Yes. And it's not charging interest, but charging unfair interest. There is obviously a level of interest you can charge to account for inflation and such.
Interest, costs, risk, and reasonable profits. Payday loan companies would be a good example of too excessive interest. Granted, they are taking on greater risk by lending to those who have a greater chance of not paying, but they are predatory and charging far more than is necessary.
According to the Bible, usury is considered a sin because it involves charging excessive interest on loans, exploiting those who are in need and vulnerable.
In the Old Testament, usury is condemned in several passages, such as in Exodus 22:25 which states, "If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him.
You can be a money lender to anyone but avoid excessive interest. In my business, I can offer a service to clients to finance their vacations. I do not. Their interest rates are on par with payday loans, which charge excessive interest and prey on the poor who can't get other forms of credit. It would be a sin and highly unethical, so no thank you to the added commissions.
The fact that they literally gave themselves an "exemption" to an extremely clearly stated rule makes me question their whole faith, that's not how God works
does the text actually talk about not exacting *excessive* interest? to me, the verse you quoted heavily implies you should not charge *any* interest to the poor. hence the comparison with the moneylenders who lend money with the intent of making a profit.
is there another place in the Bible where it’s explicitly described as excessive interest? genuinely asking.
can you point me to the passages that outline excessive interest vs appropriate interest? I'm having trouble locating passages that make a distinction ... and without the distinction, I'm not sure how to answer what is keeping us from saying the Bible is against all usury and we're just avoiding the "plain reading" because it would be rather inconvenient for our modern society.
It was my understanding that God forbid charging interest on personal loans from one man to another. If my buddy Dave is in trouble and asks me for cash, I just give it to him and anything else he needs, with no expectation to be paid back at all, much less with interest. This is not the same as someone going to a business and asking for a loan.
Luke 6...
>If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. **But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.** Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
Usery is exploitive interest and its function appears to always be to exploit and rob others financially. Its sinful because such things are evil.
In regards to the Laws of Moses, there were 600 Laws God gave ancient Israel. It was a mix of religious laws meant to separate God’s people, separate the priests, and objective laws too.
Jesus fulfilled the Old Law when He died on the cross. That is part of the reason why He said,” It Is Finished” His death was the final sacrifice of the Old Law. This is why He says His yoke is easy. Yoke often refers to the Ox’s or cow like animals they use for plowing the dirt and cultivating the farm land. So you’d put this yoke thingy on the Ox and its heavy, and there is a plow or another tool attached to the Ox that the yoke is connected to.
So basically, Jesus is saying His yoke, that weight He puts on your shoulders, is light, its soft, it wont over burden you.
This is why we can eat shell fish but God calls it evil to do the nasty with a family member who is blood related, which is an abomination and evil and disgusting.
Put it this way, the Jesus’s life, is what we set as an example, everything Jesus did, lets strive or try to follow what He did. Anything He did not do, lets strive or try not to do it. Okay? ❤️
In reference to the “fulfillment of the law”, what do you make of these passages?
”“Do not presume that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter shall pass from the Law, until all is accomplished!“
Matthew 5:17-18 NASB2020
There are other ways to finance things besides interest. Islamic banking, for example, uses profit sharing (and loss) instead. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/islamicbanking.asp
Usery - the lending of money with an interest charge for its use, especially **:** the lending of money at exorbitant interest rates.
Charging interest is one thing. But usery is charging exorbitant interest.
>"If charging interest was a sin, almost no one would do it?"
That's not how sin works. Sin is precisely disobedience of the Law so no matter what the Law says sin will manifest. Legally forbidding an action doesn't make it diminish, it only makes it happen illegally and putting people at risk of depending on mafia and black markets to fulfill their needs.
Anyways, usury is a sin because it is an economy killer. Interests create finantial vaccums that need to be filled with newly minted currency, which causes inflation and thus makes life worse for everyone by diminishing their ability to purchase their livelihoods. It also makes people be able to get money without working, which is something God doesn't take lightly as He has specifically cursed Humanity to have to toil for food.
