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Hey, so good morning, everybody.
We're still moving through Romans and, uh, we're in chapter 13. And last time I had to leave
a little early and this time I'm going to have to as well.
But I, but unfortunately we, you know, we kind of left in
the middle of, of, you know, a point where there might be
some, some comments about what we were covering. So I want to
just tee that up again and make sure we kind of get to hear some
perspectives on it. Um, I'm not dogmatic about this.
matter in Romans 13 on the government issue, other than I think historically
evangelicals have used the idea of being submissive to government
to, they've used it as cover, I think, to some degree where
there might have been, or there were, places where we need to
speak up. And when that happens, I think
it helps create a vacuum where other people will speak up and
make their views known and their influence known. There's just
times when Christians need to speak up. The way I was taught
a long time ago, and I accepted it for a long time, but I find
myself refining my views on this matter of government. I was taught,
and this was standard Bible college seminary teaching, you're to
submit to the government so long as what they're doing, their
laws or their kings, presidents, whoever, so long as they don't
require you to sin or prohibit you from doing what God requires
of you. So, for example, if the government
said you can't go to church, then you could resist that. And we saw instances during COVID
of some churches that stood up for themselves, and I think rightly
so, and some pastors were arrested and that sort of thing. But I've
questioned whether it's really that narrow, because I can think
of all kinds of circumstances where it doesn't require me personally
to sin, and it doesn't prohibit me personally from doing what
God requires. Yet it's a clear abuse of authority. And so that's what I just wanted
to bring out about this matter of submission to government,
Romans 13. I take it as a general principle,
but the authority given to government, it has limitations. And I would
suggest, this is my thinking on it, It has to be broader than
just resisting if it impacts me specifically. That is to say,
imagine a scenario where the government instigates random
secret arrest of people. They just disappear. You don't
ever see them again. And you know it's happening.
It's happening on a grand scale. But the government didn't make
you take a part in it, nor has the government arrested you.
So following at least a common view of evangelicals, we would
do nothing. Any thoughts or ideas or maybe
just a totally different perspective on that before we kind of leave
government behind and talk about love? Yeah, Susan? Yeah, the only thing I can think
of is that in those days, government was different than the government
today. We don't have the same kind of government. Not that
authority isn't always authority. It is, but and God puts up who
he wants and he takes down who he wants, regardless of the times
of history. But when Paul was writing the
epistles, perhaps he was thinking that And rightly so. The Christian
life is not about politics. The Christian life is about,
and it's not about fixing this world. Not necessarily. It's about growing in the grace
and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ and fulfilling his plan
for your life. So there may be things that he
wants you to do that, um, might go against the government.
I can't think of an instance of that, but that doesn't mean
it doesn't exist. And so maybe Paul was more interested in directing
people to grow their Christian lives rather than, let's throw
down Caesar, let's take over the government of Israel, let's
fight off the Romans, let's let's make this world a better world. And not that there isn't room
for that, but I'm just speculating. Yeah, that's it. And we know during this time,
and it would escalate, you know, after Paul would write, Paul's
not that far away from when the Romans come and destroy Jerusalem,
but what precipitated that was you did have what we would consider
terrorism happening in Israel. Zealots, other groups of people,
quick in and out assassinations, things like that. So yeah, there
could certainly be some of this sort of mounting the rebellion. I see two other hands raised.
Jud, is that you? Yeah, yeah. I think because of
our specific form of government, right, that we are governed by
the Constitution and we have separation of powers, I think
just because the government tells you to do something at one point
in time, that can easily be reversed at a future point in time. And my ultimate example is like
the COVID vaccine. Does the government have a right
to tell you that you have to get a COVID vaccine? I think
the answer is absolutely not. If they tell you you have to
get a COVID vaccine and I say they do not have the right to
tell me that I have to get a COVID vaccine, I'm not going to get
it. And I don't think that that's
violating Romans 13 at all. If you're in a different form
of government, I mean, maybe they have the right to tell you
to do things, but under our form of government, I just think that
they don't. And even if they do at a certain
point in time, that may go through legal challenges in the court
system, and they may reverse it at a future point in time.
