Debt
If God provides us liberty from owing Him, can we do less towards our fellow man?
Read Time: 3 minutes
A Meditation on Leviticus 25
My mom strongly advised against taking on debt. She was a young woman during the Great Depression. During that time, her father’s business, a grocery store, failed. I understand it was because he allowed struggling customers to owe him for their food purchases. Fast forward ninety years—and today, many people are in debt up to their eyeballs.
In Leviticus 25, we read about legislation in God’s “love your neighbors” series: laws intended to shield people in debt from being mistreated. In Israel, the responsibility to help rested with family, other individuals (that’s you and me), and God, because there were no social services to pick up the tab.
Did the Law distinguish between different causes of debt? Was debt that came via uncontrollable disasters, such as death or crop failure, treated differently from debt due to over-consumption, irresponsible risk-taking, gambling, drinking, or financial incompetence?
No, God did not allow “if” or “but” discrimination against the debtor. The Law didn’t require that excuses be offered and left no space for not providing help because they were “stupid, lazy people!”
God talks a lot about liberty in this chapter. Liberty from owing something to Him is fundamental to God’s character, and that’s clear in the legislation here. In Israel, liberty from permanent poverty and indebtedness was set in concrete.
It appears in Leviticus 25:35 that giving free financial assistance with no strings attached was preferable over repayable loans. However, if loans were given, they had to be either interest-free or have extremely low rates. Furthermore, all of Israel’s debt had a mandatory “write it off” date.
Listen to this from Deuteronomy 15:1-3:
Hmmm, how would that work today? How difficult would writing off the debt be for the creditor? What about your bank or your credit card company? Or friend or relative?
When the value of help needed was assessed, God’s principles applied. Moses said this on the subject:
Do God’s principles apply to other non-monetary forms of indebtedness? How about the personal debt of other kinds—such as saying sorry? Forgiving? Dishing out revenge of some kind because of a grudge we are carrying? Well, yes!
Paul said, “Love… doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, doesn’t revel when others grovel.” (1 Cor 13:5-6). And in Romans 13:8, “Don’t run up debts, except for the huge debt of love you owe each other. When you love others, you complete what the law has been after all along.”
If God provides us liberty from owing Him, can we do less towards our fellow man?
Meditate on these thoughts.
Jackie Grieves,
Pakaranga Ecclesia, NZ