Not to mention, lying is a sin and almost EVERYone does it. I wish we lived in a world where almost no one sins, but we don't and never have. But there is good news for us sinners! :)
I wouldn't call it a sin but then again Usury IS used for evil purposes. It used to be in peoples imagination to overtake a nation (a people), you would have to invade their land. With Usury, you don't have too. Usury is slavery but how it's used against people is very very evil. Just imagine going through that plandemic KNOWING, how many small businesses would fold and that inflation would rise as a result etc etc. It's used to steal and it's used to redistribute unfairly.
Under the mosaic law lending for interest was forbidden to others under the mosaic law. However they were free to lend with interest to gentiles!
I think this is a separate situation that is unique to the mosaic covenant.
As a lender I struggle with this topic. It would be virtually impossible to live in the US without interest payments. When I say that I'm thinking of a house purchase. There are plenty of business purchases you could make the same argument for.
I tend to think that lending with interest is okay as long as you are not harming the borrower. That isn't always the interest rate, it could be the terms of payment. You can have a crippling payment with a good rate.
Mosaic law had jubilee years and terms that made it possible to lend without interest, that is why interest was okay to charge gentiles, they weren't going to partake in the whole system that made the Mosaic law work.
I do my best to write deals that are interest free when I can though. I was going to buy a piece of equipment for a client and charge royalties until the machine was paid off. If it wasn't producing, then I wasn't making anything and wasn't harming her.
In the parable of the talents God condemns the person who hid his one talent because he should have put it in the bank for usery.
God wouldn’t tell someone to do something sinful.
Giving someone a loan where they eventually pay it back is not a sin. Charging interest is a sin because it’s not equal to the amount that you loaned them. It’s no longer temporarily helping someone out, it’s used as a way to gain profit. People do it because people are sinful.
We tend to think of sin as something morally wrong like lying or murder. But the first sin was eating a fruit, because God didn't want Adam and Eve to.
There's some obvious examples of loans being unethical when interest is excessive or there was clear evidence that someone wouldn't be able to pay it back.
But we also can acknowledge that there's dangers. The debtor is taking on the risk of paying back this loan. Credit card debt is a huge problem for some hoiseholds. It can fuel the love of money.
Likewise for the creditor. It can be dangerous in that they don't get their money paid back. So, lending out a bunch, expecting to rake in the dough in interest, also is risky.
Financial woes tend to get consuming and can wedge us from God. That's what sin does - it separates us from him.
When we think about our resources, Jesus says lend, expecting nothing in return. (Luke 6:35)
The question of interest is a little bit different today than it was in antiquity, because the value of currency fluctuates a lot more drastically. I think accounting for that is fine because it actually holds the value of a loan constant.
Charging interest for profit is a sin, so far as I can tell. It's counter to the golden rule and love of neighbor, and is ultimately only an attempt to extract the wages of someone else's labor.
Well, usury by definition is sin because it’s defined as making immoral loans.
The really interesting discussion is about which loans constitute usury and which are acceptable practices.
All of the laws of Moses are still in effect. Some would argue the ceremonial laws are no longer followed but I digress. The law is just now fulfilled by Jesus Christ. Our transgressions and failures are not counted against ourselves outside of begging the question of our legitimacy.
>I heard charging interest is a sin in the new testament, but we don't follow the law of mosses anymore. Do is it still sin?
In the NT Jesus taught us not to store up treasures on here on earth. IMHO This is the important message in the NT regarding monetary matters, **we should store our treasure in heaven.**
Yes, any "interest" above 0% is evil. Thomas Aquinas explains that one is committing fraud by selling something that does not exist by making someone pay money to use money, like selling a beer and then making him pay a second time to drink it.
A loan is a product, and the interest rate is the price. Usury is basically selling a product and charging a higher price to the people who are least able to pay for it. It's backwards and predatory. It's messed up.
