New Testament teaching on Interest/Usury

[Praxis+Theodicy]

I am going to try to give a straightforward answer to the question without "interpretation or textual analysis" (although I think the first is nearly impossible to do without and the latter is a very important tool for discer ing the whole counsel of God).

Question: "Do Jesus and/or His apostles forbid practicing usury?"

Answer: Yes, in Luke 6:35, Jesus forbids usury (at least) and commands that His followers replace "lending" entirely with "giving" (at most).

Definition:
Usury (noun) is an expected return from a loan or investment in excess of the principle of the loan.
"Practicing usury" (verb) is the practice of loaning to someone under expectation or condition that the lendee returns your principle as well as an additional fee.
In either case, the thing lent and the usury on top of the loan can be a medium of exchange (money) or another piece of material wealth. It doesn't matter; for the purpose of this discussion, it's easier to talk about it all in terms of money.

Here is the text in question:
Luke 6:32-36 (emphasis mine):

32 “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. 35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. 36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

In this text, Jesus explicitly tells us that, when we lend, our expectation of return should be:

"nothing"

Since usury is an expected return from a loan (in excess of the principle), Jesus' command categorically prohibits usury. If we are to expect nothing in return for a loan, how can we practice usury? Usury is expecting more (in point of fact, demanding more in return from a loan. If we cannot expect a return from our loans, this makes practicing usury categorically impossible.

There are two ways to interpret this passage:
(1) The straightforward interpretation essentially prohibits "lending" as such altogether, and instructs us to replace "lending" with "giving" if we are to follow Him. From now on, we don't "lend" as such. If we are not expecting "anything" in return, the proper term for what we now do is "giving. A Christian, then, doesn't lend at all, but only gives. Under this interpretation, usury is indirectly prohibited, since it is explicitly a practice enacted when lending property.
(2) The verse could be read as "Lend, expecting no return for your loan". If you want to read it this way, it sounds more like Jesus isn't prohibiting lending as such, he is merely reminding his disciples that their expectations in lending even to enemies should not be to get "a return" or "a profit". Under this interpretation, Jesus is directly addressing usury, and He is prohibiting it, but not prohibiting lending as such. His disciples can lend, but cannot expect (or demand) usury on that loan.

[mike]

The answer is no. There are no New Testament texts that explicitly address the issue of usury or interest earned on investments unless you want to count the parable of the gold coins in Luke and Matthew which treats usury or investment returns as a virtue.

So if you want to discern a New Testament message on usury you have to do some interpretation and contextual analysis.

Thanks. I appreciate it.

I basically tend to agree with you. There is the logical implication stemming from Jesus' call not to expect principal back when loaning out, which would obviously assume no interest is to be paid back, either. I don't think however that this equates to an explicit command for Christians not to charge interest. The next assumption that could be made is that Jesus' audience already assumed it was wrong to charge usury, and therefore he did not need to explicitly forbid it for his followers. Again, I see that as logical but it is not an explicit rule of the same sort as his many clear commands. And, I do not see the commands of the law of Moses to be binding on Christians. There are many other rules regarding economics in the Old Testament that are not considered as rules for Christians. For example, the Year of Jubilee.

And yet, I believe there is blessing in following Jesus' word, in loaning and not expecting again, and I think there is blessing in loaning out money without charging interest. There is blessing in forgiving loans altogether. But I do not believe Jesus gave this as a prohibition on Christians loaning out money and expecting it back again. I have been the recipient of the blessing of interest free loans. It was a great blessing to me. And I have also borrowed money at interest many times which was also helpful.

If I had money to invest, I might look to places such as Anabaptist Financial to invest it at a reasonable rate of return where the money is then lent out to people who need it who are of the same religious persuasion that I am. I would see that as a good thing to do, and I'm glad people are doing it because it helps people buy houses and finance businesses to provide an income for themselves and their families. The system is non-profit and does not produce insane dividends for a few rich cats at the top of the pile. It benefits a lot of people broadly speaking. I do not think such a financial institution necessarily goes against Jesus' teaching, although it obviously could go off the rails.

[Ken]

I am going to try to give a straightforward answer to the question without "interpretation or textual analysis" (although I think the first is nearly impossible to do without and the latter is a very important tool for discer ing the whole counsel of God).

Question: "Do Jesus and/or His apostles forbid practicing usury?"

Answer: Yes, in Luke 6:35, Jesus forbids usury (at least) and commands that His followers replace "lending" entirely with "giving" (at most).

Definition:
Usury (noun) is an expected return from a loan or investment in excess of the principle of the loan.
"Practicing usury" (verb) is the practice of loaning to someone under expectation or condition that the lendee returns your principle as well as an additional fee.
In either case, the thing lent and the usury on top of the loan can be a medium of exchange (money) or another piece of material wealth. It doesn't matter; for the purpose of this discussion, it's easier to talk about it all in terms of money.

Here is the text in question:
Luke 6:32-36 (emphasis mine):

32 “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. 35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. 36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

In this text, Jesus explicitly tells us that, when we lend, our expectation of return should be:

"nothing"

Since usury is an expected return from a loan (in excess of the principle), Jesus' command categorically prohibits usury. If we are to expect nothing in return for a loan, how can we practice usury? Usury is expecting more (in point of fact, demanding more in return from a loan. If we cannot expect a return from our loans, this makes practicing usury categorically impossible.

