Jesus On Money and Usury

Jesus, as the Creator of the Earth and Mankind, completely understands how human beings should interact with each other.  In His parables, Jesus used what the normal people of the day understood to be true about the natural world to explain aspects of the kingdom of heaven.  In Matthew 20 in the Parable Of The Laborers In The Vineyard, Jesus uses parts of natural economic law like the legitimacy of private property, subjective value theory, and property based natural rights, in order to teach about God’s kingdom.

Later in Matthew 25 and also Luke 19, He tells another parable where He uses natural economic law again to explain truth about God’s spiritual kingdom.  This parable is commonly called the Parable Of The Talents or Minas. Using the English word “talent” makes some think Jesus is talking about a person’s skills, capabilities, and expertise.  Anytime we see someone accomplish something great, it is normal to think, “wow, that person is so talented!”  However, the word “talent” in our English translations does not refer to how skilled people are at different activities.  It refers to an amount of money, but not the fiat money we have today.  It is money as God intended.

The first time Jesus mentions money is in Matthew 25:15 when he talks about the master handing out “talents” to his slaves.  A “talent” is transliterated from the Greek word ταλαντον, which originally meant the scale of a balance.  It later came to mean “something that is weighed”, and then a specific unit of weight for gold or silver.  A Roman talanton of gold weighed 55 lbs or 80 lbs depending on the source.  A Jewish talanton weighed about 113 pounds 10 ounces in silver.  In the time of Jesus, a talanton was roughly equal to 60 minas or 1500 days (roughly 4 years) of labor.  Some have claimed it was worth about $1000, but obviously this calculation was done with a dollar that was more valuable than today.  With today’s dollar, 4 years of labor is closer to $100,000 - $250,000.  It is a huge amount of money.

In Luke 19, it is easier to tell that Jesus is talking about money, because He describes a nobleman giving “minas” to his servants.  Mina is the transliteration of the Greek word μνα, which was the name of a silver coin that weighed about 12 ounces.  It was worth about 25 days of labor during the life of Jesus.  That is roughly a month’s wages for a common laborer.  Both names for currency in the parables represent different weights of gold or silver though the units changed over time and geography, 

Therefore, Jesus’ definition of money in these parables is a specified weight of gold or silver, which is the same as Murray Rothbard’s definition in his pamphlet “What Has Government Done To Our Money.”  This was the common definition of money in the ancient world before governments took over making coins and establishing legal tender laws.  We see from this parable that people still understood what real money was, even during the Roman Empire after government intervention had existed for a long time.

The slaves who made a profit with the money given to them did so when they “traded with them”, ergazomai (ἐργάζομαι), meaning they put the money to work. There were a variety of ways to do this in the ancient world in the areas of agriculture and trades.  So the faithful slave would do something like buy a field and seed, which he could turn into a profitable crop.  Or he could purchase animals to produce a large herd of cattle, sheep, or goats.  Then he could sell the wool, milk, and meat to make a profit.  A faithful slave could have also bought tools and raw materials to make different implements by hand like tents, chairs, tables, carriages, houses, jewelry, iron works, silver utensils, etc.  Even if the slave had no trade skills he could have hired those who did and employed them to make and sell the same types of goods.  The list of options would have been very long, even in Jesus’ time.  The economic success of each slave would be dependent on the price of raw materials, production process efficiency, value to customers, and the entrepreneurial insight of the slave.  The most important factor is entrepreneurship because it combines all the other factors to direct the money and capital goods to produce a new product with a higher marginal utility compared to the other products available in the market at the time, or other potential new products.

From the master’s response (vv. 19-23), we see that entrepreneurship, economic development, profit are good things.  Jesus wouldn’t have used this example in his parable if this weren’t true.  Providing either new, better, or less expensive products to people makes their life materially better.  Jesus teaches that the same basic precept exists in the spiritual world too.  Believers in Jesus should be spiritually productive just as we can be economically productive.  Christians shouldn’t have the anti-capitalist mentality like so many have in our day.  Profit is a good thing.  But let’s not neglect the spiritual aspect of our lives either, where we can excel in the subjects of sanctification, theology, evangelization, charity, and service to our church and community.