It's a little different for us as U.S. citizens, and I agree
with Sue's comment, right? Our primary concern, of course,
should be, you know, our heavenly citizenship. But as earthly citizens,
we want to make sure that we're not violating scripture, but
I think it's a little bit more nuanced under our form of government
than under other forms of government. Well, we kind of know that one
day we will be forced to put a mark on ourselves in order
to buy and sell. The Bible tells us not to do
that. So we have to go by the Bible. And yeah, that was to me the
most scary thing about that COVID vaccine is to me, that was clearly
a precursor to the Mark of the Beast, right? What is the Mark
of the Beast gonna be like? Everybody's doing it, you do
it, or you cannot participate in society. And to me, that COVID
vaccine came very close to giving you a snapshot of what that's
gonna look like. and how easy it would be to enforce
it, right? But, Judge, you said something
that's a very interesting comment, and it's something I've argued
elsewhere in a paper I wrote, and I haven't heard it much,
but in our style of government, it is different. And when we
talk about the government being able to tell us to do something
or whatever, what if what the government's telling you is expressly
contradictory to the United States Constitution, which mandating
COVID shots obviously is. And this same passage would tell
us to honor the laws, right? And the Constitution's the one
at the top. So I'm just suggesting, it really
is nuanced because sometimes, frequently, what will happen
is something that, you know, it is, you know, contrary to
other law in this country. And of course it takes time to
work that through the courts and all that. And, and, and so
it's, it's not as simple as kind of, if they, you know, if the
government tells you to do it and it's not a sin, right, they
would say, you know, and I would hear people saying, well, there's
nothing sinful about taking a COVID shot so they can make you do
it. I, I, I think we're missing something, but Dan, Yeah, I was
going to say, so I think Romans 13 here is more like a maxim
or it's more like a default mindset of a Christian. And I think it's
given primarily as a witnessing tool to show a government that
Christians are in fact productive and good for society. And also
to comment on the COVID issue, I wouldn't even argue Romans
13 if I was arguing for COVID or not COVID shot, I would argue
constitution. We don't even need to bring Romans
13 into the issue because the law of the land already has provisions
to fight against such a stupid mandate. So that's what I would
say about this section of Romans 13. Yeah. Yeah. My, my comment about the constitution
is, In our style of government, think about this. If we have
to submit to the government, and let's just suppose you had
a directive from a local mayor, but you had a directive
from the governor, at least as we're set up in Texas, the governor's
directive would supersede it as a matter of law, and the Constitution
would supersede all of it. And I think sometimes when we
talk about this issue, it needs to be brought in. And in the
example I had mentioned before, where I've brought it in as an
issue, it was dealing with this matter of the death penalty,
that the constitution ensures you get effective assistance
or process So suppose somebody has a trial and they find him
guilty and give him a death penalty. Uh, but his, his lawyer was asleep
during most of the trial. Is that okay? Uh, that's actually
happened. It's not a hypothetical. No,
it's not. Okay. Yeah. So, um, but I'm just
saying, you know, I'm saying it's, it's, it's, um, we, we,
we want simple answers for multifaceted questions and in, in, in, in
Christians also, you know, our culture does. We can do it. We
want it to be really easy. And I really think this issue
is not really easy. Someone else had their hand up
just a moment ago, I thought. Oh, I did. Yeah, go ahead. I just wanted to say that the
Christian life is not a formulaic thing where you can come up with
24 ways to follow the Christian life and you're good to go. Um,
every day, if you are, because, because you're, you're living
every day out and every day to you has new experiences, even
though God knows what's going to happen, you don't. So you
have decisions to make all the time. Are you going to follow
what the Holy Spirit inside of you is leading you to do? might
that might take you to your comfort zone might make you witness to
people you don't really want to or Might make you do more
things, but the bottom line is everything is in flux everything's
the moving part so that you have decisions to make constantly
and Your only reference is Jesus Christ the Holy Spirit and of
course the Word of God so you have to navigate those waters
and I don't think they're cut and dried. I don't think anybody
can say there's a handy dandy list, and if he fits all of these
criteria, then he's living the Christian life. I think you got
to think outside the box sometimes, and I think that as your personal
relationship with God means that it's between him and you, and
you have to follow the Bible, you have to follow the word,
absolutely. You can't go off on your own into the toolies,
but It is a living, moving part existence. It seems like, to me, my observation
is that a great many Christians really do view it as a list. It's easy to get from a list
to legalism, but also, it's what you said. The list just won't
work. It's just not going to handle
every circumstance. You know, when Paul gets here
into Romans 13, we're talking about, he's assuming that we
have Romans 8 on the mind, that we're thinking about the idea
of someone walking in the spirit, and what will walking in the
spirit look like in relation to human government, that kind
of thing. It's, absolutely, this wanting to oversimplify it, have
it as a list. You know, the thing what a list
does for you, you don't have to really know the word of God
once you figure out your list. You don't have to really probe
these things, and anyway, it gets you in a lot of trouble.
