Author: Christian Channel

Daily Bible Study
In ancient Israel God had forbidden the charging of interest for helping out a fellow countryman. Since the entire nation were slaves whom God freed from Egypt as His free gift, He did not allow His people to charge interest (usury). And since all of their possessions came from God's judgment of the pagan Canaanite nations who inhabited their lands, there was nothing the Israelites could claim, which did not come from God. God gave them the land, set with homes, fields and vineyards. Therefore, they had no right to charge usury or what we call interest today on what God had given them. Dear child of God, we need to understand how serious this statement above really is, "gathers it for him who will pity the poor." This means God is taking account of what is gained through dishonesty so He can reclaim it back from the wicked. This is because all wickedness is really sin against God! When people do what's dishonest, they seldom understand, the reality is they are doing it toward God, that's what this verse is telling us.

And it will bring consequences which are judgments from God. For example the Israelites violated this commandment along with many others. God sent prophets and disasters to warn the people, but they ignored God. Therefore, God sent the entire nation into exile for seventy years. Why seventy years? Because that was the exact number of years the people of Judah stole from God. See in the end their dishonesty was no gain for them, but instead it turned out to be a total loss. It's the same with Christians today. God has blessed us and given us His salvation for free. In addition, through faith we become joint heirs with Christ and we gain for free the inheritance that comes with our new position. We because of Jesus will share in the kingdom of God. Therefore, we are to use our blessings wisely as good stewards, which includes helping those in need around us and spreading the Gospel of Christ. We are to do so using our time, talents and resources as provided to us by God. The Biblical concept we must remember, is that God blesses us in order that we in turn could be a blessing to others, not so we could have more for ourselves.