One who lacks sense gives a pledge and puts up security in the presence of his neighbor.
Slavery is among the panoply of Ultimate Evil in the American conception. To be a slave is a terrible fate; to be a slaver a sin with few peers; to endorse slavery as a system, a nation, a church, that is an evil disqualifying from sympathy. The Biblical analysis of our culture, however, would find this incongruous, even hypocritical. Why? Because the Biblical understanding of slavery does not limit it to formal chattel slavery; it includes in its analysis also temporary servitude (Ex. 21:2), willing enslavement (Ex. 21:5-6), forms of slavery not yet extricable from the culture (Philemon as a whole), and, most foreign to the American concept, the slavery which is debt.
This last assertion is strange to us. Debt is a form of slavery? Yet debt is the constant state of much of America, the bedrock of its economic system, and America is a free nation, not given over to slavery. That’s the hypocrisy I mentioned, the incongruity. Scripture is clear nevertheless: “The borrower is the slave of the lender” (Proverbs. 22:7b).
For what is slavery? It is the lack of freedom; it is that the owner has the authority to order the actions of the slave in regards to various parts of his life otherwise left to his own hand, particularly the economic but also (with greater or lesser directness) the familial and religious. Debt provides the creditor power over the debtor, power particularly over the debtor’s economic action; the creditor, in the bluntest terms, owns a portion of the debtor’s work, even if the ownership’s fullness is deferred by agreement, as Blackstone states.1 Debt can also provide, through this economic power, power over other aspects of the debtor’s life. Thus, debt is slavery, though the strength of its bond varies with magnitude, legal situation, and culture.
This proverb, however, is not a condemnation of debt as immoral. God does not call lending or being lent to a sin (Lev. 25:36-37). This proverb instead addresses the imprudence and undesirability of debt. To ‘put up security’ is to offer collateral for a loan, to say, “If I cannot pay, if he cannot pay, then you shall have this which I pledge.” Like all elements of debt, it involves submitting a part of the debtor’s life which was free to the power (and authority, in some cases) of the creditor who lends to him. This is particularly foolish when the person giving pledge is not the debtor, when I put up security for another, as then I put myself in the power of the debtor. Unless he is of sterling character and capable of repaying, this is a foolish waste (Prov. 6:1-5).
To lend or be lent to, however, is not an intrinsically evil or unjustifiable act. What is condemned in Scripture is not the bare act but undertaking it without recognizing and accounting for its gravity. In Proverbs 6, the father does not chastise his son for it as for doing evil, nor does he warn his son with the same terms as he uses in speaking of the adulteress, whose “feet go down to death,” whose “steps follow the path to Sheol” (Prov. 5:5). The tone is of instruction and reproof, yes, but it is of reproving imprudence and haste, lack of consideration and lack of care.
God indeed has a place in His law for the lender and the debtor, provided they both act with wisdom and such restraint as is available to them. This world is a tumultuous place, and even the best course can lead to a downfall, to poverty. A hurricane, a sickness, an unexpected betrayal, these can all bring ruin to a man’s business. In such circumstances, God instructs His people to care for their brothers in Christ, even to the point of lending without interest: “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.” Lest this be taken as mere recognition of a practice, not endorsement, consider the approbation given in Psalm 112:5, which reads, “It is well with the man who deals generously and lends[,] who conducts his affairs with justice.”
Further, we look to Deuteronomy 15:6, wherein God promises to Israel, “For the Lord your God will bless you, as he promised you, and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow….” This, in light of Matthew 18:7’s condemnation of those who promote sin to others, necessitates (unless God is a sinner, which would be blasphemous to assert) that lending and being lent to are not themselves immoral. This passage, however, alongside Proverbs 22:7 quoted above and today’s particular proverb, tells us what the issue of debt is: to be in debt is to be in submission. In some cases, circumstance warrants this; in some cases, God ordains it, as a part of the church’s conquest of the world, that brings to His people the “glory of the nations like an overflowing stream” (Is. 66:12). In others, as when a man submits himself to another for the sake of his own greed or fear or for the sake of one who does not have the character to warrant the risk, God does not commend or condone this submission; it is authority improperly given.
So for us, in our current state, the lesson is this: be cautious of debt. Be cautious also of who that debt is held by. A trustworthy Christian brother is a better master, to the debt-slave, than the pagan foe. Debt can be justified; debt can be necessary. It is, however, something to be avoided when possible, a drag and a weight against fulfillment of dominion, for it gives over dominion which should be the debtor’s to his creditor, if only temporarily. Even the world in debt to the church, as seen above, in time leaves that servitude through the cleansing of His blood, by becoming a true part of the church, grafted onto the vine. Above all, we must remember this: that Christ paid our debt with God, which is the controlling fact of our relationship with all worldly debt (Matt. 18:21-35).
God bless.
Written by Colson Potter.
1 – “If A’s income amounts to 100l. per annum; and he is so far indebted to B, that he pays him 50l. per annum for his interest; one half of the value of A’s property is transferred to B the creditor.” William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England; Book the First. <https://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/30802/pg30802-images.html>.
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
