I felt like this was a very technical issue that need to be approached methodically.

I’m not claiming that Ps 37:21 is a lie. However, I am claiming Proverbs are not direct cause and effect promised offered by God. In other words, the Proverbs are general truths that when you abide by them they generally are true – but there are exceptions.

I think the danger is that one might take a word used in the Bible and define it by a present day context.

I think the historical consequence is a very important part of this conversation because people didn’t borrow then like we borrow today. Our first job is to find the points of comparison and then apply that today.

For an extreme example, if I were to find an older translation that uses the word ‘gay’ for ‘happy’. I can’t teach that the Bible teaches us to be homosexual.

I think we take the word debt and apply it to our context without first filtering it through the context and setting of the Bible.

If the consequences are different then the application is different as well.

I don’t teach people to use debt. I don’t use debt. However, if someone says they are going to borrow $3,000 to buy a car I don’t feel like they are a ‘slave’. I think that word is too strong today. Instead, I want them to understand that they now have an obligation and responsibility to that person. If one takes on too much debt then their obligations mount up beyond their ability to replay and they will lose certain rights over their lives. Still, with the long US history of slavery that word does not properly communicate what I think the Bible wishes to communicate about debt.

Otherwise, you’re suggesting that the psalmist at Psalm 37:21 is lying. Just because the worldly consequences of not repaying a debt are different now than in the past doesn’t mean that the spiritual consequences are any different. Not repaying a debt is a sin, an old one. It’s _theft_ (that’s commandment number 8, and it’s often done in the pursuit of violating commandment number 10). We have a moral obligation to our lenders, and going into debt is a weak form of testing God (you’re presuming your current state of “financial grace” will remain, which it may not — a lesson Job learned the hard way). Every single time the Bible talks about debt it does so in a negative light. It’s not that borrowing is a sin, but rather it’s trouble prone and usually an unnecessary practice — it’s like drinking alcohol. You can certainly do it without sinning, but it’s highly correlated with sinful activity, so if you’re doing a lot of it, you better check yourself.

On top of all this, if you look at the Hebrew root “a-bad” (servant/slave in this verse), you find that root in all of these translated words from the Bible: slave, bondage, bond servant, burdened, cultivate, do the work, enslaved, holding in bondage, imposed, keeper, laborers, servant, manufacturers, performers, plowed, rendered, served, subject, tiller, uses services, workers, working.

The “servant” and “worker” translations are used more often than “slave” for words with the “a-bad” root. So I think the verse is still valid if you say “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower (is burdened by, is imposed upon by, labors for, serves, works for, is the servant of) the lender.” All of those words have the same root and could probably be snapped into the verse without changing its core meaning.

So I don’t think there’s any besmirching of people who went into indentured servitude or even slavery 200+ years ago in this verse or in the modern use of it — I think people like Dave Ramsey are using it just as it was intended — remember, we’re resident aliens on this earth — sin is still sin, even if we’ve made it relatively painless to sin in our modern society — that’s not always progress.

Good for you if you pay back your loan. Consider yourself very fortunate. Others, however, unexpectedly lost their jobs, lost their
homes, lost their lives. Circumstances beyond our control happen daily: it is part of a fallen world.

I naively thought my job would continue for several years while I pay back my loan. What a fool I was. I became a slave
to my lenders for years, and my lenders had not a shred of compassion for my situation, but instead harassed me non-stop. It was the most
horrible, harrowing thing I have ever experienced.

So I am here to confirm the truth of Proverbs 22:7. Just because you paid back your loan this time doesn’t mean this passage will be untrue
the next time you borrow.

We tend to agree that the meaning of words do change over time. Have the words rich and poor also changed over time? We would answer in the affirmative, but we will save that for another discussion. Examining the origins of these words, in the Hebrew and Greek, makes for a very interesting study.

We would agree that during the boom cycle, borrowing was more a matter of convenience than a necessity, but since the year 2000 (the bust cycle) we’ve experienced a continual barrage of economic disasters, one after another, and, as a result, more and more people are now using revolving credit for basic needs (food, shelter, utilities, and clothing) to bridge the gap between declining incomes and ever increasing expenses. But Proverbs 22:7 makes no issue of what the borrowed money is to be used for, but focuses, instead, on the slave/master relationship that is cultivated. Might not a loving Creator, who is no respecter of persons, desire that we not contribute to such divisive class distinctions by unequally yoking ourselves in such a relationship (James 2:1-9)? And, is not such a relationship subject to the human frailties Paul describes in Romans 7:14-25, no matter how well intentioned the parties to the relationship may be going into it?

Other questions that we would throw out for discussion are: What circumstances would warrant us giving up a portion or all of our freedom? And, to whom or for what would we be willing to give up this freedom? Are people today really that much different from their predecessors of old? Have not people of all ages and dispensations struggled with the issue of debt and debt’s not so distant cousins named chiefly…the lust of the eye and the pride of life? Is keeping up with the Jones’s a unique phenomenon of the 20th or 21st century? See Ecclesiastes 1:9.

The ball-and-chain slave of yesteryear certainly understood the full meaning of slavery. The reason a ball and chain was used was because the slave of yesteryear would escape if given a reasonable opportunity. The debt slave, however, might not have such an awareness, but may be just as enslaved as his or her ancestors were or possibly even more so. Which type of slave is the more despicable human condition…the one who knows he is a slave and would seek to escape from bondage at the first opportunity or the one who doesn’t recognize his despicable condition and keeps coming back for more debt just like an abused spouse will often cling to their abuser and, in so doing, fosters a rather perverse co-dependent relationship?

In today’s age of enslavement, does not the lender have more to gain by keeping the borrower on the hamster wheel of perpetual debt, for as long as possible, than he stands to gain by throwing him in jail? This is an especially important consideration when the lender knows, as a result of political lobbying efforts, that a bad loan will be made good by taxpayer backstopping (bailouts). The slave masters, in today’s highly technological age, may have smartened up a little while their subjects have remained somewhat aloof to the dummying down process inherent in an educational system that, more often than not, represents the interests of the oppressive rich. To be perfectly clear, the tool of the oppressive rich is not capitalism, but rather crony capitalism. We’ve not seen true capitalism in a half century or more.

In our view, scripture neither lets the slothful poor nor the oppressive rich off the hook. We see a symbiotic and unhealthy co-dependent relationship between the two. And, we certainly need not lump the rich in with the oppressive rich nor lump the poor in with the slothful poor because there is a big difference between the two that often gets shoved by the wayside in these discussions. The key distinction that serves to differentiate the rich from the oppressive rich and the poor from the slothful poor is who they are serving. The oppressive rich and the slothful poor are both slaves…to the flesh.

This being said, I cannot believe we are taking the verse out of context by interpreting it as a warning to those today who voluntarily put themselves into the bondage of debt. The lender has some responsibility to be an honorable person, but the borrower (in today’s world) is not being forced to borrow the money. Like you say, “today borrowing is a function of convenience”.

In the end, debt is a type of servitude (different today than it was thousands of years ago, but still servitude) and I believe Proverbs 22:7 is an apt warning of this bondage to those who voluntarily borrow money for convenience.

Over 7 years ago I felt I was enslaved. I was a divorced Dad living in rural Oregon, with joint custody of my son. Then I got downsized from a very lucrative job. I had to take a job in Seattle to keep bill current. Every weekend drove home (6 hours) so I could be there for my boy. That is when I started listening to radio talk shows and heard DR. I was able to get out of debt and take a huge cut in pay and work in same town. I am able to go to all his games now, be with him daily. My car payments, toys, debt kept me away from my son. He graduates next year and I have options now that I am debt free.