p. 91 | Giving While in Debt by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 7, 1884

Giving While in Debt.

By Editor

THE question often arises in the minds of conscientious people, "Am I at liberty to contribute to benevolent objects while I am in debt? While I am owing money, all my income beyond my support ought to go to my creditors, hence I can give nothing till after I pay what I owe. Will the candid and honest doubter allow us a few words that may help him to a conclusion?

1. If it is established that no one can give money for benevolence while he is yet owing money for just debts, then not one in five thousand would ever give to any cause whatever, for not more than one in that number is accustomed to sleep free of debt. It is the usage of our times to pay at the end of a week, or of the month, or of the quarter. Debt in some form is so universal, that a rule of this kind would per force suspend all benevolence.

2. If this should be given out as the rule that no one should give in charity or benevolence while he is in debt, there are some stupid and avaricious souls who would involve themselves on purpose, and make the Christian duty of paying debts first, a reason for not obeying a divine command.

3. We may learn the will of the Lord in this matter by recalling his enactments for Israel. He required that all the gross income was to be taxed and tithed as it came to hand. It was not to be used in settling up for last year's mistakes or follies, but as sure as a farmer gathered nine figs, or nine bunches of grapes, or nine sheaves of wheat, or had an income of nine cattle, or nine sheep, the tenth always belonged to the Lord. It was taken in kind, and taken directly from the tree or from the field, and it paid no tribute to creditor, tax-gatherer, nor even to the owner's support. There were no circumstances that were allowed to annul or even suspend this law. The Lord had need, for his own purposes, of a tenth of all that he caused to grow, and of all the labor which he gave men strength to perform.

4. When a person is largely in debt, beyond means of immediate payment of all claims, it is usual, and it is deemed equitable, to pay each claimant a just proportion of cash on hand, or of funds that he may accumulate. If we are owing our neighbors, we are also greatly indebted to our heavenly Father, and it is just and right that we pay our proportion to both the heavenly and the earthly creditors.

5. There remains a difficult question, Must I still pay one-tenth, while I am owing my neighbors? Look at it! From God we receive life, and all its joys and comforts and hopes, and all our capabilities. If we rent a farm, we pay an annual rental of say one-third. What God gives us is of more value than the rented farm is to us. If I am a day laborer or a professional man, a mechanic or a minister, one-tenth of all that comes in will be the least that the shadowing of the old law would require.

6. But the Jewish law levied one-tenth for the temple. There was another tenth for the Levites and still other regular demands, making an aggregate of nearly, if not quite, four-tenths. When they paid the most, as in the time of David and Solomon, they prospered the most. At the rate of their annual payments, in the time of Solomon, our war debt, as it was in 1865, would have been all paid in seven or eight years. The same is true now as far as it has been tested. As a general rule the men who contribute the most for the Lord's work, are the most prospered men in the land. "There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, and it tendeth to poverty."

7. We are to take with caution the statement that the Lord, directly, and in kind, rewards all those who give money for his work. If this were literally true then there is no need of faith, nor is there any benevolence in it on our part, more than when, having two horses, we trade one for a carriage. Benevolent giving implies giving, hoping for nothing again. We are so to give as to cultivate consecration, and to broaden and to beautify our character, without any definite covenant being made as to the time or mode of the divine repayment.—Golden Censer.