The Scripture Scale

THE SCRIPTURE SCALE
(Daniel 5:1-28)
The Hand appeared suddenly.
The hall went quiet. 
The King’s goblet fell off his hand, 
spilling his drink on his royal robes.
The queen fainted.
The National Security Adviser pissed 
in his pants.
The Service Chiefs tried to look brave…

The Hand moved to the wall and wrote:
“MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN” and 
disappeared as mysteriously as it 
appeared.

Suddenly, a loud scream rented the air.
Pandemonium everywhere!
People rushed to the door to escape, 
trampling over each other, high heels 
piercing into the flesh of the fallen.
All the Jack Daniels, Bailey’s, Hennessy, 
Dom Perignon and Moet and Chandon 
crashed on the floor, spilling exotic 
and expensive drinks everywhere,
Any onlooker would think there was 
a bomb scare, Nobody had any idea 
what was going on.

Until Daniel was called in…

He entered the Royal Hall and walked 
to the king, careful not to step on the 
broken bottles or slip on the spilled wine.
He saw the writing on the wall.
He closed his eyes for a moment.
Inspiration came.
He started interpreting.
He got to the word TEKEL:
“You have been weighed in a scale 
and found wanting”, he said.

The king was weighed 
He fell below standard.
What was the standard he was 
weighed on? What scale?
Is that standard still applicable today?
I don’t know.
But what I know is, I have a scale 
I use to weigh myself:
The SCRIPTURE SCALE.
That is MY standard: “What saith 
the scriptures?”

I am a Christian.
The Bible is my scale.
I weigh everything on it.
EVERYTHING.

Driving home, I stop at a red light.
A car stops next to me.
“Hey!”
I turn to see who it is.
“You’re very stupid!” the driver says.
I want to react.
In that moment, I weigh my proposed 
reaction on the Scripture Scale.
James 3:8-10.
I smile and wave at him and drive off 
as the light turns green…

I’m in a site meeting.
The client, engineers and surveyors 
are in attendance.
The client cracks a dirty joke.
Everybody laughs.
I want to laugh like everyone else.
I weigh the joke on the Scripture Scale.
Ephesians 5:4.
I keep quiet.

A client asks me to buy a property 
with certain criteria.
I find one that meets it: N 60m.
I want to tell the client it’s N 70m.
I weigh the thought on the Scripture Scale.
Proverbs 11:1.
I kill the thought.

I’m with friends, discussing politics.
One says, “This government is useless! 
The president is clueless, hopeless 
and incompetent!
I want to express my unpalatable 
thoughts on the government also.
I weigh them on the Scripture Scale.
1st Timothy 2: 1-4, Romans 13:1-2.
I don’t join in.

An organization asks me to supply 
some goods.
I go to the market to buy them.
I ask the shop owner for a receipt.
He asks me, “Oga, wetin make I write?”
I want to double the amount and 
make extra money.
But I weigh it on the Scripture Scale…

I am a voracious reader of the Bible.
I read at least 10 chapters daily, 
Genesis to Revelations every 4 months.
I’ve been doing so since 1990.
But I realized there’s a problem: 
The APPLICATION of what I read 
in my life.
I have come to understand that 
the APPLICATION of Scripture is 
the challenge of the average Christian:
Where the rubber meets the road.
I realize we are mostly readers, not doers.
But that changed for me when I set up 
a Scripture Scale, when I decided to 
start weighing ALL aspects of my life 
with Scripture.

So, if that Hand appears at my party 
and writes on the wall, I won’t spill my 
drink and I won’t be worried it will 
write “TEKEL”…

“…If it is not according to SCRIPTURE, 
there is no light in it.”- Isaiah 8:20

Shalom.
Haruna Daniels