So, you know, one good example of, you know, disobeying authorities
that we see is hiding people from getting arrested. They did
it with Paul. Rahab did it with the spies.
You know, and, and, uh, you know, the Corey, Tim bones family did
that for the Jews and lots of others did people before they
were betrayed, people helped hide and Frank's family. Um,
you know, so those are examples where, where, you know, they're,
you know, Christians are defined, the government's express command,
even though what the government required did not require the
Tim bone family themselves to, sin. Those are the things, anyway,
that I wrestle with. It seems to me that it is kind
of... I think this section is something
that has been said, like a maxim. It's a general rule, but it's
not an absolute. I also think it may not be as
simple as just kind of that formula, like I say, that I was taught
in Bible college. If we see the government doing something that in isolation
may seem fairly innocuous, but you know for a fact it's part
of a larger plan to do evil, then do you do something? Or you say, well, that one thing
in isolation, they've They've now told us that Jewish people
can't stay out after six o'clock. That doesn't make me sin. That's
okay, I'm not gonna say anything. Or do you say, wait a second,
this is moving somewhere. In our own culture, we're witnessing
in small steps, but it's getting faster, attacks on free speech. We have the ministry of truth
being alive and well. We call it fact checkers. There
was some article just today coming out about the, recent presidential
debate and how the fact checkers told one of the candidates they
were wrong. And now it turns out the candidate
was correct and the fact checkers were not. When you start seeing these things
though, maybe things that in isolation are okay, but when
you start putting two and two together and getting four, you
say, wait a second, something's going on. And then you think
about what the Bible says about the coming Antichrist. John would
say there are many antichrists so far, you know, already, and
we know one's coming, but he makes that statement at the end
of 1 John, near the end of 1 John 5, that the world is under the
sway of the evil one. We kind of have an expectation,
maybe, of seeing these sorts of things happen, and I'm just
raising the question. I'm still kind of working through
that in my mind, but I wonder if you see things in isolation are okay,
okay in the sense that they don't directly require me to sin, not
okay in the sense that they're right, but you also see a larger
movement or trend. Should we just be silent or should
we speak? Dart? I agree with what you're saying.
However, Romans 13.1 is problematic for me. It just seems so out
of context to the rest of the passage. And I wonder sometimes
when he talks about the governing authorities, if he's not talking
about the synagogue and the authorities of the church, because obviously
you can't be submitting to every single authority, government
on the earth. Just want to throw that out there.
Yeah, yeah. That's a real possibility. That's
a real possibility that he's talking about the synagogues
and the Jews. Yeah, I thought about that. I don't know. The problem is he talks about
them having the sword, and that's really a Roman government thing.
That's why the Jews needed Pontius Pilate's help of Jesus. You can read it and see the words.
There's nothing but inherently confusing about the words. And
I think what we can all see, and it's really kind of my point
is, this is not easy to work out in our thinking. And what I think has happened
to a large degree among evangelicals is that they've turned this into
a very simple formula and it's not. if it doesn't require me
to send it's okay, if the government were rounding up children randomly
and shooting them, but I had no children to worry would have
this happen and they're not making me shoot them, then according
to the formula I was taught in Bible college, I'm just to submit
to that and I can vote or whatever. And I'm just saying it's easy
to come up with these examples that like, You know, it's a surprising
outcome if I'm to do nothing, I guess. Uh, dark. I think there
are plenty of other passages in the Bible that talks about
how we should, we interreact with society to do good, to fight
for those who need someone to fight for them and forth. I think
just eliminating Romans 13 one doesn't remove our responsibility. to be part of society and try
to live a godly life. I still think Paul put that in
there just so the Romans wouldn't be pissed at him. And you know,
the Jews were constantly looking for somebody to kick Rome out. So that's just my thoughts. But it's a good point that, you
know, whatever, however we take it, however we work this out,
We do have other passages that talk about the treatment of people. And it's interesting how often,
of course, a lot of times in the Old Testament, it's within
Israel that he's dealing with it, but not always. God comes down on a nation for
what they're like. The book of Nahum, that no one
ever studies hardly, It's got some of the most beautiful poetry
in the whole of the Old Testament, but in Nahum, he calls Nineveh
the bloody city and pronounces judgment on him. But it makes
you wonder, well, the government was okay with all that, but the
people are fixing to be judged. Clearly there was some Those
people had a responsibility not to participate in that stuff,
I guess, or something. You know, it's multifaceted. Well, let's push on a little
further then with this. You know, he ends with, in verse
seven, with paying the obligations to everybody. And it's not limited
to financial obligations. That is important because, you
know, he says taxes to who you owe taxes. Jesus taught that.
