The envelope from the credit union sits on the kitchen table next to a phone showing a WhatsApp message from a cousin in Montego Bay. The envelope is a reminder of the loan you took for the extension. The message is a request: could you help with school fees again this term, just until things pick up? You look from one to the other, and a verse you have heard preached many times comes to mind, not entirely comfortably. “You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.”
A promise to a people
Deuteronomy 28 is a long chapter of blessings and warnings given to Israel as they prepared to enter the land. Among the blessings is this: “The Lord will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow” (Deuteronomy 28:12, NKJV).
It is worth reading carefully. This is a promise made to a nation, bound up with a covenant, not a guarantee that every faithful individual will be debt-free. Faithful people in Scripture were sometimes poor. Faithful families today sometimes need a mortgage to have a roof over their heads, and that is not a sign of God’s displeasure.
But the picture still teaches us something. In God’s vision of a flourishing community, people are not crushed by debt. They have enough to be generous. Their work is blessed, the rain comes in season, and they are in a position to help others rather than always needing help themselves.
The weight of owing
Anyone who has carried heavy debt knows how it changes the atmosphere of a home. Proverbs puts it bluntly: “the borrower is servant to the lender” (Proverbs 22:7, NKJV). Payments dictate decisions. Anxiety creeps into conversations. Couples argue about money that has already been spent. Generosity shrinks because there is simply nothing left over.
Some debt is taken on wisely, for a home or an education, with a clear plan to repay. Some creeps up through a hundred small decisions: the store card, the phone on credit, the loan from a colleague to cover a shortfall that then becomes permanent. Either way, the goal Deuteronomy points towards is freedom, a household no longer ruled by what it owes.
Paul gives a striking twist to the idea: “Owe no one anything except to love one another” (Romans 13:8, NKJV). The only debt we should never finish paying is love.
Lending within the family
Then there is the cousin’s message. In Caribbean families, money flows constantly between relatives: from abroad to home, from the working sibling to the one who is struggling, from the one who “has it” to the one who asks. Much of this is beautiful, a living expression of family loyalty. Some of it is complicated, when “loans” are never repaid and nobody wants to say so, or when one person quietly carries everyone else.
The Psalmist observes that the righteous person “shows mercy and gives” (Psalm 37:21, NKJV). Scripture’s instinct is towards open-handedness. But wisdom also matters. It is not generous to lend money you need for your own mortgage and then fall behind yourself. It is not kind to call something a loan when you both know it is a gift, and then resent it for years.
Some families find it helps to be honest: to give what they can afford as a gift, with no expectation of repayment, rather than lend and hope. Others keep lending to a clear, written arrangement that both sides understand. And sometimes the loving answer is “not this time”, said kindly and without shame.
Moving towards the lending side
Most of us will not move from borrower to lender overnight. But the direction matters. Paying down the costliest debt first. Saying no to new credit for things that can wait. Building a small emergency fund so the next crisis does not mean another loan. Talking honestly as a couple, with the statements on the table. Asking a trusted adviser or your lender for help before arrears build up.
Each step moves a household a little closer to the picture in Deuteronomy: not wealth for its own sake, but enough freedom to be generous, to answer a cousin’s message with a glad heart, and to sleep without the envelope on the table keeping you awake.
For reflection
- How does debt, or the fear of it, shape the atmosphere in my home?
- In my family, is there money I have “lent” that I would be wiser, and more at peace, to treat as a gift?
A short prayer: Lord, you are the giver of every good thing. Free our household from debts that rule us. Give us wisdom with what we owe and generosity with what we have, so that we may be a help to others and not only in need of help. Amen.
This article is general information only and is not financial, legal, tax or other professional advice. Please speak to a qualified professional about your own circumstances.
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