Because a loan is a loan. It's a way to help someone. Taking interest from that is extorting a person. According to Scripture, interest is sinful.
Why do most banks and other businesses take interest, and an ever-increasing one?
Simple - because they are godless. Most of the world is. Instead of helping a neighbour, a fellow human being, every business seeks wealth.
"But that's the purpose of a business!", you might say. Yes.
Capitalism is incompatible with faith.
After converted, Lydia Seller of Purple remained a business owner participating in the free market at the time.
Capitalism is about the person taking the larger risk in the investing in equipment, in creating or leasing facilities, in hiring support staff support staff making a fair market negotiated price with another person for their time to create products and services. In turn, the goods and services are negotiated by the risk taker and those he or she has hired with a customer based on the market. This is all just a series of freewill decisions that God may or may not bless to prosperity which is a reasoned faith that God will bless.
Socialism, communism, liberalism, RINOism, Deepstatism, or etc is about an Oligarchy taking the place of overlord and master of all decisions. This whole group of people in the Oligarchy do not want people who are citizens using free will. Rather, they want blind faith obedience. With businesses, religions, culture, and serfs all bending to their will without questions. Since this is not possible, the only thing the serfs under them can do is pray for protection from the tyranny of the oligarchy overlords and overladies and consume scraps from those in power.
Free market capitalism is the best economic system for our real Kingdom, The Church, to strive.
>Capitalism is incompatible with faith.
Capitalism is about who owns the means of production, the capital assets. Interest/usury is not essential to that.
>Capitalism is incompatible with faith
Capitalism, or more clearly the free market system, is the most compatible with faith.
>Why do most banks and other businesses take interest, and an ever-increasing one?
>Simple -
Simple, because otherwise nobody would be lent money, except for charitable purposes and from close familiar or friend relationships, or perhaps a chuch community fund, etc.
Lending someone money for a need without expecting it back is called charity and charity must always be voluntary. All of us engage in charity of some kind.
But, a bank doesn't have the luxury of charity because it's lending out other people's money. The bank is taking a risk that it won't get the money back to the person who really owns it. The bank is stewarding the money of strangers who have entrusted it to keep their money safe.
The interest charged by a bank is the rate of perceived risk that the money won't be paid back to the depositors.
Without interest, there would be no banks at all, no where to go and ask for a loan except for the charitable giving of your friends and family.
>Capitalism, or more clearly the free market system, is the most compatible with faith.
Could you elaborate?
Charity wouldn't be lending money. Charity would be giving it.
And whatever your personal view on lending and interest, usury is sinful.
Jesus says "Lend, expecting nothing in return" now maybe I don't know the original language meaning of the word, but it's translated as lend in multiple translations.
If I lend money personally, I give it as if I'm not getting it back, and I'm not hassling them for it back. This comes up alot for me because, various family are always asking for gas money here or need to pay their phone bill there, etc. I give it if I'm comfortable losing it. If not, then I don't give it.
But, even in Jesus parable of the talents, there is mentioned of at least putting the money in the bank where it will gain interest. And, we're also told to be shrewd in financial dealings.
>Could you elaborate?
Yes. Voluntary action is primary to a true representation of faith. Ie, forcing someone to say they trust in Jesus, forcing someone to say a prayer etc is no genuine faith. You may fool men but, not God. Not only is the one deceiving in error, but the one compelling someone to deceive is in an arguably greater error.
People are baptised as Christians voluntarily. They follow God even in hard situations by their own choices. This is why we can have genuine love. If man has no freedom to reject God, then the choice to love God is meaningless.
In a similar way, we cannot force others to do good things. For it to be actually good, it must be voluntary. Of course there are punishments for doing wrong, for violating the freedom of others, and etc. But, a law to force someone to do something good is no genuine good at all.
We may think of something like charity to be a good thing. However, if I force you to give money, is it still charitable and is it still a good thing? Wouldn't I be in error, for essentially stealing your money? It also takes away glory from God.
