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ReVision

On Debt

God's Law has wisdom for us even here.

An Economy of Love (6)

“You shall not charge interest to your brother—interest on money or food or anything that is lent out at interest. To a foreigner you may charge interest, but to your brother you shall not charge interest, that the LORD your God may bless you in all to which you set your hand in the land which you are entering to possess.” Deuteronomy 23.19, 20

Awash in a sea of debt
One the strongest measures of the materialistic and narcissistic cast of our secular age is the vast amount of debt – personal, corporate, and national – that everywhere obtains. We desire, and have not, so we just get a new credit card. Or print more money. Or refinance this or that. Students graduating from college bring the habit of debt with them into their new lives, and many of them never manage to kick it.

Debt can create wealth and work, it’s true; but it can also create misery, oppression, uncertainty, and an economy that’s only as strong as the belief of its adherents.

In America, we are awash in a sea of debt, and every day finds us encouraged to go deeper into it. Sign-up for this new cash-back credit card. Get a reverse mortgage. Get a rebate when you buy a new car. Refinance your home. Budget the nation another trillion in the red. Debt has become a way of life in America. We believe in debt as much as we believe in anything, because debt allows us to realize our materialistic dreams, satisfying both the god of self and the god of happiness.

For a time, at least. Until the debt becomes due, and there’s no way to pay.

An economy of debt
Debt, or credit, is an important component of a free market economy. This is an aspect of the trust component of free economies; without trust, lending and credit would be impossible. From the beginning, therefore, the American economy sought ways of increasing the amount of credit that could be extended to worthy borrowers, to allow them to bring their economic dreams to fruition.

The lending of money has become a major industry in the American economy, so powerful, in fact, that when, a few years back, the finance industry compromised sound judgment and began to look for ways of making a quicker return on money, it plunged the nation into its worst recession since the Great Depression. Credit, which was a means in the early years of the Republic, has become an end – a business and industry for making money.

Debt is a tiger by the tale in America today, with no end or relief in sight.

Debt and God’s Law
This is precisely the kind of situation which God foresaw and sought to forestall.

Knowing the human propensity toward idolatry and self-love, the Law of God strictly hedged the way that goods or money could be lent from one member of the community to another. A general rule was that one could not make money lending money. Scholars disagree on whether “charging interest” relates to any interest whatsoever or to usury, taking of interest for the purpose of gaining wealth. It seems likely that some interest was allowed, if only to make up for the opportunity cost of goods or money taken out of circulation for the use of a borrower.

But the people of ancient Israel were not to take advantage of one another in lending and borrowing. For example, if you lent someone some money and took his cloak as a pledge of repayment, you could not keep the pledge overnight, but had to return it to the owner so that he could keep warm in the cold (Ex. 22.26, 27). Further, if you lent something to someone and came to his house to collect his pledge, you had to wait outside for him to bring the pledge out to you, thus preserving his privacy and dignity (Deut. 24.10-13). By no means could you take as a pledge anything that jeopardized the borrower’s ability to make a living (Deut. 24.6).

At the same time, as we see in our text, Israelites were free to exact interest from foreigners. This would have served to limit foreign involvement in the economy of Israel in two ways. First, it would have discouraged borrowers from abroad, who would probably have looked elsewhere for needed goods, rather than agree to paying back substantially more than they would have borrowed. Second, it would have discouraged Israelites from lending to strangers, or, at the very least, it would have made them more circumspect in determining whom they should trust with their loans, given the fact that non-neighbors can be difficult to collect on, especially when interest is a factor.

Each of these would have helped to keep the economy of Israel from becoming ensnared in too many foreign entanglements, a policy that would have set well with George Washington.

In our day, when credit and debt are big business, credit card debt is submerging many households, people are simply walking away from mortgage debt, and the nation is threatening to drown in a sea of red ink, we should look beyond our own experience for sound policies and principles to return some sanity and, yes, neighbor love, to the uses we make of this part of our capitalist economy. We should not, of course, adopt verbatim the ancient laws of Israel. But if those laws can lead us to stop and think about the role of credit and debt, and the long-term needs of our neighbors and our nation, then taking the time to review and reflect on them will be well worthwhile.

In the household of faith, where an economy of love for God and neighbors should obtain, we might pioneer the way to a more reasonable view of debt and credit, and a more stable long-term society. But we will not do so if our way of life continues to reflect more the getting-and-spending economy of our neighbors than the economy of love that characterizes the Kingdom of God.

For reflection
1.  Why do materialism, narcissism, and debt go hand-in-hand? Can we overcome the problem of debt while ignoring the problem of exorbitant self-love? Explain.

2.  Debt can be a snare, especially to young people. What kind of trap is it? How does it rob us of our freedom to seek God’s Kingdom and glory?

3.  What can we do to encourage our churches to look more seriously at the teaching of God’s Law?

Next steps – Conversation: Talk with some fellow Christians about suggestions they might have for minimizing the power of debt in our lives.

For a free overview of the teaching of God’s Law and how to apply it, write to me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., and request our Kingdom Catechism.

The Psalmist says the righteous person meditates on the Law of God day and night (Ps. 1). Do you? If you had a compendium of all the laws and statutes of God, would you be more likely to do so? Order your copy of The Law of God and begin taking up the discipline of daily meditation in God’s rules for love (click here). And if you need convincing that the Law of God still matters, order a copy of The Ground for Christian Ethics by clicking here.

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

T.M. Moore

T. M. Moore is principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He and his wife, Susie, make their home in the Champlain Valley of Vermont.
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