You know, render to Caesar what's his. tolls, which is another
tax, but then he says respect and honor, and it kind of leads
to the next statement, which is don't owe anything. Now, the
word owe can mean money, but it can also mean social responsibilities,
like what he was just saying, pay respect to those you owe
respect, honor to those you owe honor. that word can mean something
like honored. So it doesn't have to just mean
money. And in this context, it could even mean both because
verse seven is telling you to pay money, but it's also telling
you to pay other things. In any event, he says, don't
owe anything to anyone. Accept to love one another. Now,
this verse could be used, you know, taken to mean that you
shouldn't have any financial debts. And some would take it
like Zane Hodges in his commentary takes it that the idea is that
your debts, whether they be financial or otherwise, should be timely
paid. You know, certainly not being
indebted is, you know, to the extent that it's possible is
a wise choice. And certainly it's a problem
if Christians don't pay their debts. I'm talking now about
financial debts. That's a real problem It's it's
you know, the law allows you to to to file bankruptcy. You
don't want to pay anybody But it should mean something when
you sign pieces of paper and say you're going to pay them
and then you know Then you then you don't so We it's certainly
the case I think with or without this passage that we as Christians
are should pay the debts that we owe. And I say that knowing
things happen where it can't be done. I get that. But it's
just a general principle. But just understand this has
taken a couple of different ways. And let's say one is that we
shouldn't be indebted at all, except to love one another. And
the other would be more like the idea of you shouldn't be
past due on your obligations. open to thoughts on that, but
I'll pause in just a second. I mean, there are really a couple
of ways to take it, and you can look at different commentaries,
you'll see it differently. But the big key here is he introduces
this idea of love. Whatever the debts, we have a
debt that never gets fully paid, and that's that we love one another,
okay? And the one who loves one another
has fulfilled the law. I'm gonna say some things about
love here that I think are important, but any thoughts or comments,
though, Anyone want to share about this matter of not owing
anybody anything? Yeah. Yeah. I think he's talking
about, um, you know, like Jesus in one, in one of the gospels,
Jesus put the Lord's model prayer by saying, forgive us our debts
as we forgive our debtors. And in the context of this paragraph,
it seems that he's talking about interpersonal relationships.
And so I would say that if you cause wrong to somebody, make
it right immediately. Like don't, don't put off reconciling. with a person, and I think that's
more the idea he has here about owing something. Don't put yourself
in a position where you're constantly giving offense and not making
it right, or if you're the one who's offended, don't hold a
grudge. I think that's the idea. Well,
if it's this paragraph, but then, of course, you know, then the
immediately prior verse is telling us to pay taxes. So, but I hear
you and it may be in order. Maybe it may be some of both
Judd. Yeah, I think I've mentioned
this before, but I would take it in that more narrow sense,
because what we don't want to do is read Romans 13.8 with our
modern Western American mindset put on, right? It wasn't written
to modern Western Americans. It was written to ancient Semitic
Jewish slash Gentile audience. And debt in the U.S. has been normalized. It's not
even like that in Europe. Right. And I've met before. Right. I listen to a lot of YouTube
videos from Europeans and especially the Germans when they ask the
question, what's what are some things that, you know, when you've
lived in the U.S. for those who have lived in the
U.S. are very different from Germany. And one of the ones
that always comes up is the debt culture. They say everybody's
in debt over there. It's absolutely insanity. You're a young person, you come
out of college and you've got a $100,000 student loan bill
for a gender studies degree, which is why we have all this
gender insanity. A lot of those people that are
in all that debt have to pay off. their debt using what they
learned in those degrees, which is totally biblical. But we can't
look at it from that standpoint. Debt in the Bible, you have to
look at it from the Leviticus 26 standpoint, which says that
If you're under the curse, then you're a borrower and not a lender. If you're under the blessing,
then you're a lender and not a borrower. The scripture lays
out that as believers, if you've lived out the Christian life,
the normal status quo is that you've got additional resources
that you can lend to those who are in need. Right. Dave Ramsey
does a good job of this. That's his baby step eight. Right. When you go through all the steps
