Bob Enyart Errata

If you are aware of any significant errors that I have acknowledged making, that should be listed here, please contact us [0] and let us know. Thanks, -Bob Enyart

• Death Penalty: As late as the 1990s, while I urged the return to the Bible's death penalty commands, I forgot to rightly divide the Mosaic Law. I should have excluded ordinances that were applicable only to God's national covenant with Israel. Christ replaced the Jewish priesthood, and many of the Jewish laws have also changed. "For the priesthood being changed, of necessity there is also a change of the law" (Hebrews 7:12). This principle has been an important part of my teachings for 20 years, but I am ashamed that I overlooked it regarding the death penalty (2 Tim. 2:15). I forgot that only in Israel did God outlaw other religions, so for example, their government had authority to prosecute cursings and witchcraft. But since the law changed, God's national covenant with Israel is no longer enforceable. Today's governments should implement the criminal code that is embedded within the Mosaic Law, which God based upon four of the Ten Commandments, prohibiting murder, theft, sexual immorality, and perjury, including the death penalty where appropriate.
• Forgiveness of Debt: As late as the 1990s, I forgot to rightly divide the Mosaic Law (see above), and wrongly supported a return to the Bible's year of the Lord's Release, whereby all debts would be forgiven every seven years (Deut. 15). This economic sabbatical cycle symbolized the freedom that Christ would bring to His people. However, even in the Mosaic law, God permitted different financial dealings between Jews and Gentiles (Deut. 15:3), indicating that these were not fundamental matters of morality, but symbolic aspects of His national prophetic covenant with Israel.
• Money: As late as the 1990s, I wrongly supported a return to the gold standard, whereby currency was formerly based upon reserves of precious metals. After studying and thinking about money for years, I now know that money is not gold or silver, but money is more like a transferable IOU. Most accurately, money is the accounting of a transferable incomplete transaction. That is what money actually is. Back when technology did not exist to support a more effective and lower-cost accounting system, Bible cultures reasonably implemented metal-based money. Since no one can create gold, no one could "counterfeit" money. Later, the printing press enabled the convenience of paper currency, and now the Internet enables the convenience of online transactions. The extraordinary benefit to the lives of millions of people from these conveniences outweigh the risks of counterfeits and deception. And realize that men on a deserted island with no gold actually do create money "by fiat" when they enter into agreements which create something akin to transferable IOUs. Thus, every time someone buys a car or a home, etc., on credit, they thereby commit themselves to years of hard work (or at least, to the obligation to pay off the loan), which commitment thereby actually brings money into existence. Understanding how money actually functions justifies the modern world's fractional banking system, whereby lenders bring money into existence when making loans, and expunge the principal as it is repaid. God regulated Israel's system of debt, showing that debt is not inherently immoral, but can be good or bad, like fire. As to the particulars of our Federal Reserve System, the Fed should be audited (it never is), and other methods of implementing money may surpass the effectiveness of America's current system, and the standard for judging them is based upon accountability, effectiveness, and low cost. Requiring a gold standard inflates the value of gold by fiat, and as a result, we unintentionally transfer that inflated wealth to people or countries who happen to find gold on their land, which is how America ciphered manufactured goods from Europe in return for inflated gold, and then we demineralized our money, devaluing England's vaults. Gold does not have intrinsic value but its worth lies in the eye of the beholder. And God did not create gold to be dug up and then forever stored away from sight in underground vaults, which is an inefficient and expensive way of implementing an accounting system, robbing that gold from its practical uses for technology and beauty.