyway, as Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice tells us. I guess during this cost of living crisis, all of us could do with a little more gold. But actually perhaps it’s forcing us to learn to value non-monetary things too. Friendship, family, the gift of the beautiful creation around us.

In the Bible in Psalm 19 King David (a man of considerable wealth) writes of something better than Gold…. “The decrees of the Lord are firm, and all of them are right, they are more precious than gold, than much fine gold”.

So it’s actually God’s word, the Bible that is worth more than.

A book that you can read for free on the internet, or buy from Amazon for a couple of pounds is worth more than all the gold in the vaults of the Bank of England, and that’s because it shows us the way to live well, the way to die well, the way to love well, the way to rescue in Jesus Christ.

If anyone in the Huntingdon area would like a free bar of gold, ie a free Bible, do get in touch, we’d love to send you one! 

Charlie Newcombe, 09/11/22