and you're totally debt free and you've got enough income
from your investments to pay your living expenses so you don't
need to income from work to live. Then you go to that baby step
eight and you start giving your money away because now I've got
an abundance. Now I can Lend and if I don't
get paid back, it doesn't matter. I don't need to charge interest
or I could just give my money away That's where we should be
as believers. We should not be in debt and You're short-circuiting
God's Ability to just flat-out give you things when you borrow
the money for it, and I think he will I think if you decide
that you know what I think Romans 13 8 I'm taking that in the narrower
view of that it means I should not be borrowing any money for
anything at all whatsoever, then God says, oh, okay, then I think
I'll just give it to you. I think there's a lot to commend
what you said, and it is true. You said it, we've normalized
it here, and it's so ubiquitous that we can't If something is so widespread,
we really are challenged. If we do come to a passage, it
clearly says don't do that. So it's difficult for us to,
I think as Americans, to accept that possibility. When I traveled
to China, one of the things I learned there, the young guide, and she
took us all over the country and with a large group of other
families, because we were there for an adoption, But what I found
fascinating was just her telling her story. She was engaged to
be married. And what was normative there
when you're engaged is you save up the money together to buy
your house, cash outright. There was no borrowing. You couldn't
mortgage. That's not even a possibility.
It was just that. And it was interesting to me, but then I
thought, what's a great motivator? When you're waiting to have that
money together to buy that house before you're married, you'd
be surprised. Couples will put their hard work
together in a few years to have that house bought. And then,
of course, it frees up ministry possibilities. Darn, I saw you
had a hand up. I agree with Judd that our society
has a tremendously dysfunctional relationship with debt caused
by big corporations and a lot of other things. When I worked
at the university, I taught a course on financial literacy to 18-year-olds. They had no clue that when they
went outside the classroom and put their credit card in a machine
to get Fritos and a Coke, that they were going into debt. It
was insane, actually. But also, I think leveraging
debt has a place. I'm not one to say you should
never be in debt. You should never be in unprofessional
debt. You should be able to use debt
appropriately. I hate to sound like Camilla
Harris, but I grew up in a poor house, a wooden house on blocks
in Miami with a single mother. My father had died. If I had
not used debt appropriately, I would not be where I am today,
almost debt free. So I think it has to be measured
correctly. And I think it is something,
though, that we do have to rely on God. We should never go into
debt without praying about it and listening to God. It seems
like this is one of those areas that might be uncomfortable for
a lot of preachers to talk about, because you know so many people
are in debt too much. And it may be hard for them to
hear it, but I think we probably could all agree that debt can
become a set of prison bars really easy. And I knew somebody who's
now on the mission field, but this person, because of the debt
that had to be dealt with before they could do this mission work,
it delayed the ministry for a long, like a decade. I'd like you and everyone to
think about the debt our country is in. We can barely pay the
interest on, in fact, I've heard that 75% of our taxes go to paying
off our debt. Only 25% is used for our betterment. Well, and it's interesting about
that. This is part of the issue that
Judd was outlining. If debt's completely normalized, most people, I guess, don't care.
And if you go back to the 1980s, this was This was a big thing within the
political platform on both sides, addressing the matter of debt.
We came out of the Reagan administration with a much higher federal deficit,
and it became a big thing when George Bush Sr. was running. He, in fact, did do a lot at
that time. There was a focus on it of trying
to get this under control. Like nobody's even talking about
it. And I'll hear people say one part of the other is a big
spender. History bears out that both parties are out of control
on the spending. We owe so much money, we can't
even get our hands around it. And now it's like the hands have
been thrown in the air because after all, a privately held company
called the Federal Reserve Board is happy to just print more money.
So the way we think about these things, you know, having a biblical
mindset ought to at least give us a very different view of the
matter of debt. I think I see maybe Dan and,
I don't know, Judd, do you have your hand raised? Either one.
