Freedom from Debt in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 23:19-20) a Lesson for Christians

Abstract

There are many popular misconceptions about the scriptural teaching on debt and freedom from debt, especially as concerning the Christians. People often assume that the Bible takes certain positions which in fact it does not. The Old Testament offers many warnings about the dangers of debt, but it never says that one is out of God's will or violating one of God's commandments when one borrows. The issue is that many Christians venture into borrowing uninformed and struggle with that burden of achieving freedom from the debts they entered into for a long time. This struggle constitutes huge distractions in life and general wrong approach to their financial management, most times all through life which results to retiring very poor, miserable and subsequent untimely death. This study adopted the exegetical and critical method of analysis to examine the attendant features of freedom from debt and related it to the contemporary phenomenon of financial mismanagement and what the Christians believe and should do on the subject matter. The findings considered freedom from debt as shown in Deuteronomy 23: 19-20 as fundamental to best practices in financial management. These discoveries were used to examine the status of the Christians in the whole discourse on freedom from debt and how they can actually achieve it in life. The study recommended that the Christians must urgently strike a balance between this economic system and spirituality to provide them the space to master the craft of freedom from debt. This will in no small measure ensure and secure focus for the Christians