Social Stand

Deuteronomy 15

Have you ever owed your friend money? Maybe you borrowed something for some time and forgot to give it back. I know I have loaned some friends money before and I don’t expect it back. I also borrowed some before and I hope they don’t expect it back. I don’t write down how much I gave them and I don’t accrue interest from them. More than anything I forget about me giving them money. Most of the time it is only a few dollars for food or something, never really any large sums. It is nice when your friend says, “Don’t worry about paying me back” and “You can just keep it.” That means that they are giving you the money and hopefully with no strings attached. In this chapter we see a social care for the people of Israel. It is for those who are in need and poor. The areas Israel needs to care are for those who have been given a loan and those who have sold themselves into slavery. 

Got Debt?

If an Israelite was poor or needed something he acquired a loan for himself. He, of course needed to work or pay off his loan. God commanded Israel to be compassionate to one another. He told them that they can work on their loan for 6 years but in the 7 year they were allowed to be set free. The Hebrews use a word that is in English is called”remission.” This means that they literally dropped or let the loan fall. They did not get a year off of paying the loan; the loan was dropped, it was forgotten. I wish our modern lenders were like this! This was a way God wanted Israel to be looking out for one another. There were going to be those that have more than others but ideally they need to be taking care of those who are less fortunate. In verse 11 God says, “There will never cease to be poor.” There will be people who are poor but then God continues by saying, “You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor in your land.” The goal that God had was that everyone would be taking care of one another. 

A Slave for them 

One of the other ways a poor Israelite would try to pay off debt would be to sell himself into slavery. This was a term based form of slavery. The Lord commanded them to serve 6 years and be released from slavery the 7th year. Not only were they to be released but the owner was to give them provisions and not hold anything back. They were told to load up the slave with provisions, to give an immense amount of goods. The slave had a choice to either leave and be free or voluntarily give himself to be a life long slave to the family because the slave loved the family. If they wanted to stay with the family then there was a ceremony that took place and the slave was considered part of the family. 

The Goal

In these two social issues dealing with poverty we see God wants his people to care for each other. That is what a family should do and what a community is all about. As I was reading this and thinking how nice it would be for those companies that I owe money to would drop the debt on the 7th year, but I know that will never happen. I also thought about those who might be in need at the church. I know that they are not coming to me and asking me for money or to be a slave for me but I know there are some that are hurting. Jesus even said in Matthew 26:6–13 as the women poured the expensive perfume on him that we will always have the poor. We can easily sit back and say, “Well if we are always going to have the poor, what’s the point of helping?” The attitude we need to have is that we as Christians need to be able to meet the needs of people. That is physically and spiritually. They go hand in hand. Christ always helped in the physical healing as well as a spiritual one. There are people in our church community that are in need. I challenge you to be aware of those people and just like God commanded Israel to have their hand wide open to help, may our hands be ever so open willing to help those that need help. I pray that it does not stop there but yet there are those that are poor spiritually. May we point them to the treasure that we have in Jesus Christ by us opening our wallets.