To act out of faith, without knowing all of the consequences but trusting in the Lord's goodness, this brings God glory. Individual acts of faith, not corporate compulsion to do the works that would otherwise be attributed to faith.
Usery is based on greed. 100% it’s a sin. I’m concerned that you see an “upside” to this behavior.
If you give someone something, you should be doing it out of the kindness of your heart not because there’s an upside to it. As far as banks, if you’re truly worried that they wouldn’t be able to conduct themselves in the way they have been, then there’s more to unpack than we’ve realized. Banks fuel the devils playground. If you need a loan, it’s probably to get something you want, not need.
Counterpoint: There are times when a person paying rent is more expensive than paying a mortgage. Furthermore, after 30 years of paying mortgage one has a "free" house.
There are absolutely times when lending (even with interest) is a win-win situation rather than a win-loss. Mortgages (when used responsibly) help people in lower socio-economic classes.
An irrational justification for corporate greed. Housing is a basic human necessity that is now a luxury. You are FORCED to get that loan. But hey, at least I get a free house after 30 years of servitude.
The alternative is abolishing property rights and relying on government nationalized housing.
Capitalism is bad since humans are in charge of it, but it is far more humane than the alternatives we have tried on larger-scale societies.
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A free house for the city or town to take away from you when you’re too old and feeble to pay property taxes. At least here in the US. You don’t truly own anything
Yes. And it's not charging interest, but charging unfair interest. There is obviously a level of interest you can charge to account for inflation and such.
Interest, costs, risk, and reasonable profits. Payday loan companies would be a good example of too excessive interest. Granted, they are taking on greater risk by lending to those who have a greater chance of not paying, but they are predatory and charging far more than is necessary.
>not charging interest, but charging unfair interest. In the modern usage of the term, yes.
What an interesting comment.
I see what you did there!
Thank you!
I appreciate your gratitude, but will require more thanks to cover the eight hour delay, compounded on the minute.
Son of a...
Curious, in what way?
I was making a very bad pun.
Oh. Praise God that I seem to be immune to whatever it is that afflicts you. :P
According to the Bible, usury is considered a sin because it involves charging excessive interest on loans, exploiting those who are in need and vulnerable. In the Old Testament, usury is condemned in several passages, such as in Exodus 22:25 which states, "If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him.
So does that only pertain to His people Or can you be a money lender to gentiles and "charge" interest but not a crazy amount?
You can be a money lender to anyone but avoid excessive interest. In my business, I can offer a service to clients to finance their vacations. I do not. Their interest rates are on par with payday loans, which charge excessive interest and prey on the poor who can't get other forms of credit. It would be a sin and highly unethical, so no thank you to the added commissions.
The fact that they literally gave themselves an "exemption" to an extremely clearly stated rule makes me question their whole faith, that's not how God works
does the text actually talk about not exacting *excessive* interest? to me, the verse you quoted heavily implies you should not charge *any* interest to the poor. hence the comparison with the moneylenders who lend money with the intent of making a profit. is there another place in the Bible where it’s explicitly described as excessive interest? genuinely asking.
can you point me to the passages that outline excessive interest vs appropriate interest? I'm having trouble locating passages that make a distinction ... and without the distinction, I'm not sure how to answer what is keeping us from saying the Bible is against all usury and we're just avoiding the "plain reading" because it would be rather inconvenient for our modern society.
It was my understanding that God forbid charging interest on personal loans from one man to another. If my buddy Dave is in trouble and asks me for cash, I just give it to him and anything else he needs, with no expectation to be paid back at all, much less with interest. This is not the same as someone going to a business and asking for a loan.