There are two ways to interpret this passage:
(1) The straightforward interpretation essentially prohibits "lending" as such altogether, and instructs us to replace "lending" with "giving" if we are to follow Him. From now on, we don't "lend" as such. If we are not expecting "anything" in return, the proper term for what we now do is "giving. A Christian, then, doesn't lend at all, but only gives. Under this interpretation, usury is indirectly prohibited, since it is explicitly a practice enacted when lending property.
(2) The verse could be read as "Lend, expecting no return for your loan". If you want to read it this way, it sounds more like Jesus isn't prohibiting lending as such, he is merely reminding his disciples that their expectations in lending even to enemies should not be to get "a return" or "a profit". Under this interpretation, Jesus is directly addressing usury, and He is prohibiting it, but not prohibiting lending as such. His disciples can lend, but cannot expect (or demand) usury on that loan.

There is actually a third way to interpret the passage. And that is to interpret the passage in the context of doing good deeds to help others. Lending and doing good are combined together both in the beginning and ending of the passage.

So one could interpret this passage in the context of a larger commandment about being charitable and doing good to help others. If you are doing good deeds to help others, do them for their own sake rather than for earthly credit because your reward will come in heaven. And if you are loaning money to help others (poor people who have no food, etc.) treat it as charity or good deed like any other, and do not expect or demand that those who you are helping to repay with interest or otherwise. If you can help people just help people. period. end of story.

So perhaps he is not taking universally about ALL financial transactions that people engage in as part of day-to-day life and commerce that might contain some element of a debt or loan (which is a vast number of transactions). But just that subset of financial transactions that are part of doing good and engaging in charity. In other words, be charitable and generous and don't exploit those who are worse off and need help, financial or otherwise.

[Praxis+Theodicy]

May I offer a perspective on why we are coming to different conclusions?

I think it's a simple matter of the fact that there are two kinds of commands, a positive command ("Do this."), and a negative command ("Do not do this.") "Do" or "do not". There is a big difference. It might depend on translations, but in Luke 6, Jesus uses a lot of positive commands ("turn the other cheek,") but there isn't a lot of negative commands (or any at all depending on how you look at it).


This is important, because a positive imperative can be carried out without being carried out all the time. If I am commanded to "greet a brother with a holy kiss", I understand that to be something I should do, but not as a command to never miss a chance to do. If I greet my brother once in a while without a holy kiss, I'm not sinning. If i never in my life greet him with a holy kiss, i am sinning. A positive command is something to be done, but we don't always see it as universal in the sense that "we must do this and nothing else."
On the other hand, if I were commanded "Greet not your brother without a holy kiss" (a negative imperative), i now understand that Jesus is truly saying a universal application: I can no longer practice greeting my brother in a manner not including the holy kiss.

Likewise with usury/lending. Is Jesus saying "You should lend without expecting anything in return (on occasion, but you can certainly lend expecting a return and even usury some times)"? Or is he saying "Do not lend at all unless you are doing so without the expectation of getting anything in return."
Obviously neither of these options is the true one. Both are paraphrasing and "interpreting" the text with a slant.

So the curious thing is that this teaching on lending is closely intertwined with His teaching on violence. "Turn the other cheek" is right there alongside "lend, expecting nothing in return." So why is it that we (I'm assuming we're on the same page about this) can agree that Jesus says "do not commit violence" but we can't agree that Jesus says "do not practice usury."?
I think it is because Jesus has the explicit negative command in the parallel passage in Matthew 5: "Do not repay evil for evil." In Luke 6, he leaves out this explicit command in the negative imperative, saying mostly positive imperatives.
I wonder, if we only had Luke 6 and not Matthew 5: would we still stand out among the universal church as a peace tradition? Or would we say "Jesus doesn't explicitly forbid violence, he just tells us to turn the other cheek, which we can do sometimes, but he never tells us to do it ALL the time."

[Joy]

Has this parable of Jesus' been mentioned? If it has, I missed it.

Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury? (Luke 19:22,23 KJV)

Does not the nobelman represent Jesus?

[Josh]

Has this parable of Jesus' been mentioned? If it has, I missed it.

Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury? (Luke 19:22,23 KJV)

Does not the nobelman represent Jesus?

It seems highly unlikely Jesus would represent himself as doing something blatantly sinful at the time he spoke the parable.

[Joy]

Has this parable of Jesus' been mentioned? If it has, I missed it.

Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury? (Luke 19:22,23 KJV)

Does not the nobelman represent Jesus?

It seems highly unlikely Jesus would represent himself as doing something blatantly sinful at the time he spoke the parable.

I agree. That's one reason I don't believe the wine He made was alcoholic, since He stated that wine is a mocker, and strong drink is raging.

[Josh]

I agree. That's one reason I don't believe the wine He made was alcoholic, since He stated that wine is a mocker, and strong drink is raging.

It is very apparent that whatever Jesus made surprised the guests with how excellent the quality of it was. I would agree that Jesus would not miraculously make something that would cause people to fall into sin.

[Soloist]

I agree. That's one reason I don't believe the wine He made was alcoholic, since He stated that wine is a mocker, and strong drink is raging.

It is very apparent that whatever Jesus made surprised the guests with how excellent the quality of it was. I would agree that Jesus would not miraculously make something that would cause people to fall into sin.

Why did God create the tree of knowledge of good and evil?
Also, making alcoholic wine does not “cause” anyone to fall into sin.

[Josh]

I agree. That's one reason I don't believe the wine He made was alcoholic, since He stated that wine is a mocker, and strong drink is raging.

It is very apparent that whatever Jesus made surprised the guests with how excellent the quality of it was. I would agree that Jesus would not miraculously make something that would cause people to fall into sin.

Why did God create the tree of knowledge of good and evil?
Also, making alcoholic wine does not “cause” anyone to fall into sin.

When the head steward tasted the water that had been turned to wine, not knowing where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), he called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the cheaper wine when the guests are drunk. You have kept the good wine until now!” Jesus did this as the first of his miraculous signs, in Cana of Galilee. In this way he revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.

I believe that Jesus would not serve alcohol to people who were engaging in the sin of drunkenness. Of course, that's just my opinion.