The val­ue of gold is an in­di­ca­tor of the fi­nan­cial strength of a coun­try. Gold has al­ways been con­sid­ered an ex­treme­ly pre­cious met­al. In­deed, the word "gold" is used metaphor­i­cal­ly in many de­scrip­tive words and phras­es.When any­one or any­thing is trust­wor­thy or de­pend­able, we say "as good as gold." We al­so speak of gold­en years, the gold­en rule, a gold­en op­por­tu­ni­ty.The gold­en age refers to some myth­i­cal past of progress, pros­per­i­ty and hap­pi­ness. When we want to speak neg­a­tive­ly of a woman whom we think is mar­ry­ing just for mon­ey, we call her a "gold dig­ger." Even si­lence is "gold­en" at times.

In the Old Tes­ta­ment Aaron asks the peo­ple to bring him their gold ear­rings. They want a new god, one they can see and touch and ad­mire. So he melts the gold and makes a calf, which ex­cites the peo­ple and caus­es rev­el­ry. (Ex­o­dus 32 v 2, 3, 20.)No idol, re­gard­less of its ma­te­r­i­al worth and beau­ty can take the place of the One Im­mor­tal, In­vis­i­ble God. King Solomon, who ruled Is­rael for 40 years, made 200 large shields of ham­mered gold, 300 small­er shields of ham­mered gold and a throne over­laid with pure gold.Even the drink­ing cups and oth­er uten­sils are of gold. ( 2 Chr. 9: 15-20) But all of this van­i­ty and wealth were not able to pre­vent his de­cline in­to dis­loy­al­ty and im­moral­i­ty.

Yet gold re­mained a sym­bol of roy­al­ty and we re­mem­ber the ac­count of the birth of Je­sus when the wise men of­fered gold as a gift to the child, in recog­ni­tion of his king­ship.In the Old Tes­ta­ment there are re­minders that there are gifts more pre­cious and en­dur­ing than gold. In Proverbs Ch 8 v 19 Wis­dom de­clares, "My gifts are bet­ter than the purest gold."In Proverbs l6 :l6 we are ad­vised, "How much bet­ter to get wis­dom than gold." Al­so, "wise speech is rar­er and more valu­able than gold and ru­bies." ( Prov.20 :15 ) In prais­ing the or­di­nances of God the Psalmist says that "they are more pre­cious than gold, than of much pure gold." (Psalm l9:10) He loves God's com­mands more than gold, even the finest gold. (Psalm ll9: 127)Gold is al­so used as a metaphor in a dif­fer­ent way in the New Tes­ta­ment. It is used to give hope and en­cour­age­ment in time of great suf­fer­ing and de­spair.Pe­ter is warn­ing the ear­ly be­liev­ers about per­se­cu­tion for their faith. Is there any val­ue or pur­pose in this suf­fer­ing? He writes that "tri­als test your faith to show that it is strong and pure. It is be­ing test­ed as fire tests and pu­ri­fies gold-and your faith is more pre­cious to God than mere gold." (1 Pe­ter 1 :7 )