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DEBT
Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he
who loves another has fulfilled the law (Romans
13:8).
The rich rules over the poor,
And the borrower is servant to the lender
(Proverbs
22:7).
יהוה
does not want His people to be in debt. The only thing we are to owe
others is our love, which we are to give freely and in tangible forms. We are to
be givers, not borrowers.
The price for indebtedness can be high indeed. In ancient times, the
children of Israel not only lost much of their land and possessions because of
debt that accrued, but some sold themselves or their children into slavery in
order to pay their debts.
In
Nehemiah 5:3-5 we find a mournful outcry from God's people:
There were also some who said, "We have mortgaged our lands and vineyards and
houses, that we might buy grain because of the famine." There were also those
who said, "We have borrowed money for the king's tax on our lands and
vineyards. Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as
their children; and indeed we are forcing our sons and our daughters to be
slaves, and some of our daughters have been brought into slavery. It is not in
our power to redeem them, for other men have our lands and vineyards."
This same heart's cry is voiced by a widow who came to the prophet Elisha
and said, "Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant
feared יהוה. And the creditor is coming to take my two sons to be his
slaves" (2
Kings 4:1).
The husband of this woman, one of the prophets who was associated with
Elisha, apparently had died and left his family in debt. The only recourse that
seemed available to the woman was to sell her children into slavery to repay
what her husband owed. We may protest, "How horrible! How could a parent sell
her children to work off a debt?" And yet that is exactly what we in North
America are doing in strapping our children with huge national debts. The United
States has gone from being the world's largest creditor nation to debtor status
in a matter of only a few decades. What has been done on a national scale has also
been done
on an individual and family scale. Our children, grand children, and great grand
children will be forced to pay for our
foolishness.
יהוה
is so opposed to debt that He doesn't even want His people to be the security
for another person's debt - in our language today, that might mean being the
cosigner on a loan:
Proverbs 13:23 sums up the situation:
“A poor man’s field may produce abundant food, but injustice sweeps it away.”
Another translation puts it this way:
“Even when the land of the poor produces good crops, they get cheated out of
what they grow.”
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will save)
would
affirm today; it's the same truth He
attested to as he walked this earth some
2000 years ago - an exclusive way to the Father (John 14:6)
and that man, as a
sinful creature, is in need of a Saviour.(John
3:16-21).