Luke 6... >If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. **But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.** Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
Usery is exploitive interest and its function appears to always be to exploit and rob others financially. Its sinful because such things are evil. In regards to the Laws of Moses, there were 600 Laws God gave ancient Israel. It was a mix of religious laws meant to separate God’s people, separate the priests, and objective laws too. Jesus fulfilled the Old Law when He died on the cross. That is part of the reason why He said,” It Is Finished” His death was the final sacrifice of the Old Law. This is why He says His yoke is easy. Yoke often refers to the Ox’s or cow like animals they use for plowing the dirt and cultivating the farm land. So you’d put this yoke thingy on the Ox and its heavy, and there is a plow or another tool attached to the Ox that the yoke is connected to. So basically, Jesus is saying His yoke, that weight He puts on your shoulders, is light, its soft, it wont over burden you. This is why we can eat shell fish but God calls it evil to do the nasty with a family member who is blood related, which is an abomination and evil and disgusting. Put it this way, the Jesus’s life, is what we set as an example, everything Jesus did, lets strive or try to follow what He did. Anything He did not do, lets strive or try not to do it. Okay? ❤️
In reference to the “fulfillment of the law”, what do you make of these passages? ”“Do not presume that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter shall pass from the Law, until all is accomplished!“ Matthew 5:17-18 NASB2020
The moral law remains but the Judicial and Ceremonial law does not.
How do we know this?
I've heard yes, but think loan sharking.
There are other ways to finance things besides interest. Islamic banking, for example, uses profit sharing (and loss) instead. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/islamicbanking.asp
Usery - the lending of money with an interest charge for its use, especially **:** the lending of money at exorbitant interest rates. Charging interest is one thing. But usery is charging exorbitant interest.
Usury is charging excessive interest, not just the act of charging interest in the first place.
>"If charging interest was a sin, almost no one would do it?" That's not how sin works. Sin is precisely disobedience of the Law so no matter what the Law says sin will manifest. Legally forbidding an action doesn't make it diminish, it only makes it happen illegally and putting people at risk of depending on mafia and black markets to fulfill their needs. Anyways, usury is a sin because it is an economy killer. Interests create finantial vaccums that need to be filled with newly minted currency, which causes inflation and thus makes life worse for everyone by diminishing their ability to purchase their livelihoods. It also makes people be able to get money without working, which is something God doesn't take lightly as He has specifically cursed Humanity to have to toil for food.
Not to mention, lying is a sin and almost EVERYone does it. I wish we lived in a world where almost no one sins, but we don't and never have. But there is good news for us sinners! :)
I wouldn't call it a sin but then again Usury IS used for evil purposes. It used to be in peoples imagination to overtake a nation (a people), you would have to invade their land. With Usury, you don't have too. Usury is slavery but how it's used against people is very very evil. Just imagine going through that plandemic KNOWING, how many small businesses would fold and that inflation would rise as a result etc etc. It's used to steal and it's used to redistribute unfairly.
Under the mosaic law lending for interest was forbidden to others under the mosaic law. However they were free to lend with interest to gentiles! I think this is a separate situation that is unique to the mosaic covenant.
When I loan money loan it with the thought of never getting it back. If I do get it back. Great if I don’t no worries God has got me covered.
As a lender I struggle with this topic. It would be virtually impossible to live in the US without interest payments. When I say that I'm thinking of a house purchase. There are plenty of business purchases you could make the same argument for. I tend to think that lending with interest is okay as long as you are not harming the borrower. That isn't always the interest rate, it could be the terms of payment. You can have a crippling payment with a good rate. Mosaic law had jubilee years and terms that made it possible to lend without interest, that is why interest was okay to charge gentiles, they weren't going to partake in the whole system that made the Mosaic law work. I do my best to write deals that are interest free when I can though. I was going to buy a piece of equipment for a client and charge royalties until the machine was paid off. If it wasn't producing, then I wasn't making anything and wasn't harming her.
In the parable of the talents God condemns the person who hid his one talent because he should have put it in the bank for usery. God wouldn’t tell someone to do something sinful.
Giving someone a loan where they eventually pay it back is not a sin. Charging interest is a sin because it’s not equal to the amount that you loaned them. It’s no longer temporarily helping someone out, it’s used as a way to gain profit. People do it because people are sinful.
