usury
#6724316
01/11/20 07:57 AM
01/11/20 07:57 AM
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Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 29,890 williamsburg ks
danny clifton
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"Grumpy Old Man"
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OP
"Grumpy Old Man"
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https://www.openbible.info/topics/usuryShould modern banking and an economy based on debt be done away with? Is it a sin to pay or charge interest on a loan?
Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
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Re: usury
[Re: danny clifton]
#6724347
01/11/20 08:47 AM
01/11/20 08:47 AM
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Joined: Apr 2014
Posts: 7,084 MO
cfowler
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I'm not sure "sin" is a politically correct topic in today's modern age.
I trap for fun. I skin 'em for the money! Grinners For Life-Lifetime Member, MO Chapter, Den #1 ~You Grin, You're In~
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Re: usury
[Re: danny clifton]
#6724382
01/11/20 09:28 AM
01/11/20 09:28 AM
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Joined: Mar 2019
Posts: 1,497 Southern NJ
maintenanceguy
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Usury is unreasonably high interest rates. Interest is not prohibited in the bible. Unreasonably high interest is. And yes, the world would be better if there was no usury. Credit card companies charging 28% interest after you miss a payment is designed to make it impossible for you to pay so that they can collect the high interest and all sorts of punitive fees. Late payment fees, and if they can push you over the credit limit, over the credit limit fees. Banks make more money on charging fees to people in financial trouble than they do in regular interest. Usury is predatory and should be illegal.
I haven't had a credit card in 30 years. Haven't had debt in that long either. Because I know that the credit system is designed to force the customer into financial trouble so the bank can collect fees.
-Ryan
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Re: usury
[Re: danny clifton]
#6724423
01/11/20 10:05 AM
01/11/20 10:05 AM
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Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 29,890 williamsburg ks
danny clifton
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"Grumpy Old Man"
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OP
"Grumpy Old Man"
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Yes, it is; in fact, it is a major sin. Interest/usury are the same thing in religious law, and it is related to greed
The Jews permitted charging interest to non-Jews, but forbade charging interest to Jews (chosen people)
Earlier Christians tended to view interest as evil, so Jews in Europe often profited from shady dealings in lending, etc. Modern Christians generally have no objection to interest (consider the rise in the belief that Faith is rewarded by material wealth)
Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
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Re: usury
[Re: danny clifton]
#6724443
01/11/20 10:31 AM
01/11/20 10:31 AM
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Joined: Dec 2013
Posts: 3,650 Southeast Ohio
amspoker
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If you take that scripture in context, that is one part of an entire economic plan for a nation.
Another part is every 50 years land would would go back to the original families who owned them.
Which would keep land prices stabilized. There were other factors with that.
Provisions had to be made for the poor, read the book of Ruth. She was employing the rule where landowners were to leave the corners of their fields for the poor. But the poor had to go gather it themselves, Not a free handout.
There are many other rules and principles involved.
So no, it is not a sin to pay interest. The "give into Caesar what is Caesar's" principle applies here I think. God is doing something different now.
Levi
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Re: usury
[Re: danny clifton]
#6724518
01/11/20 11:21 AM
01/11/20 11:21 AM
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Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 29,890 williamsburg ks
danny clifton
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"Grumpy Old Man"
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OP
"Grumpy Old Man"
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I'm more interested in the often heard claim that god never changes, but I find that isn't so according to the way I see christians live today. Now before I get chastised I'm not talking about being human and knowingly making a bad choice, but rather how much of what the bible says is sinful is not regarded as sin anymore. Usury (interest on loaned money) is just one example. How can something be sinful one day, and not sinful the next? The only conclusion I can reach is that religion must change as people's values and morality continue to change. Jesus went after money changers (bankers) with a home made whip if I remember my sunday school lessons correctly.
Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
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Re: usury
[Re: danny clifton]
#6724546
01/11/20 11:35 AM
01/11/20 11:35 AM
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Joined: Dec 2013
Posts: 3,650 Southeast Ohio
amspoker
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The Roman and Jewish government was.corrupt. Jesus paid the temple tax.
The usery law was for a society obeying God. God's laws are the "government ".
Just bc he is doing something different means it was wrong then.
Try not paying your interest. Or your "temple tax".
