Author: Christian Channel

Daily Bible Study
This is another wonderful verse from God's book of wisdom, where the Lord gives us practical wisdom for our day to day lives. If we were to read this passage another way, we would say, "Don't let your emotions, cause you to make a foolish promise, you cannot afford to keep." The Lord here is warning us to carefully consider the consequences before making a pledge for anyone else's debt. The person making the pledge is not wrong for doing so, however, if they do not understand what they are actually doing, then they lack wisdom and understanding. From God's point of view a pledge means you solemnly swear to carry out the conditions of the agreement for your friend regardless of circumstances. Moreover, regardless of whether or not they ever pay you back. In other words, we are not to make the pledge unless we can afford to lose what was promised.

Moreover, we should not make the promise, unless we can afford to lose it without holding a grudge and without ever expecting it returned back to us. In other words, pledges are not loans that need to be repaid. When we make ourselves a pledge we are giving a gift, out of love, because of our friendship. A pledge is the same thing as a covenant, and it means that you intend to honor the pledge with no consequences to your friend. That means no anger, no resentment, they do not have to pay you back or make it up to you. In other words, they are not indebted to you in any way whatsoever because you made a covenant to cover their debt. If we ourselves cannot sustain the cost of the debt, nor can we afford the loss if we were made to honor the debt. Then we are not to make ourselves a pledge for it in the first place. Rather, we are to help our friend to the best of our abilities without making the pledge and leave it at that. Likewise, if we are a true friend, we are not asking others to become a pledge for us, less we place our friendship in danger.