Every word the study uses, defined in plain English, and every passage of Scripture it draws on, in the King James Version. Search both at once.
The standard Hebrew dry measure — a basket-sized unit for grain and flour, roughly 5–6 gallons (about 3/5 of a bushel; scholars' estimates vary). When Amos condemns "making the ephah small," the merchant is selling from a shrunken basket: you pay for a full measure of grain and walk away with less. The ephah is the seller's honesty.
The standard Hebrew liquid measure for oil and wine — about one gallon. Leviticus 19:36 demands "a just hin": no watered-down jug, no short pour.
Originally not a coin but a unit of weight, about 11 grams — money in Abraham's day was silver weighed out on a balance scale. "Making the shekel great" (Amos 8:5) means using a heavier-than-standard weight on the scale when collecting payment, so the buyer must pour out extra silver. The shekel is the buyer's cost — a crooked merchant shrinks the ephah and enlarges the shekel, cheating on both sides of the same trade.
The full picture of Amos 8:5: give less product, demand more payment, and rig the scale that's supposed to referee — "falsifying the balances by deceit." It's a complete anatomy of dishonest commerce in one verse.
The scum of waste and base metal that rises to the top when silver is refined — the impurity a smith skims off and throws away. "Thy silver is become dross" (Isaiah 1:22) is a devastating image: the coin still looks like silver, but it has been cut with cheap metal until the worthless part outweighs the precious. Refining silver removes dross; debasement is refining in reverse — deliberately stirring the garbage back in while keeping the label. (See also Proverbs 25:4 and Ezekiel 22:18–19, where God calls faithless Israel itself "dross.")
Lowering the precious-metal content of coins while keeping their face value — Rome's trick with the denarius, Isaiah's dross in action. The issuer spends the skimmed silver; everyone holding old savings pays for it.
The denarius: Rome's standard silver coin, roughly a day's wage for a laborer (Matthew 20:2 — the vineyard workers are paid one denarius per day). The solidus: Constantine's gold coin, held honest for ~700 years by Byzantium.
Money by decree — Latin for "let it be done" (the same word as "fiat lux," let there be light, in Genesis 1:3's Latin translation). Fiat money is valuable because a government commands it, not because it is scarce or backed by anything. Every currency on earth has been fiat since 1971.
Hard money is hard to make more of (gold, at ~1.5–2% new supply a year). Easy money is easy to make more of (shells near a beach, paper at a printer). History's rule: when hard meets easy, hard wins and easy's holders pay.
How easily a good sells on without losing value — across space (portable?), time (does it keep?), and scale (can it make change?). The good with the best salability in a society becomes its money.
The size of the existing pile (stock) versus how much new can be made in a year (flow). High ratio = hard money. Gold's is ~50–60; bitcoin's rises every four years by design.
Strictly: expansion of the money supply. Popularly: the rising prices that follow. The course uses the strict sense — rising prices are the symptom, printing is the disease, and Haggai's "bag with holes" is the wage-earner's experience of it.
Named for Richard Cantillon, an economist writing in the 1730s: new money benefits whoever spends it first (at old prices) at the expense of whoever receives it last (after prices rise). It's why inflation is a transfer, not just a nuisance.
How strongly a person favors now over later. Low time preference — saving, planting, building for grandchildren — is what Proverbs commends; the course's week-six argument is that a society's money trains its time preference.
An Aramaic word for wealth or riches, which Jesus personifies as a rival master (Matthew 6:24) — you can employ money or serve it, never both.
A book of record: who owns what, who paid whom. Banks keep them; the Yap islanders kept one in shared memory; Bitcoin is one kept identically by everyone at once. Most "money" today is not paper — it is entries in ledgers, which is why who keeps the ledger is the whole question.
Blockchain — the shared ledger itself, written in linked pages ("blocks") that can't be rewritten without redoing all the work behind them. Mining / proof-of-work — the electricity-burning race that decides who writes the next page and makes cheating cost more than honesty. Node — any ordinary computer keeping a full copy of the book and checking every entry. Halving — the every-four-years cut in new supply. Satoshi — both the pseudonymous author and the smallest unit (1/100,000,000 of a bitcoin).
Trading goods directly for goods — eggs for shoes — with no money in between. It's how the game will start, and how it will fail.
The lucky accident barter requires: I must want exactly what you have at the same moment you want exactly what I have. It's rare — which is why pure barter economies basically don't exist and every society invented money.
Job #1 of money: the go-between good. You sell eggs for it and buy shoes with it, so the shoemaker never has to want eggs.
Job #2: money carries your work across time. The eggs rot by Friday; the silver you sold them for should still be worth eggs next year.
Job #3: the ruler we measure prices with. "The car costs 30,000 dollars" — dollars are how we compare a car to a cow to a haircut. (Plant a seed here: what happens to every measurement if the ruler itself keeps shrinking?)
A scale made of a beam with a pan hanging from each end. Goods go on one pan and a standard weight on the other; when the beam hangs level, the trade is fair. In Scripture "a false balance" means the whole crooked setup: a bent beam, a rigged pan, or a cheating weight.
The stones a merchant carried in a pouch to set on the balance, each cut to a standard: a shekel, half a shekel and so on. "Weights of the bag" are a merchant's whole set. If the stones are honest, the balance is honest.
Old English for "different" or "various." "Divers weights, a great and a small" (Deuteronomy 25:13) means two sets of weights that look alike but aren't: a heavy one for buying and a light one for selling. The Hebrew says it even more plainly: "a stone and a stone."
A measuring rod for length, the yardstick of the market (Leviticus 19:35). "Mete" is the old word for "measure," as in "meted out."
Something God finds detestable. It's one of the Old Testament's strongest words of disgust, used for idolatry and the gravest sins. Proverbs uses it three times for crooked weights (11:1, 20:10, 20:23).
And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron; and Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant.
35Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure. 36Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall ye have: I am the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt.
13Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small. 14Thou shalt not have in thine house divers measures, a great and a small. 15But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. 16For all that do such things, and all that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto the LORD thy God.
6Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: 7Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, 8Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.
A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight.
Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished: but he that gathereth by labour shall increase.
A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.
A just weight and balance are the LORD’S: all the weights of the bag are his work.
Divers weights, and divers measures, both of them are alike abomination to the LORD.
Divers weights are an abomination unto the LORD; and a false balance is not good.
There is treasure to be desired and oil in the dwelling of the wise; but a foolish man spendeth it up.
The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.
For wisdom is a defence, and money is a defence: but the excellency of knowledge is, that wisdom giveth life to them that have it.
Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water:
9Thus saith the Lord GOD; Let it suffice you, O princes of Israel: remove violence and spoil, and execute judgment and justice, take away your exactions from my people, saith the Lord GOD. 10Ye shall have just balances, and a just ephah, and a just bath.
4Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail, 5Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit? 6That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?
10Are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is abominable? 11Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances, and with the bag of deceitful weights? 12For the rich men thereof are full of violence, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.
Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
14For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. 15And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey. 16Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents. 17And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two. 18But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money. 19After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. 20And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more. 21His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. 22He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside them. 23His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. 24Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: 25And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. 26His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: 27Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. 28Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. 29For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. 30And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
16And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: 17And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? 18And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. 19And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. 20But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? 21So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.
10He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. 11If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?
These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
Keep this open on a phone during discussion. When a word floats by undefined, look it up and read it aloud. Pick a week to see just the passages that session leans on, so readers can follow along without hunting for page numbers.
An eight-week Bible study on money and Bitcoin for people with no Bitcoin or computer background: the full outline, leader's guides for Weeks 1 and 2, and printable PDFs.