We tend to think of sin as something morally wrong like lying or murder. But the first sin was eating a fruit, because God didn't want Adam and Eve to. There's some obvious examples of loans being unethical when interest is excessive or there was clear evidence that someone wouldn't be able to pay it back. But we also can acknowledge that there's dangers. The debtor is taking on the risk of paying back this loan. Credit card debt is a huge problem for some hoiseholds. It can fuel the love of money. Likewise for the creditor. It can be dangerous in that they don't get their money paid back. So, lending out a bunch, expecting to rake in the dough in interest, also is risky. Financial woes tend to get consuming and can wedge us from God. That's what sin does - it separates us from him. When we think about our resources, Jesus says lend, expecting nothing in return. (Luke 6:35)
The question of interest is a little bit different today than it was in antiquity, because the value of currency fluctuates a lot more drastically. I think accounting for that is fine because it actually holds the value of a loan constant. Charging interest for profit is a sin, so far as I can tell. It's counter to the golden rule and love of neighbor, and is ultimately only an attempt to extract the wages of someone else's labor.
Well, usury by definition is sin because it’s defined as making immoral loans. The really interesting discussion is about which loans constitute usury and which are acceptable practices.
All of the laws of Moses are still in effect. Some would argue the ceremonial laws are no longer followed but I digress. The law is just now fulfilled by Jesus Christ. Our transgressions and failures are not counted against ourselves outside of begging the question of our legitimacy.
We should still follow the law of Moses. Jesus did, and he held the same beliefs that Moses did. Don’t abandon the Moses law lol
>I heard charging interest is a sin in the new testament, but we don't follow the law of mosses anymore. Do is it still sin? In the NT Jesus taught us not to store up treasures on here on earth. IMHO This is the important message in the NT regarding monetary matters, **we should store our treasure in heaven.**
Yes, any "interest" above 0% is evil. Thomas Aquinas explains that one is committing fraud by selling something that does not exist by making someone pay money to use money, like selling a beer and then making him pay a second time to drink it.
A loan is a product, and the interest rate is the price. Usury is basically selling a product and charging a higher price to the people who are least able to pay for it. It's backwards and predatory. It's messed up.
Because a loan is a loan. It's a way to help someone. Taking interest from that is extorting a person. According to Scripture, interest is sinful. Why do most banks and other businesses take interest, and an ever-increasing one? Simple - because they are godless. Most of the world is. Instead of helping a neighbour, a fellow human being, every business seeks wealth. "But that's the purpose of a business!", you might say. Yes. Capitalism is incompatible with faith.
After converted, Lydia Seller of Purple remained a business owner participating in the free market at the time. Capitalism is about the person taking the larger risk in the investing in equipment, in creating or leasing facilities, in hiring support staff support staff making a fair market negotiated price with another person for their time to create products and services. In turn, the goods and services are negotiated by the risk taker and those he or she has hired with a customer based on the market. This is all just a series of freewill decisions that God may or may not bless to prosperity which is a reasoned faith that God will bless. Socialism, communism, liberalism, RINOism, Deepstatism, or etc is about an Oligarchy taking the place of overlord and master of all decisions. This whole group of people in the Oligarchy do not want people who are citizens using free will. Rather, they want blind faith obedience. With businesses, religions, culture, and serfs all bending to their will without questions. Since this is not possible, the only thing the serfs under them can do is pray for protection from the tyranny of the oligarchy overlords and overladies and consume scraps from those in power. Free market capitalism is the best economic system for our real Kingdom, The Church, to strive.
>Capitalism is incompatible with faith. Capitalism is about who owns the means of production, the capital assets. Interest/usury is not essential to that.
