Page 65 - Managing Your Resources - Student Syllabus - short combined

Envelope Budgeting: An Introduction

What Does the Bible Say about Debt (borrowing money from someone else)?

When you borrow from someone else, whether it is a personal friend, family
member, or an institution (bank), you need to realize that the Bible clearly states
that you enter into a unique relationship with the entity from which you borrow.

Proverbs 22:7 The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.

The Bible does NOT forbid borrowing from someone else. It simply says that a
unique relationship is established between a borrower and a lender. It is the same
relationship that a slave has to his master. A person who becomes a slave gives up all personal rights
and freedoms in preference to those desires of his master. He becomes his servant to do what the
master bids. He is not free to come and go, and what he owns really belongs to his master. He gives up
all personal freedoms of self-determination and yields his life to his master.

God desires that we become slaves to His will.

Romans 6:16-18 says “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye
are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? 17 But God be
thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which
was delivered you. 18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.”

The Bible says we were born slaves to sin and the world. But through the
faithfulness of Christ, we, by faith, can become new creatures, free from
the slavery to the world, but become slaves (Grk: doulos) to Christ. This
word is used over 150 times in the New Testament. In Romans 10:9,
salvation is obtained by confessing Jesus Christ as Lord. The Greek word is
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