Pay Your Debts

A person who borrows and doesn’t pay back is clearly violating Romans 13:7-8. It reads "Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour. Owe no man any thing, but to love on another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law." The Old Testament taught the same thing in Psalms 37:21 – "The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again: but the righteous sheweth mercy, and giveth." That is simply the way it is.

When a person borrows money and doesn’t repay, he is stealing from the one who loaned him the money. Ephesians 4:28 prohibits that by saying "Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth." A person who steals in this way is not providing "for his own" as I Timothy 5:8 requires, but is forcing the lender to provide for the borrower’s family.

When a person agrees to repay a loan and then doesn’t, he is violating God’s law concerning doing what you agree to do (see Matthew 5:33-37, Romans 12:17b, and II Corinthians 8:21). He is letting his "love of money" (I Timothy 6:10) get in the way of his seeking "first the kingdom of God and His righteousness" (Matthew 6:33). He is violating Matthew 6:19-21 which reads, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth (worldly possessions bought with borrowed money in these cases), where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

And just because the government makes legal reneging on agreements to pay loans back (called bankruptcy in America), that doesn’t make it right. Does the government legalizing gay marriage make that right?

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