Articles
Keeping Our Word & Paying Our Debts
Keeping Our Word & Paying Our Debts
by Bill Crews
The Bible is very strong on (1) keeping our promises and (2) paying our debts (Ecclesiastes 5:2, 4-5; Numbers 30:2; Romans 13:8; Ephesians 4:25; Colossians 3:9). We are not to go back on our word or fail to repay that which we have borrowed. We should strive to keep our word. A track record of broken promises or unkept commitments is a very bad track record.
There is nothing sinful or shameful in borrowing money. It may be embarrassing to have to do so, but we can recover from that. If our folly or carelessness put us into a situation in which we had to borrow, we should work on that and endeavor not to repeat the mistake.
But the mere step of borrowing money is not in itself either sinful or shameful. What is both sinful and shameful is a deliberate or careless failure to pay back what we have borrowed, and the world is full of people who have done and continue to do that. Many of them profess to be Christians. To use the words of James: “My brethren, these things ought not so to be” (James 3:10).