Yeah. So there's a really practical
side of this too. When you live the way Americans
are living now, where they just buy everything on debt, It makes
you foolish. It makes you not prudent with
money. You begin to lose sight of the value of what you earn.
I hate this money system we have in this country. They punish
you for saving money. You have to get credit. I waited
so long to get a credit card. And by the time I finally got
one, they said, insufficient credit history. And I had thousands
of dollars in the bank as collateral against the credit. And I had
to fight tooth and nail to even get a credit card. And I hate
having credit card and I never use the damn thing. I just don't
like this debt system. The Germans are right. Like we're
fools with money in this country. And it's a, it's a measure of
our maturity, I think. And ignorance. Ignorance. Yeah. Ignorance. How would Satan,
Now put on the Bible hat again and think about if you wanted
to incapacitate a country That really had rich resources Isn't
this a really clever way to do it? Yeah You know betcha just
like the Weimar Republic That led to Hitler. Yeah after World
War one. I mean They had to bring wheelbarrows
to pay for bread. And I'm afraid we're headed in
that direction because of ignorance of history. Nobody wants to know
history. Nobody knows history. And so
we're bound to repeat it. I agree with that. And, you know,
I've, I've frequently recommend history books and, and, and,
and the reason I don't think history will, will help us prevent
remaking the mistakes, but I tell you what, from those who have,
have a biblical mindset, can see the same playbook coming
up again. I saw, Susan, you had your hand
raised. Yes, I just wanted to chime in.
I just wanted to chime in on this whole credit thing. So I
grew up, this is my third continent that I live on. And when I moved
to the United States, we grew up, we were raised with no credit
at all. There was no credit system. And
even till today in the Netherlands, even though people do have a
credit card, you cannot be in debt to use your credit card. So if you wanna use your credit
card, you must have money in your savings account or in your
checking account because it's tied together. If you are below
a certain amount in your bank account, you cannot use your
credit card. And I remember when I came here and wanted to buy
a house and we had money and I went to the bank, they said,
oh, we could not take your money. Where does it come from? What
do you mean, where does it come from? I saved my money. Well,
you have no credit, you have no this, you know? So I think,
that the whole system here in America put people into debt
because even till today when I go to Suriname or anywhere
else there's no credit required to purchase something even from
an The only time when somebody probably would make a debt is
maybe by a house. And even then, when they want
to buy a house, they can go to the bank and say, hey, I saved
up X amount of thousands of dollars. And the bank would not not question
because that's the normal way, you know. So it's. I just waited. My daughter was 23 when she got
a credit card. And I was like, so hesitant to
get her one because it's so easy for them to get into debt because
they require that, you know, you got to build a credit score. You got to do this. You know,
if you have perfect credit, they don't give you anything. Even
if you pay it off, you can't pay it off all the way because
it will get a hit on your credit card or your credit score. It's
a lost cause situation. Right, right. They'll tell you
you'll get, it'll hurt your credit to remove a credit card, to close
it out, drop it up. Yeah, it's a real problem and
it's a real trap. And it's obviously, it seems
to me, and I know like Dave Ramsey is, a lot of his ministry is
that, and a lot of churches will use his series. And I think we've
done it before. I think credit cards are evil, I just do. I
think the whole concept of, okay, don't worry about it. If you
don't have money, come on in. And of course, if you don't pay
your debts, Uncle Louie will come over and break a couple
of kneecaps, but don't worry about that now. It is legalized
racketeering is what it is. Yeah, it's got an insane amount
of interest. Judd, did you still have a hand
up? Yeah, no, I'm really enjoying this discussion. I'm glad Susan
jumped in because she, you know, has lived in Suriname and the
Netherlands where the attitude toward debt is extremely different.
And then to Dan's comment, it's so funny, that FICO score, right? What they want you to do is maximize
your FICO score. But what is a FICO score? A FICO
score is a good debtor score. Are you a good debtor, right?
