Articles
What's the Value of Life?
Do you remember the old MasterCard commercials? They’d go through a scenario like this:Two tickets to the ball game: $50; Two sodas and two hot dogs: $10; A game they’ll never forget: PRICELESS.Then they’d end with the tag line: “There are some things money can’t buy, for everything else there’s MasterCard.” The message is simple – some moments in life are priceless.
I think we can take this sentiment a step or two further. Based on what we read in scripture, I would propose that life itself is priceless. I’d like to think it’s an absolute truth among all people, but based on our culture, I know that’s not the case. The point has been driven home even further with the recent news coming from New York and Virginia. Both states have proposed less restrictive abortion laws, allowing for much later abortions, even up to when the baby is at full-term. Unfathomable.
Let me be clear – no matter when an abortion takes place, it’s murder. It doesn’t matter what the circumstances are, when the choice is made to “terminate” a pregnancy, its murder. But that’s just my opinion, right? You could call it that, but based on faith in God’s Word, I can assure you that God calls it murder too. Consider what David wrote in praise to God in Psalm 139:13, “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb.” David claims that God’s the one who created him. Obviously, we know how reproduction works, but David credits God for his life – even prior to birth. That’s appropriate, considering God created the first humans and then told them to, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Genesis 1:28). Life is a God-given blessing.
David would go onto say in Psalm 139:16 that, “Your (God’s)eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” Before David was actually David, God had an account for his life. The same can be said for our own, so what gives us the right to determine the days (or absence of them) for another human life? We have no right, no matter what man-made laws may be established. God overrules.
We can’t put a price tag on the value of a human life. It’s priceless to say the very least. In fact, when God created Adam and Eve, we can only begin to understand just how priceless our lives really are when we read in Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in his own image,in the image of God he created him;male and female he created them.” Human life is of greater value than any other because we’ve been created in the image of God. We have a soul – a spiritual entity within each one of us. All the money in the world couldn’t equal the value of your soul. But that’s just my opinion, right? You could call it that, but Jesus said it Himself (Mark 8:36-37). Life, given by God, is priceless!
