The Royal Mint is in the process of issuing new 5p and 10p coins. Motivated by a cost saving on the raw material (I won't bore you with the chemistry) which contains a lot of copper, the plan is to replace it with a cheaper steel alloy. What saves the Royal Mint (and the tax payer) some money will mean increased costs for those operating vending machines.
Huge increases in the price of copper have also led to people taking risks to steal electric cables, and other metalwork from the rail network and the electricity supply industry. Perhaps the news that your train is delayed by "signal failure" will be received more sympathetically if you realise that it is not the failing of the railway engineers rather the greed of the thieves that is normally at the heart of these failures.
Money is at the heart of a lot of the news and current affairs stories at the moment – whether it is the greed of those taking bonuses from failing companies, the avoidance of tax by Civil Service chiefs, or the failings of the global financial system as a result of reckless over-spending and excessive debt-increasing policies.
How do we allocate our money and our time? Do we pay our taxes more willingly than our tithe? Are we free of the greed we recognise so easily in others? Are we giving our "first fruits" to God or the "last scraps" we have left? Remember the history of Cain and Abel:
Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it." Genesis 4: 6-7 [NIV]
Lord, help us to worship you as we ought to – make us generous not greedy. Take away our love of sinning and protect us from the sin which is crouching at our door. Amen.
Dave MacLellan
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