If it seems like I had this response already mentally prepared then it's because I did. I KNEW someone would give a specific answer in comments and now Snowdancer has. Now I'm going to pick that response apart piece by piece. I'm not attacking you, Snowdancer, but the concept you expressed is held dear by a lot of people. It's the biggest link in those paper chains I'm talking about.
Your bible does NOT say to pay your debts. What it says is to NOT get into debt in the first place. It also says not to enter into covenants with unbelievers and to touch not the unclean thing. Start with Leviticus and work your way up to 2nd Corinthians chapter 6.
Having ignored your bible on that front and entering into debt, you sinned. Debt is a sale of your future time that has not yet been given to you by God. You sold what wasn't yours to sell. So people ignore that part of the bible and then suddenly get all biblical and righteous when it comes to defaulting on their debts? We don't get to pick and choose.
I agree. Entering into debt with the intent of defaulting is theft. However many of us find ourselves in the position of being ignorant as to the true nature of debt when we entered into it and then suddenly awakening finding ourselves shackled. If you owed $30k to a drug dealer would you pay it?
The bible tells us to treat others fairly, justly, and to discharge our debts. It does not say to enslave ourselves in an unholy and unjust economic system for the next 30 years in order to do so.
Let's take a look at those individual types of debt and see if there's any way out of those contracts.
For secured debt it's relatively easy. You did not promise to pay them regardless of circumstance or whatever the future holds. You DID promise to pay them OR give them back the collateral, be it a couch or a car or a house. So you have the choice there ... keep paying them or give them back their property. To keep their property would be theft. To give them back their property is not theft. It is the fulfilling of a contractual obligation.
For unsecured debt it gets a little trickier, but if you look at the contract it again holds the answer. They gave you money and then charged you a high degree of interest to cover the possibility that you would lose your job, die, or be kidnapped by aliens. They try and enforce this covenant by threatening to damage your "credit score". What is this number? Is it on your driver's license? Is it branded on your body anywhere like the Scarlet Letter? Is it painted on your curb so that your neighbors might see? No. It's a fictional construct assigned to an individual by the banks so that they might know what level of risk they are assuming (and therefore what reward they may allocate themselves) by loaning you money.
Here's the catch for unsecured debt: the contract stipulates that you will pay them OR they will report you to a credit agency and ruin your credit score.
I can tell you from experience that your garden will produce just as many veggies if you have a low credit score as when you have a high one. Just as much rain will still fall on your pasture and your sheep will grow just as fat.
If you have the means of paying off this unsecured debt then you should do so. But if you do not, or if doing so means enslaving yourself in an ungodly system that will prevent you from obeying God's COMMANDMENT to Christians everywhere (2nd Corinthians 6:17) then walk away from it and let them drop your credit score as low as they wish.
In addition, the credit card company has already made the assumption that you might not pay them and has put in place mechanisms. They are going to sell your debt to someone else (as if you were a hard-working 1834 Negro in rural Virginia) who will then try to collect, probably aggressively. If they can't collect then you're debt will be sold again and again. Eventually it will fall into the hands of someone who is fairly reasonable about it since they only probably paid pennies on the dollar for it. They'll negotiate with you and you might be able to discharge that debt for a very reasonable sum. Not unethically either considering that when you fell behind the credit card company started tacking on the fees. They do this so that if you try to catch up you'll pay them MORE money, or when they sell it to the next person they'll get more money for the inflated balance. Either way the bank wins and YOU lose.
This is going to be hard to swallow for a certain generation. However I don't believe that generation has been quite the victim of fraud from the banks that my generation has or that the next generation is going to be. Research "fractional reserve system" and "inflation" if you wish to know more.
So, now that you have discharged all of your credit obligations, what are you going to do with your life?
11 comments:
I have refrained from posting on your blog in spite of your unmitigated foolishness in dragging your family to the worst possible place in the country and forcing them to live in third world conditions in your efforts to live a "godly life". You have done nothing to further the cause of Christ and everything to make God look like the instigator of your idiocy. He is not.
I find it necessary to speak out at this point since you are bent on twisting scripture to excuse your immoral behavior. Scripture is very clear on repaying your debts and there is no out just because you acquired the debts when you shouldn't have.
Psalm 37:21
The wicked borrows and does not pay back, but the righteous is gracious and gives.
Ecclesiastes 5:5
It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay.
You are still in the world and so your excuse of "coming out from among them" holds no water. You leave your hovel to make money out in the world. You go to the store and buy things from the unbelievers. You are still as much in the world and a part of it's system as you were before you are just trying to excuse your laziness and theft by claiming God told you to slough off your duty as a man and a father and a husband by living the miserable life you are currently living. What you should have done is buckle down and pay off your debts and get your family a decent place to live by hard work. No one respects a shirker.