Do you have a lot of debt available that you haven't used? When you've had debt, are you
paying it off on time? The moment that you're in the
position where you're totally debt free and you don't borrow
money and you don't have credit cards, your FICO score goes way,
way down, right? So if I have $5 million in the
bank, no credit cards and no loans, my FICO score is really
low. Whereas, if my net worth is negative,
but I'm a very good debtor, and I use my credit cards, and I
pay my mortgage, and I pay my car loan, and I pay my student
loan, and I pay my boat loan, etc., etc., my FICO score is
hugely high, but I have a negative net worth. So what that FICO
score is telling you is that person B that has a negative
net worth is financially better than that person A who has a
$5 million net worth and no debt. It's absolute insanity. Yeah. May I say something? It's a question
maybe. I owe nothing. I have a credit
card. I put absolutely everything that
I buy from dinners to clothes to medicine. I put everything
on my credit card, but I pay that debt off every month when
the bill comes. So I, and I have plenty of money
in the bank to buy everything in cash or check or whatever.
I don't need to put it on a credit card. The only reason I do is
I like to see what I buy every month, how much I've spent, and
I don't go over a certain amount. I keep it way, way under what
I have. So I guess that's what keeps
my credit score high is because I do use my credit card. Yeah,
it does. And of course, in a real sense,
you're actually not not really going into debt. I mean, yeah,
you're really the problem is happening, right, is that people. The whole debt structure is designed
to appeal to our sin nature, part of which has just sort of
a discontent with what we currently have. We need a little more.
We can't afford a little more, but the card allows us to afford
a little more. But then we're in a trap where
we never really get ahead. In fact, we usually lose ground.
And of course, it's why you have a whole legal industry of consumers
doing bankruptcies and all that. It goes against what we have
learned in the Bible. It's to be content with whatever
we have. Be content, whether it's little
or nothing. be content because God will provide. I think about that every time
the hurricane comes by and I put things away and I think they're
all God's things. They're not mine. He's just letting
me use them for a time so I can praise him for the blessings
that I have and praise him for what I don't have. Well, you
know, Carol, I do the same thing as you know, I think I put everything
on a credit card and then automatically my credit card is paid through
my bank account. I do that because I don't want
direct access to my bank account, right? If I had a debit card,
I think it's dangerous from a cybersecurity standpoint, but there is one
problem with doing that, right? Psychologically, when you charge
something on a credit card, there's no pain point So they have done
studies, and Dave Ramsey brings this out, where you will almost
always, right, not everybody, but the vast majority of people
will spend more money if they spend it on a credit card than
if they pay cash, because there's no pain point that, hey, I'm
actually paying this. What your mind does is say, hey,
This is going on this little piece of plastic right and the
pain point doesn't come until you get your credit card bill
and then it's too late. So you do really have to be careful
with that and also people tend sometimes. not to look at what
things cost when they're shopping. They just say, I need this thing
at this time, there it is, bang, here's my credit card. They don't
comparison shop and they don't try and get the best deal because
they can get it immediately, there's no pain point. Requires
some discipline. Well, I'm going to have to close
out. I've got to get a kid somewhere,
and this has been a very good conversation. These are the kind
of things that are harder to deal with, but we need to. Very
practical stuff in church settings, and hopefully trying to pass
some of this along to younger people. Because this credit thing
tries to, you know, they're on the college campuses when you're
there as a first year student trying to get you locked up.
But I just would say there was a comment, Judge, you made that's
so, so important that, you know, when you are debt free, you really
have an ability to help other people, to minister other people.
And we see that in the scripture that we should do those things.
And a lot of people have a heart for it and they've never had
the ability to do it because they're trapped also. And I do
think, yeah. You can do it unanimously. You don't have to let anyone
know that you've done it. You don't even let the people
know where their help came from. It comes from God. Basically,
it comes from God, even though He's worked through you. Yeah. God blesses Christians financially,
and sometimes we abuse it by either just spending on ourselves
or mishandling debt. But it really is so that we can
bless others. I think that was just such an
important point. It frees up ministry opportunities to handle
debt in a responsible way and to do everything possible to
try to be debt free. Well, we'll next week take up
this matter of love and how it fulfills the righteousness of
the law of the Old Testament. So looking forward to that. Hope
everybody has a good weekend and a good Sunday. And think
about gun control. And I would like to know what
people think about gun control.
Owe Nothing (Rom13)
Series Mission 119 Zoom Bible Study
This is part of a series through Romans from a free grace perspective.
| Sermon ID | 1026241251544075 |
| Duration | 47:28 |
| Date | |
| Category | Bible Study |
| Bible Text | Romans 13:8 |
| Language | English |
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