Being debt-free is not a “Christian thing”, it’s a “good idea for everyone” thing… but if you happen to be Christian you might be curious to know what the bible has to say about debt.
It turns out the bible has a lot to say about debt and finances! One of the bible verses about finances is Proverbs 22:7
“The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.”
Hmmmm, the borrow is slave of the lender… this means that depending on the type of debt you have you are a slave of… credit card companies, banks, financing companies, payday lenders, mortgage companies, student loan lenders, etc…
Being a slave doesn’t sound very appealing, but the really crazy thing about it is that we willingly make ourselves slaves!
If we are slaves that means we have a master, and in the case of debt our master is our creditor.
Interestingly Matthew 6:24 says:
“No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”
As Christians we should want our master to be God… but as long as we have debt we are have a master that is not God and as Matthew 6:24 says we cannot serve two masters. This means that as long as we have debt we are not fully free to serve God!
If you think about it it actually makes sense. Let’s say God wants to call you to make a large financial donation to someone, or to take a lower paying job that will bring Him glory, but you have crushing debt payments and are living pay-cheque to pay-cheque, your debt could hold you back from following that call.
Just to be clear… the bible does not say that having debt is a sin, but it does make it pretty clear that debt is not a good thing and that debt can prevent us from serving God as fully as He wants us to.
But there is good news! A simple way to serve God is to get out of debt! (Notice I said simple, not easy, because getting out of debt may not necessarily be easy for everyone).
God wants you to be free of other masters so that you can serve Him fully!