There is clearly an out in scripture when you can't pay your debts. Lev 25:47-55 outlines the procedure for indentured servitude in the face of debt default. This remedy is also finite. All debts are eventually forgiven in the year of jubilee. I don't see general platitudes from David and Solomon regarding debt as authoritative when Moses gives genuine instruction on the matter. Shalom.
Patt, I know who you are now based on your comments.
You don't like me, don't believe as I do, and can't stand to read a word I say ... yet you show up every day to read what's going on. That right there is a pretty fair indication of what sort of person you are.
This post was not for you. As clearly indicated, you are quite happy living as a slave to the world, even though the world has destroyed you.
Most people come to this blog to read about what we're doing in order to do similar things in their own lives. They see the world for what it is and they want to discover how to get out of it. A few, like you, love the world and despise those like me but yet show up every day. They cannot help it. They are ridden by demons.
My hovel rings with song and laughter. Our third-world conditions have toned our bodies and improved our health. This life has bonded my family closer and given us all a deep sense of satisfaction as we do the Lord's work.
The fruits of YOUR life are on display pretty much everywhere else. Twisted and perverse people living alone and in such misery that the only joy they can find is seeking out someone's blog that they hate in order to disagree. Broken families and abandoned parents waiting to die as they numb their flesh with television and "comforts".
As for me and my family, we will have none of that. You can keep it.
Well Farmboy if you are still living in ancient Israel and following all of the 613 commandments of the Law and you can get your debtors to agree with you to absolve your debts every 50 years then good for you. Since Ernie is living in modern day Texas I think he is required to follow the laws of his country and state and they don't have a year of Jubilee anymore.
Romans 13:1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also ufor the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.
Fulfilling the Law Through Love
8 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
You're not a Christian, Patt. So why do you keep trying to tell Christians what their bible really means?
I suspect those that are living the life know far more about it than you do.
Actually Ernie let's deal with reality here. I am a Christian. I have lived the life you are currently living but with some major differences. My husband is a God fearing, honest man and before he chose to live 100% off his land he paid off all of his debts and made sure that his family had a decent small but sustainable home where we could be warm in Winter and cool in Summer. He made sure we had a thriving small homestead with a large garden, animals and the equipment we needed to care for it. He made sure he could do his God given job as a man and he could feed, cloth and shelter his family. If you know me so well then you know he has a blog proving all of this.
We are not slaves to mammon or anything else we are just intelligent enough to be sure we have a decent place to live and honest enough to pay what we owe before doing so. You are a discredit to both the cause of Christ and to manhood. Living the lifestyle you have chosen is anything but necessary, wise or righteous.
I notice you use the past tense to describe your homestead.
Best of luck. I won't waste any more of my beautiful day arguing with slaves to the world.
Ah, my wife says that I should actually answer your points before I abandon you to your foolishness.
1. We paid off our credit card debt a long time ago because we were blessed with the money to do so. If you had the reading comprehension of a cocker spaniel then you would have read several times where I noted that people who could pay these unsecured debts SHOULD pay them. But my advice is primarily to those who for some reason cannot. As for the secured debts, the debt is discharged in full when you give them back their property.
2. We actually have a house. It's a fine house, though it's kind of ugly right now. It's made of sturdier materials than most houses built by contractors. Every board was doubled and twice as many nails were used as needed. I expect my grandchildren to be living in this house. Few other people can say the same.
3. We're cold in the winter and hot in the summer because we did not hook up to the grid and we have yet to figure out the old ways. Some of that is working itself out. You're an idiot if you think we're suffering because we're living as 99.999% of the entire human race has lived ... without central heat and air. At most we sweat and go out to the outdoor shower to rinse off with cold water. It's very refreshing. I've gotten so that I'm very uncomfortable in an air conditioned building. I feel cold and stifled.
4. You have a confused mindset. I should be a "man" and take care of my family? What exactly is planting a garden, raising livestock, and building a sustainable homestead? I should instead go get a job and become a middleman where I pass my paycheck to my wife and let her attend to all these matters? Is that what manhood is? It certainly is the modern world's model of manliness.
You show all the confusion and insanity of a modern worldling. As Michael Bunker put it in his book, "Surviving Off-Off Grid", dogs bark to protect what they love. You're barking to protect the banks, the world, and a worldly way of life which has essentially destroyed families and America as our grandparents knew it.
