Loans to church Brothers and/or Sisters - not being repayed?

Christian ethics and theology with an Anabaptist perspective
appleman2006
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Affiliation: Midwest Mennonite

Re: Loans to church Brothers and/or Sisters - not being repayed?

Post by appleman2006 »

temporal1 wrote:
appleman2006 wrote:.. But I have no idea what that has to do with Chris's initial question ..
it would be nice to think Chris found direction here.
i used to think, God hears all our prayers, and answers each one ..
thing is, we don't always understand His message, and/or, we don't want to hear His message.
i continue to believe this.

we can't know, in advance, how God is working in us and through us.
sometimes, or often, we just have to go ahead and live, answers come in process of living, or as a result of living.

as with the example of my husband going to his friend to ask about an old debt .. i'm sure he didn't make a big deal out of it, likely few words were exchanged .. but, whatever it was, the outcome was as good as any we could have imagined or hoped for, for all involved. we didn't know ahead what to do, we had to live through it.

thinking about Chris right now, i would hope he might do similar. just speak to this person, in person, to see what might be worked out. not in anger, just in reality.

there isn't a scriptural example of every single life situation.
this is where we must seek the spirit, which is more than the letter.
if we don't get it right, He is there to lead us out.
Good advice.
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haithabu
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Re: Loans to church Brothers and/or Sisters - not being repayed?

Post by haithabu »

This weekend I and my wife were in Calgary shopping when we decided to call on a lady whose husband had passed away a year ago. Her husband had been a friend of long-standing, a brother in the Lord although they had attended a different church.

Anyway, an intended 30 minute coffee turned into an almost 4 hour visit, at the end of which as we were about to leave the woman handed me a check and said "This is to pay off our account. I don't know how much we owed you, but even if this is more I want you to have it."

That was a pleasant surprise. The check pertained to work I had done for them some 15 years earlier. They had made some haphazard payments but since their business was always struggling for cash flow I had let the amount ride and honestly had forgotten about it. Evidently since my friend's death his wife had been able to sell the business and apparently was now in a stable financial position. And the memory of the amount owed me began to niggle at her thoughts - or was it the Holy Spirit? :)

Anyway, it was a real blessing.
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appleman2006
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Re: Loans to church Brothers and/or Sisters - not being repayed?

Post by appleman2006 »

haithabu wrote:This weekend I and my wife were in Calgary shopping when we decided to call on a lady whose husband had passed away a year ago. Her husband had been a friend of long-standing, a brother in the Lord although they had attended a different church.

Anyway, an intended 30 minute coffee turned into an almost 4 hour visit, at the end of which as we were about to leave the woman handed me a check and said "This is to pay off our account. I don't know how much we owed you, but even if this is more I want you to have it."

That was a pleasant surprise. The check pertained to work I had done for them some 15 years earlier. They had made some haphazard payments but since their business was always struggling for cash flow I had let the amount ride and honestly had forgotten about it. Evidently since my friend's death his wife had been able to sell the business and apparently was now in a stable financial position. And the memory of the amount owed me began to niggle at her thoughts - or was it the Holy Spirit? :)

Anyway, it was a real blessing.

There are a number of examples here of the way Christians should act towards each other not the least your ability to forgive and forget an amount owning of someone who was struggling. her willingness to pay now that she was able is also the way it should be.
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Chris
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Re: Loans to church Brothers and/or Sisters - not being repayed?

Post by Chris »

appleman2006 wrote:
haithabu wrote:This weekend I and my wife were in Calgary shopping when we decided to call on a lady whose husband had passed away a year ago. Her husband had been a friend of long-standing, a brother in the Lord although they had attended a different church.

Anyway, an intended 30 minute coffee turned into an almost 4 hour visit, at the end of which as we were about to leave the woman handed me a check and said "This is to pay off our account. I don't know how much we owed you, but even if this is more I want you to have it."

That was a pleasant surprise. The check pertained to work I had done for them some 15 years earlier. They had made some haphazard payments but since their business was always struggling for cash flow I had let the amount ride and honestly had forgotten about it. Evidently since my friend's death his wife had been able to sell the business and apparently was now in a stable financial position. And the memory of the amount owed me began to niggle at her thoughts - or was it the Holy Spirit? :)

Anyway, it was a real blessing.

There are a number of examples here of the way Christians should act towards each other not the least your ability to forgive and forget an amount owning of someone who was struggling. her willingness to pay now that she was able is also the way it should be.

I appreciate all responses thus far. I'm pretty convinced it is a spiritual problem I am dealing with so please keep me in your prayers. I think I am having issues forgiving/forgetting.

I TRULY believe all of us here would lend to somebody in need of food, clothing, or shelter, especially when we could see a real need in their life. Sometimes people lose jobs, have a sudden car repair that is crazy expensive, etc. Sometimes we watch people struggle real hard financially (who act fairly responsible with their money) and then just take a dive. I don't think any of us would expect repayment for a desperate person/family needing the money for essentials.

I think in this case it is two things. 1) My personal problem forgiving/forgetting. 2) Theft. I know I should not judge their sin and look at my sins/issues before me. My issue is that I think there will always be this "thing" with that person just floating there. Sure I can pretty much ignore when they are "over THERE", but if it comes to me shaking hands with them, talking personally, I think it will be in the back of my mind.... "IT" just exists. I don't know how to drop it. If I could only be more like Jesus!! Prayers/Advice appreciated. Perhaps I have to unearth a love of money and face it then amputate it...

So leading back to loans and future loans, should we have righteous judgement on these loans to others? Sometimes things seem like a good cause or nice to help somebody. Are loans something that Christians don't like to really take literally from the scriptures because it would mean directly that we lend to those who ask and not expect repayment (PERIOD). Do I spin it for context to make it seem more sensible to me? I don't know. I'd be curious as if the apostles would lend just if somebody asked and not expect anything back....
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haithabu
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Re: Loans to church Brothers and/or Sisters - not being repayed?

Post by haithabu »

I think that we can be selective as to who we lend to; I see lending as just as much a function of stewardship as giving is.

I am biased toward lending to situations of genuine need which cannot be met any other way. But the question which arises from that consideration is: if the need is so worthy and the borrower is in such a poor position to repay that lending to them only places them in deeper bondage, why not just give it?

I have done just that exactly once, and the thing which pushed me to do so was the verse which came to mind very strongly: "Owe no man anything but to love each other." I realized that to advance that money to my brother as a loan I would be placing him in a position where he could not obey that verse. And that in fact it was I who owed him the debt of love in this case. My wife, praise God, agreed and since we had unity of mind on the matter we gave it.

I'm not saying this thinking should apply in every case; as I said, I've only done that once. But there were special circumstances in play and I believe that it was of the Spirit's leading.


Here's a proverb which I think bears directly on the business which you described:
The wicked borrows and does not repay, but the righteous is gracious and gives, for those blessed by the Lord will inherit the land. (Psalm 37:21,22a)
We are called to be generous and forgiving in financial things and we can well afford to do so because we sit in a place of privilege with God. We are so even when we ourselves are struggling financially and don't feel that way. That is where faith comes into play.
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Hats Off
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Re: Loans to church Brothers and/or Sisters - not being repayed?

Post by Hats Off »

Chris, I strongly believe there is a difference between forgiving and forgetting. Too often we stress that the two go together but we make forgiving too hard if we insist that it is not forgiven until it is forgotten. As well some things we need to forgive over and over - every time "it" comes back to bother us, we need to forgive again. And as our ministers often say "I speak to myself."
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