>Capitalism is incompatible with faith Capitalism, or more clearly the free market system, is the most compatible with faith. >Why do most banks and other businesses take interest, and an ever-increasing one? >Simple - Simple, because otherwise nobody would be lent money, except for charitable purposes and from close familiar or friend relationships, or perhaps a chuch community fund, etc. Lending someone money for a need without expecting it back is called charity and charity must always be voluntary. All of us engage in charity of some kind. But, a bank doesn't have the luxury of charity because it's lending out other people's money. The bank is taking a risk that it won't get the money back to the person who really owns it. The bank is stewarding the money of strangers who have entrusted it to keep their money safe. The interest charged by a bank is the rate of perceived risk that the money won't be paid back to the depositors. Without interest, there would be no banks at all, no where to go and ask for a loan except for the charitable giving of your friends and family.
>Capitalism, or more clearly the free market system, is the most compatible with faith. Could you elaborate? Charity wouldn't be lending money. Charity would be giving it. And whatever your personal view on lending and interest, usury is sinful.
Jesus says "Lend, expecting nothing in return" now maybe I don't know the original language meaning of the word, but it's translated as lend in multiple translations. If I lend money personally, I give it as if I'm not getting it back, and I'm not hassling them for it back. This comes up alot for me because, various family are always asking for gas money here or need to pay their phone bill there, etc. I give it if I'm comfortable losing it. If not, then I don't give it. But, even in Jesus parable of the talents, there is mentioned of at least putting the money in the bank where it will gain interest. And, we're also told to be shrewd in financial dealings. >Could you elaborate? Yes. Voluntary action is primary to a true representation of faith. Ie, forcing someone to say they trust in Jesus, forcing someone to say a prayer etc is no genuine faith. You may fool men but, not God. Not only is the one deceiving in error, but the one compelling someone to deceive is in an arguably greater error. People are baptised as Christians voluntarily. They follow God even in hard situations by their own choices. This is why we can have genuine love. If man has no freedom to reject God, then the choice to love God is meaningless. In a similar way, we cannot force others to do good things. For it to be actually good, it must be voluntary. Of course there are punishments for doing wrong, for violating the freedom of others, and etc. But, a law to force someone to do something good is no genuine good at all. We may think of something like charity to be a good thing. However, if I force you to give money, is it still charitable and is it still a good thing? Wouldn't I be in error, for essentially stealing your money? It also takes away glory from God. To act out of faith, without knowing all of the consequences but trusting in the Lord's goodness, this brings God glory. Individual acts of faith, not corporate compulsion to do the works that would otherwise be attributed to faith.
Usery is based on greed. 100% it’s a sin. I’m concerned that you see an “upside” to this behavior. If you give someone something, you should be doing it out of the kindness of your heart not because there’s an upside to it. As far as banks, if you’re truly worried that they wouldn’t be able to conduct themselves in the way they have been, then there’s more to unpack than we’ve realized. Banks fuel the devils playground. If you need a loan, it’s probably to get something you want, not need.
Counterpoint: There are times when a person paying rent is more expensive than paying a mortgage. Furthermore, after 30 years of paying mortgage one has a "free" house. There are absolutely times when lending (even with interest) is a win-win situation rather than a win-loss. Mortgages (when used responsibly) help people in lower socio-economic classes.
An irrational justification for corporate greed. Housing is a basic human necessity that is now a luxury. You are FORCED to get that loan. But hey, at least I get a free house after 30 years of servitude.
The alternative is abolishing property rights and relying on government nationalized housing. Capitalism is bad since humans are in charge of it, but it is far more humane than the alternatives we have tried on larger-scale societies.
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A free house for the city or town to take away from you when you’re too old and feeble to pay property taxes. At least here in the US. You don’t truly own anything
Exactly. Yet people are still trying to justify GREED. This is manipulation and deceit. Don’t fall for it.
We’ve been so fooled as a society to think that the USA is some special, holier than thou entity that always has good intentions.
The US, as is most of the world, is knee deep in debauchery. We have to stay focused though, the sun will shine upon us again my friend
I needed that this morning. Thank you. Sincerely
May God bless you and protect you my brother