I’m an Agatha Christie fan.  I’m coming to the end of all of the Poirot books and recently read Cat Among the Pigeons.  I have no fears of spoiling it for you because if you haven’t read it in the 63 years since it was first published, you probably aren’t in danger of my ruining something you’re excited about anyway. 

So I read the final pages and am struck by a comment by a pivotal but altogether unknown character.  She references the Bible but really doesn’t finish her statement connecting it to her circumstances.  I’ve just been stuck on it for weeks.  Haunted somehow as if I’d missed not the climax of the story but something much, much bigger.

A long loved, but short enjoyed wife receives a packet of jewels from the agent of her deceased husband.  The man makes an offer to sell them for her that the money might be put in trust for she and her young son.  The man asks, “Would you like to keep just one?”  She looks at the shining stones and says no because she’d read in the Bible “about a woman whose price was above rubies.” 

She doesn’t elaborate and that is almost the final word of the whole book.  It seemed profound but until now I didn’t see it.

She is, of course, quoting Proverbs 31:10, “A wife of noble character who can find?  She is worth far more than rubies.”

Agatha Christie used a single word, the NIV uses a phrase, but the significance of either one illumines it all:  Above.  Far More. 

Christie’s woman realizes that her own worth is ABOVE the price of rubies.  Why then would she allow herself to be sold for less.  That’s a bad deal and shady business. 

We as Christ’s beloved are worth MORE THAN, FAR more than any possession and yet we sell our lives, our selves, our days for far less than even rubies.  We may or may not gain the world only to find it was a bad deal, shady business because we are, in fact, worth far more than that.

What does your day cost?  For what do you sell your time, your conscience, the essence of your life, and the cultivation of your character?  If it can be bought, sold, or stolen, you’re getting a bad deal and you are worth far more.