Levi
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Re: usury
[Re: danny clifton]
#6724547
01/11/20 11:35 AM
01/11/20 11:35 AM
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Joined: Aug 2013
Posts: 8,357 Firth, Nebraska
jabNE
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Any business has to mark up the products and services they sell...to cover costs and a generate profit. Every business. It's the point of running any business. Why is it wrong for a bank to lend with a markup sufficient to cover its costs and also profit? If its not an excessive markup...why would this be different or "wrong" than ANY other business selling goods and services? Usury rates are set to cap rates from being excessive or predatory. Big difference than just a typical loan with a market level interest rate.
Money cannot buy you happiness, but it can buy you a trapping license and that's pretty close.
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Re: usury
[Re: danny clifton]
#6724550
01/11/20 11:37 AM
01/11/20 11:37 AM
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Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 29,890 williamsburg ks
danny clifton
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"Grumpy Old Man"
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OP
"Grumpy Old Man"
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 29,890
williamsburg ks
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Don't ask me Jab. I didnt write the bible
Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
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Re: usury
[Re: danny clifton]
#6724559
01/11/20 11:46 AM
01/11/20 11:46 AM
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Joined: Jun 2018
Posts: 4,770 Beatrice, NE
loosegoose
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There's plenty of sins Christians commit nowadays without thinking twice. Divorce and remarriage, hatred of our neighbors (murder according to jesus), cursing, premarital sex, lusting after pretty women (adultery according to jesus), lying, not paying taxes (on income that the government might not know about otherwise), etc etc, and yes, usury. If the bible says it's wrong to charge interest, then it's wrong to charge interest. We shouldn't try to justify it by saying it's got be done because of reason XYZ. What was sin then is sin now.
Unfortunately, we all sin in various ways. All have sinned. Luckily, we don't get to heaven by not sinning, we get to heaven by placing faith in Jesus and accepting his forgivness.
Last edited by loosegoose; 01/11/20 11:47 AM.
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Re: usury
[Re: danny clifton]
#6724565
01/11/20 11:55 AM
01/11/20 11:55 AM
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Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 11,205 Armpit, ak
Dirt
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So just don't forget to ask for forgiveness for all those loans you have had all your lives.
Who is John Galt?
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Re: usury
[Re: danny clifton]
#6724577
01/11/20 12:04 PM
01/11/20 12:04 PM
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Joined: Dec 2013
Posts: 3,650 Southeast Ohio
amspoker
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There is a verse that says you should have a parapet on the roof. They had flat roofs, and did work, spent significant time on it. It was a guide for living wisely.
That's what the usery verse is about. We don't as a nation follow biblical guides for our economy, that's why it is a house of cards, and we are trillions in debt.
It doesn't mean it is sin to pay interest.
Nor is it sin for me to not have a parapet.
That being said, greed is a major sin of our nation.
Levi
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Re: usury
[Re: danny clifton]
#6724591
01/11/20 12:15 PM
01/11/20 12:15 PM
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Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 11,205 Armpit, ak
Dirt
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Despite its Judaic roots, the critique of usury was most ferverently taken up as a cause by the institutions of the Christian Church where the debate prevailed with great intensity for well over a thousand years[v]. The Old Testament decrees were resurrected and a New Testament reference to usury added to fuel the case[vi]. Building on the authority of these texts, the Roman Catholic Church had by the fourth century AD prohibited the taking of interest by the clergy; a rule which they extended in the fifth century to the laity. In the eighth century under Charlemagne, they pressed further and declared usury to be a general criminal offence. This anti-usury movement continued to gain momentum during the early Middle Ages and perhaps reached its zenith in 1311 when Pope Clement V made the ban on usury absolute and declared all secular legislation in its favour, null and void (Birnie, 1952).
Increasingly thereafter, and despite numerous subsequent prohibitions by Popes and civil legislators, loopholes in the law and contradictions in the Church's arguments were found and along with the growing tide of commercialisation, the pro-usury counter-movement began to grow. The rise of Protestantism and its pro-capitalism influence is also associated with this change (McGrath, 1990), but it should be noted that both Luther and Calvin expressed some reservations about the practice of usury despite their belief that it could not be universally condemned. Calvin, for instance, enumerated seven crucial instances in which interest remained “sinful”, but these have been generally ignored and his stance taken as a wholesale sanctioning of interest (Birnie, 1952). As a result of all these influences, sometime around 1620, according to theologian Ruston, “usury passed from being an offence against public morality which a Christian government was expected to suppress to being a matter of private conscience [and] a new generation of Christian moralists redefined usury as excessive interest” (1993: 173-4).
Who is John Galt?
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