Posted on: 10th September 2025

We borrow a lot of money. We owe a lot of money.

USA President Herbert Hoover used to say, “Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt.”

During the last year, we (the United Kingdom) borrowed an additional £150 billion, and the total now stands at nearly £3 trillion pounds. Incomprehensible! As a country, we owe £40,000 each (men, women and children)!

In addition, as individuals, how we live is also based on debt. There is the overt borrowing of mortgages, credit cards and student loans; the obscured borrowing of the car on PCP or the negative balance on our electricity bill; the hidden borrowing of the ride in the taxi (borrowing someone’s car) or the stay in the Airbnb (borrowing someone’s home).

In fact, the earliest form of financial transaction took the form of debt – I borrow your cow for milk and in exchange, you borrow my plough to dig your field. Money only came into being when I didn’t have something to trade, which was of sufficient value for what I owed you. So we made coins which I could give you and which were worth something and which you could use to trade elsewhere.

In fact, if you look at a five-pound note today, you’ll see a picture of King Charles - and read his promise to pay you the sum of five pounds. So that fiver is actually an IOU, a debt.

Is this OK? What does the bible say?

In Deuteronomy 15:6-8 we read, “For the Lord your God will bless you as He has promised, and you will lend to many nations but will borrow from none…. If anyone is poor … do not be hard-hearted or tightfisted toward them. Rather, be open-handed and freely lend them whatever they need. 

Psalm 112:5 says, “Good will come to those who are generous and lend freely, who conduct their affairs with justice.”

These are examples of the bible’s affirmation of lending (and borrowing), accepting that it will happen, but then there is also plenty of cautionary guidance. For example:

• In the Deuteronomy passages, the inference we should take is that you are blessed if you are able to lend but not if you need to borrow.
• Proverbs 6 has a colourful warning about acting as a guarantor for someone else’s loan (“free yourself like a gazelle from the hand of a hunter”).
• Often, the scriptures tell the Israelites to lend to one another without charging interest.
• Psalm 37:21 implies that when you borrow money you have an obligation to repay it, “The wicked borrow and do not repay, but the righteous give generously”.
• In Proverbs 22:7, we are warned that, “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.

It is here that the red flags flutter. Herein lies danger: the power imbalance that debt introduces into relationships, the way a loan creates ruler-to-slave friction.

Jesus tells us that we can't serve both God and money (Matthew 6:24). Not because money is bad, but because it relocates the object of our worship and service from God to our debts. When we owe money, which we must repay, the first call on our funds is the bank, not God (try telling the mortgage company that you can't make your payment this month because you are tithing to your church). The debt forces the borrower to answer to the lender – which thus makes a land grab for what should belong to God.

All in all, I conclude from this that although scripture accepts the existence and occasional usefulness of borrowing, the counsel is, "avoid the use of debt, but if it is necessary, be careful!".

In my next blog, I'll outline six questions we should ask before taking on any debt.

By David Flowers, Leeds Vineyard

Useful Links
Christians Against Poverty - https://capuk.org/
StepChange - https://www.stepchange.org/
Money Buddies - https://moneybuddies.org.uk/