Actual Value

12/23/2024

Matthew 22:16-19

And they sent out unto him their disciples with the Herodians, saying Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou regardest not the person of men.

17 Tell us therefore, what thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?

18 But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?

19 Shew me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny.

When addressing much smaller sums such as these, the discussion never fails to turn up a few other unrelated sorts of the issues. We're talking about actual value here for a second, not about what you'd ideally like it to be or even what opinions society genders. Once more, there's that little word gender again. It's almost like a what's next on the agenda, only this time it's being used to express what's remaining from the much larger collection. Let's say as of today, a penny will get you exactly one snack if even that. Ideally, you'd need about one hundred of them in some more modern thrift shop locations to get only one thing. Back in that day though when Jesus was teaching, the penny had an unknown mutual value. I know, the times they sure are a-changing and along with them the markets. Just think of what a penny could buy in a few other places. Let's say I go to a culture where one dollar equals round about 800 tokens in some other places. If you don't know it just yet, a quick Internet search should reveal your latest exchange prices. We'll call your unit of currency though a token for lack of a more exact term. It could be rials, lakhs, or even a shekel. Here's just how to express that in just about any account.

1 dollar: 800 tokens

That's the proper way of expressing what's become known as exchange. Basically, you're trading one unit for another one which really is a whole lot of nothing.

I'll express it as a penny at first, which should be written something like this.

1 dollar: 100 pennies

Because

1 penny: 0.01 dollar: ? Pennies: 1 dollar

Let's try to figure out the ? pennies on from there. Watch what I'm doing closely at first. We'll have more opportunities for trying it later.

1 penny x 1 dollar = 1 |

0.01 dollar x ? Pennies = 0.01?

1 = 0.01?

Next, divide the 0.01 into 1 on the other side of the equation to get

100 pennies solved in for ?

I take it doesn't answer your questions any better than this? Thankfully, most exchange platforms at this time are fully automated and all this isn't actually needed. Let's say, you're going down from one dollar into the culture. That's what it'd look like at first. Only I want to know how many pennies you'd have for 800 tokens in a dollar at first. We'll express it like this.

1 dollar: 800 tokens: 0.01 dollar: ? tokens

1 dollar x ? tokens = 1? |

800 tokens x 0.01 dollar = 8.00

1? | 8.00

1 divided by 8 = 8

? = 8 tokens

You'll find that 800 tokens goes an awful long way on from there. Except that it doesn't really, and you know why that'd most likely be? That's because the markets all linked together through international trade or exchanged up at the top. It's how money gets around from one place to another. The circulation usually stays in places of power like a few centralized countries while leaving the poorer ones well out of the loop. Let's say you don't have very much to bring to the market. There's a couple different ways of getting the funds. You could say trade or move funds from one place to another. Sooner or later, one place will be entirely emptied and bare without anything that's been left for the taking. Think though, that's only if there's not funds moving back in return. If the funds only moved in one certain direction, which so often happens in charity cases, it'd make the second place absolutely dependent on stuff from the first. Ideally, in this case, you'll want to take some time investing around in localized markets or in the developing of something that matters. You'll want to send goods or service in exchange for the first. Just maybe though you'd willingly be acceping of help with the promise of some growth upward much later. A truly fair and equal markets between forces like countries would have each one bringing the same amount of stuff to the table. The exchange rates would be roughly equal without huge disparities occurring between them. Basically, it's all a fancy way of describing something as unfair as it seems. That's where you'd get terms like first, second and third-world from. They're really not making no sense though at the first. In the text, we see the Pharisees disciples along with those supportive of Herod, a local leader, have come forth in crowds. They brought the penny with them to ask his opinion, though it's really not meaning of much. I mean, I can't find the penny addressed anywhere else. We'll look have a look at some of the other currencies later. I fear there's some though a good bit much older. The penny then has come to be the lowest common unit of value, which may or may not have been very much in those days. We're not entirely sure on the details just yet.