Having answered your points now I see no more reason to discuss this with you. My blog is intended to help lost sheep find their way to becoming found sheep. It cannot and will not turn goats into sheep.
I have no interest in protecting banks or anything else. I don't need them. In order to live on my homestead I need about $1,000.00 a year to cover taxes and things we can't grow or manufacture ourselves. We choose to make more in order to live more comfortably but it is not necessary so I am anything but a slave.
But you didn't answer the most important question I asked: why is it you are slinging stones at wage slaves when you are one yourself? You leave your place to work in the world. You get to enjoy all the comforts of air conditioning, hot showers and cooked food while your family sits at home hoping their water won't run out and eking along in your drafty uninsulated cooker box you call a house.
You must have a bank account in order to travel and cash those paychecks. You wander into the unrighteous world of mammon to buy your supplies. At least before you start slinging stones make sure you aren't living in a glass house!
Ernie – I’ve held off commenting on this blog since the beginning, but today you have stooped to such a low that I feel I must post here.
1. Regarding the beginning post of this blog – I am the Mod that “lost heart for the fight” according to you. No, I got tired of cleaning up the mess your evangelizing on a site not your own caused. I asked you to tone down your rhetoric when posting the links to the news, and in reply you took your ball and started this and blamed me for not having the heart for the fight.
2. There has been a certain group that has called me names and implied bad things because I upheld your right to post on that “other forum you watch”. So, let me tell you right now – you’ve done the same and worse. You took what was a friendship and put me and the forum that respected you put it down to make your prophesying look bigger and better to some. To others, it makes us wonder.
3. And this latest part 1 and part 2 of how to get out of debt. I am so extremely glad that you did not post it on “the forum”. What a bunch of crock. You who go out in the world and earn decent sums of money for what you do, and probably have paid off those credit cards and other bills have no right to offer advice that would put someone in danger of losing their home, and possibly their freedom. Unless you’ve done all that you are advocating – being a dishonorable person – then you really are just blowing hot air and offering theories of what will work and have no proof that worse will not happen.
4. You know I’ve been concerned about that location and what you are living in and the water and food and heat and cooling conditions for you and your family. You are very lucky that you have the wife you do. But while what the outcome might be, the start really should have been better thought out so you and the family do not live like a 3rd world country – but you going out to the 1st world.
5. You know - with the foreclosure situations and such, I can somewhat understand turning in a house to the bank if foreclosure was in the cards; and it could not be sold to someone that wanted it.
6. As for all you are advocating being what the Bible tells you – I’ve heard the Bible tell a lot of things that are just twisted to make it be what you want. I think you are doing that to justify your extreme pioneer adventure and put down any that do not agree with you.
7. While the forum you visit and read as a guest is public, and using it for your evangelizing is getting just about as equal to others that use a site to tear it down and tear you down. You are doing exactly what you complained about them doing. At least they are honest about what they are doing, and while I don’t like it – I can respect that honesty.
8. I do not really expect to see this actually passed through to publish on your blog, but since I did it in word and did a cut and paste in case I messed up – I will have it again.
Ernie – in conclusion. I want others to know I am tired of me and the main forum I mod being the source of your hot air blatherings – but I cannot stop you. I hope any that read this use some good sense when trying to follow any of your philosophical path ways; especially when pertaining to anyone other than themselves only.
I do still wish you well and really really wish the best for your family. I think you put them in a heck of a situation and I hope no one has a bad injury or severe health problem before you come to your senses and use moderation to get your goals.
Take care –
AngieM2
Really? You mod a survival and preparedness forum but yet you're too fearful to live as I do?
You DIDN'T have the heart to fight. You don't have the heart to call yourself a homesteader. You certainly don't have the heart to mod that forum. It is a survival and preparedness forum, NOT your front porch.
This is a blog where I advocate a Christian life of self-sufficiency. I explain a path, as revealed to me, how to get free of the system. We're walking that path though in many cases we may be only three steps ahead of others or three steps behind them.
This is not a blog for fearful old women to wring their hands over what hardship and risk my family and I are undertaking. I'm not even sure what hardship and risk you're talking about. Gardening? Physical labor?
There's no risk I have assumed that everyone else on this planet doesn't already have (drought, fire, plague, etc.) and many of the normal risks I am now no longer subject to (foreclosure, homelessness, starvation due to job loss.)
I am becoming what so many homesteaders and Christians only have the heart to pretend to be. For those who wish only to give the illusion of freedom and a Godly path then this is probably a good place to stop following this blog.
For the rest of you, I'm moving on to part 3 of "How to be free".
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