What is "valuable" in life? Is it the wisdom from below (we teach our children the "value of a dollar") or the wisdom from above (values as virtues)? Can we reclaim the word "value" when we attach dollar tags to everything? What people deem as "valuable" today are bargain-basement "values," real "buys," cheap "specials." Christians need to reclaim the spiritual meaning of this word, which once had a moral, not monetary or commercial connotation to it. The valuables we are to protect are listed in James 3:17.
The word "value" has a double meaning in today's increasingly economically influenced language. On the one hand we use "value" to describe items of great worth and desirability either materially (oil, gold, or real estate in Aspen or Beverly Hills) or more philosophically (truth, wis…