Until only very recently the only verses that I remember about debt are in Proverbs that says whomever owes money to somebody is slave to the lender and in the New Testament where Jesus told his disciples not to become a borrower but a lender. Having experienced being in debt myself, I can totally relate to the previous verse – considering the distress and sleepless nights I had had then, I had felt that I had been a slave to my lender.

But through the seminar by Crown Financial Ministries in Jakarta just very recently, I learned that the Bible does not exactly have a strong voice against debt completely. The fact is that there are no verses that specifically says that debt is a sin. But there are verses that actually regulates the lending process, which means, debt is not completely banned by the Bible.

Just like everything else in the world, debt in itself can be pretty harmless and even helpful but depending on how you ‘use’ debt as well as other things in life such as money, it can be evil and destructive. As long as you as either the lender or the borrower follow the biblical principles about lending and being in debt, being in debt does not necessarily mean being a slave to the lender.

Thanks to Matt Elsberry and his Crown team in Jakarta, I can share with you the 4 important principles of borrowing or lending:

1. Be Committed To Pay Back

If you have taken out a loan, your responsibility is to pay it off in the future, no matter what. This rules out your option to file for bankruptcy. If you don’t think you can afford to pay it back, then don’t take a loan. Simple as that.

2. Limits On Interest

If you are thinking of taking out a loan make sure that you are not going to have to pay a huge amount of interest. If you are a lender, it is not biblical to charge excess interest.

Throughout the history of Christianity and the Church, Christian leaders have taught the Biblical principle to not exact usury on a loan for personal profit. Today, usury is thought of as charging excess interest but the actual meaning of the word is charging any interest. Martin Luther commented, “After the devil there is no greater human enemy on earth than a miser and usurer, for he desires to be above everyone else.” In the Gospel of John, Jesus said that Satan as a thief only wants to kill, destroy and rob and if you carefully think about it, committing usury is committing robbery.

If you are a borrower, make sure that you only take out a short-term loan with a short repayment schedule. The longer it takes to repay your debt, the higher the interest that you will have to pay.

Think many times before actually signing up to any commitment. You will have to pay off the debt. If the repayment will take away your freedom to choose to move, to come and go as you please, it is probably a better idea not to borrow.

3. Do Not Borrow Based On Future Presumption Only

This is something that many people are doing. Many years ago a friend of mine who was then an Architecture student came to me to borrow a big amount of money. He said that he was getting a freelance design job in the next few days and he told me he would be able to pay off the money he was going to borrow from the payment of that job. I was very young and inexperienced at the time and he was also a good friend of mine so I lent him the money based on his future presumption about the design job.

A few days later the project owner contacted my friend and said that they had to cancel the design job for some reason. All of the sudden, my friend lost the income he was going to use to pay me back. After that this friend of mine had great difficulty paying off his debt.

The future is not in our hands. Nobody knows what will happen two days, one day or even one minute from now. That is why you should never take out a loan based on future presumptions only!

4. Have collateral

The safest way to borrow money is applying for a secured loan. The idea here is that you may have the freedom from worry and distress if you find yourself in a situation where you can not repay your debt. Should you ever be in this situation, all you have to do is go to your lender and tell them to just take what you have offered as collateral. It will save yourself from distress and sleepless nights. But of course the consequence here is that you will have to be ready to lose what you put up for collateral.

As you are considering whether to be and live in debt or not, remember always that it is your freedom and the freedom of your family that you are putting at stake. If you can be in debt without ‘selling’ that freedom, you are free to take it.

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