Debt—Part Four

If you’re catching up, please read these articles first:
Debt—Introduction
Debt—Part 1
Debt—Part 2
Debt—Part 3

Debt significantly inhibits our ability to share good community with our brothers and sisters.  Jesus instructed us to strive together as one body.

We, as Christians, are all parts of that one body.  If the right hand works for the benefit of the whole body, but the left hand works to repay what it owes to someone else then the the left hand is useless to the body.  It’s dead weight.

Paul warns that “We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.” Hebrews 6:12.

Paul also says that we are our fellow Christians’ and God’s coworkers.  “The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor.  For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.” I Corinthians 3:8.  If you and I work together for our common good, intending to share everything but one of us owes money to a lender first, then the other is deprived of his proper share.  If we owe someone else the fruits of our labor, we’re not pulling our weight.  It’s not fair to ourselves, it’s not fair to God, and it’s not fair to our Christian community.

We have to make ourselves, including our labor and our resources, 100% available to God at all times.  Even small amounts of debt detract from that.

But we only borrow for what we need, you say?  Tell a child in India, China, Myanmar or Kenya what you need.  What would Jesus say that you need?

Do we need it so badly that we can’t even wait?

Is it better to save for a house for 5 years or to buy it now and pay it off for 15?

Is it better to pay $2,000 cash for a car that will drive for two years or better to buy a car on credit that will not even be paid off when we sell it in two years?

Whether you believe in the importance of the Christian community or not, credit diminishes the effectiveness of our money.  Things simply cost more when we buy them on credit.

Jesus freed each of us from slavery and we have voluntarily subjected ourselves to a new kind of servitude.

Like the American slaves who were emancipated by the civil war only to be subjected to sharecropping, more than we can afford to give is already due to someone else before the field is even ready for harvest.

I want to be like the servant who invested his funds well, so that the master will say “well done, good and faithful servant!  You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.” Matthew 25:23.

If you died today, where would that leave your family and your community?

Debt reflects our true priorities.  “Whoever loves money never has money enough” Ecclesiastes 5:10.  How much money do we have to borrow before we have enough?

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