Is Charging or Earning Interest a Sin?
by David K. Bernard
Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript)
Kind: teaching
Scripture: Exodus 22:25, Matthew 25

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--is-charging-or-earning-interest-a-sin
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

------------------------------------------------------------
the short answer is no and let's go back to the old testament yes there are a number of passages that say the the king james version uses the term usury which can mean simply interest or it can also mean excessive interest which is usually how it's used in american law but either way i think the most important thing is to understand that those old testament teachings were given to ancient israel that had a subsistence or agrarian economy and what i mean by that is almost everyone survived by farming or crafts and there there had to be a few people that were merchants or shopkeepers but basically everybody raised food for their own family and they traded with other families for what they needed so in that context what are you talking about it's not talking about in the modern sense of i want to build a building so i got to borrow money or i want to buy a large house so i'm going to borrow money in ancient times people built their own house or neighbors would come together and build the house a very simple structure and so there wasn't the a modern economy there wasn't the the business economy that we have so you have to understand that command in context so what is it talking about it's somewhat someone who's so poor that they don't have food and so they come to you and they say i've used up all my grain it's three months before the harvest i planted but i've run out my family has grown i didn't some of my food spoiled i didn't have a good harvest and i'm desperate i'll pay you whatever if you'll give me some grain for the next three months i'll i'll pay whatever and so the bible is saying don't take advantage of your neighbor your brother now if it's some stranger passing through charge of interest because you don't even need to be there but if it's your own neighbor your own brother don't try to profit off with your suffering don't say yeah i'll give you food but you got to pay me 20 interest because you're gouging them you're taking advantage of their hardship so don't if you're gonna lend just just lend it straight across and in three months when his harvest comes in he can give you that amount of grain back so it's it's talking in the sense of take care of your your neighbors help them if they have to borrow let them borrow freely don't try to profit off of their need or their crisis um so that's the that's the context of that and i think that's still relevant in fact jesus actually went more than that in the storm on the mount he says someone has to borrow just give it to them now again put that in context does that mean hey brother moore you believe in jesus right i need a thousand bucks can i borrow a thousand bucks well wait a minute in fact i i expect you to give that to me because i'm your brother and jesus said if somebody asked to borrow just give it to them no it would be in the same context if i say brother moore i've run out of money i'm struggling i'm a home missions pastor could you just could you loan me a hundred dollars and whenever i can earn it i'll give you that hundred back and what would you say i'll give you the hundred dollars don't forget about that you know i'm not gonna done you as my brother you're in need you're struggling you're trying to do god's work i have a hundred dollars you don't i'll give you the hundred dollars so that same principle it's still a pr apply but that doesn't mean i would say you know i'm thinking about starting a business i need a thousand bucks i need 10 people to give me a thousand bucks so i can start this business make lots of money but don't charge interest in fact i'd just like for you to give it to me so you can easily see where you take it out of context now you might say well that's some fancy footwork here that's not really true well i'll give you jesus christ matthew 25 jesus gives the parable of this um this owner this rich person who gives some money talents but that's a currency or that you know that's metal currency money and he gives five talents to one and uh two talents and one talent so he comes back from his journey the man with five talents has multiplied it with ten so apparently he's done business trading the man with two has multiplied it to four and the man with only one says well i knew you would be very strict so i just kept it and hid it so i wouldn't lose it here it is back and the lord the master rebuked him and of course sent him into punishment because you you by your own admission say i'm a hard taskmaster i expect a return on my investment i expect my servants to work hard well you should have put the money at the bank and earned interest at least if you you know if you weren't enterprising like these other people and started a business and doubled your money and you know you weren't aggressive and going out and traded barred and you know increased at least you could have earned a 10 return by going to the bank now jesus would never tell that parable if it if it was sinful okay he is actually in the parable he's recommending at least you could have earned interest so we know in a business context jesus himself said yes it's appropriate to invest your money and earn interest in fact that's the least you can do that's the safe thing you can do so if we if we are in the ancient agrarian or personal context of helping a needy brother right we shouldn't charge interest in fact we probably should just give it if we can but if we are in a business context there's nothing wrong with earning interest now looking at it from an economic point of view think of it this way interest is just the cost of borrowing money it so everything has a cost of using something and so interest is just what you're paying to rent money so for instance let's say you have um a second home or maybe even you just have a garage apartment or something and you say and i say look i'd like to live there and you say okay fine and you charge me rent would that be unfair no but that is that rent is the cost of using that house because you could do other things with the house you could use it yourself and anyway you're going to have to pay something in utilities wear and tear repairs maintenance mowing the yard whatever so the rent is just the reasonable price for using your property so nobody would think it's wrong for you to charge rent in fact everybody would think it's wrong if i expect to live in your house for a year and not pay you anything okay interest is this renting money so i have a thousand dollars i could invest it i could start a business i could buy a thousand dollars worth of supplies turn around and sell them and make profit but instead i'm going to let you use it for a while so that you can use that money and you can go into business and you can buy some things and resell them at a profit well if you're using my money to make a profit isn't it reasonable that you share just a little bit of that profit with me because you're using my money for a whole year i could be making a profit i could probably be making more profit than interest but for whatever reason either i don't want to risk or i want to help you out or i figure if i do this a lot of people i'll come out ahead uh so i'm letting you use my money for a whole year so that you can make money well that's the cost of you renting that money or another way you're just giving me a small part of your profits back to me it's like we went in business for ourself but you got 90 of the profits i only got 10 of the profits so if you look at it as the cost of renting money or as a partnership where somebody who has money is contributing the money to the partnership why are the other guys contributing the labor to the partnership well then you can see that interest there's nothing nefarious there's nothing dishonest it's not like getting money for nothing it's not like gouging someone it's not like preying on someone it's actually just a business deal now here i'll give you a good example the united pentecostal church has a loan fund which we use and we've blessed hundreds of churches that they've been able to buy property building or renovate property building or refinance and lower the rate so here's the point churches typically in our culture they need a place to worship and over time the best and most efficient way a most productive way is to to own their own building if they can and i can speak as a former pastor having a building represent the growth of our church and in fact by owning a building we were able to increase our size or to create increase missions giving in fact during my time we ended up giving as much to missions as we paid for our building but we could have never grown to give that much to business if we hadn't had a building so it was like a tool that enabled us to grow and even from a financial perspective it enabled us to invest in the kingdom of god in world missions so it's just a tool but to get that i had to borrow money so i had to pay interest to secular people well now under the loan fund we're not gouging our brothers but you can pay to the loan fund the loan fund will turn around and reinvest that same money into the next guy who wants it and if it does end up with a little profit because they have to pay costs so so that interest is not just free money you have to pay a lot of associated costs for operating all that but let's say you come out ahead well then they donate to more ministries so which would you rather do as a church you need a building as a tool so you can grow so you can give to mission so you can win souls but to have that tool you got to pay money to a bank and they're there the centers are going to profit off of it well instead you could give that money to the church you know think of it as a donation if you want and the church in turns will service that the church will use that same money to help other churches buy their buildings and if there's anything left over the church the the loan fund will give to a missions program so now your money is actually being reinvested to benefit the kingdom of god well that's totally not the concern in the old testament of gouging your brother actually it's a mutual benefit where we're partnering together to grow the kingdom of god so in that context i think god would if he would if he would admonish that one servant for not making more money i think he would commend us for using our money instead of giving it to the secular system to give it