Another truth about the natural world that Jesus illuminates in these parables is that diversity or differentiation of people is natural and good.  The master entrusts different amounts of money to his servants based on his assessment of their ability, so I guess talent is involved in the parables after all.  He doesn’t give them all the same amount of money.  He doesn’t expect each slave to produce the same exact amount of gain.  He gives more resources and responsibility to those who are better at the task at hand.  But He also doesn’t leave anyone out.  Everyone gets money to work with and tasks to complete to build the wealth of the master.  We see God do the same thing spiritually.  Some people are more gifted than others to carry out ministry, but everyone has a role which is to be valued and respected (see 1 Corinthians 12).  I discuss this issue in more detail in this article on Ordered Individualism.  In these parables, you see the kind of social hierarchy commonly called meritocracy or natural aristocracy.  It is not rigid or highly formalized.  It can’t be passed down to children or kept within a certain social class.  It is something that God supervises by gifting individuals, naturally and spiritually.

Jesus emphasizes this truth when he gives the 1 talent from the lazy slave to the slave who already had 10 talents (of money).  He didn’t even split it among the remaining faithful slaves.  The one who demonstrates the greatest yield on his investment gets more than the other productive slaves.  This is the opposite of the notion of social egalitarianism on which the ideologies of Socialism, Communism, and Critical Theory are built.

In both parables, the nobleman tells the wicked servant that he should have put the money allotted to him in the bank.  Similar words are used in the two parables.  In Matthew 25, the word for bank is trapezites (τραπεζίτης), which has a narrow scope meaning a banker, broker, or money changer.  In Luke 19, the word for bank is trapeza (τραπεζα).  The most basic meaning of that word is for a table or the food that goes on a table.  But in context, it means the table of a money lender.  Both parables also use the same word for interest, tokos (τόκος)  The broad definition is something brought forth or offspring.  On the subject of money lending it means the profit resulting from the loan, called usury or interest.

The nobleman says the wicked slave should have given his money to a banker and earned profit by interest.  That option isn’t presented as good as direct entrepreneurial action.  However, producing income from usury is presented as the next best outcome.  

But isn’t usury a bad thing?  For a long time in church history, church leaders forbade any Christian from charging interest or usury in any amount for any reason.  Today, the New Right (including ethno-nationalists, Christians Nationalists, and Catholic Integrationists) presents usury as an evil that certain groups have introduced into our economy.  They want to go back to the earlier prohibitions.  Who should we listen to, Jesus in His parables or theologians from years past?

It wasn’t until the 16th Century that the Spanish Scholastics of the School of Salamanca started to develop economic theory and decide that it was moral to charge interest on loans.  They approached the subject from a philosophical basis.  I think their logic was reasonable, for example, they also correctly formulated that economic value is subjective.  A concept that the Austrians adopted and developed further. Just as the Spanish Scholastics said charging interest on loans was acceptable, we see that Jesus presented gaining usury as a positive outcome in these parables.  There are some other Biblical passages that potentially put charging usury in a different light, so we need to think through the question carefully.

First, the parables in Matthew 25 and Luke 19 are examples showing positive statements about usury.  There is also Proverbs 28:8, which presents charging interest in a positive light when the money made via the interest is used to give charity to the poor.  From this example, we see that for the subject of usury, the end (almsgiving) can justify the means (charging interest).

Several passages in the Old Testament prohibit Israel from charging interest on loans to the poor.  These passages don’t apply to every instance, but as a means of protecting the poor from oppression.  Exodus 22:25 specifies that no one in Israel should charge interest to a poor man whether you loan money, food, or clothing.  The language in Leviticus 25:35-37 is similar where it says, “do not take usurious interest from him (the poor man)”, but “you are to sustain him.”

You also see the same principle in Nehemiah 5 where people are taking advantage of the poor in Jerusalem.  Parents were selling their children into slavery and their fields to others for food.  The poor were borrowing money to pay taxes and grain to feed themselves, and the lender was charging interest. Selling children and fields is a type of interest as well, since they represent future production.  The problem that Nehemiah saw was not simply charging interest, but charging interest on those who were so poor that they were desperate and starving.  It should be clear that the Biblical principle is that we shouldn’t charge interest to those who need help for subsistence or to pay for immediate needs.  But that is not the situation Jesus describes in Matthew 25 and Luke 19.  He is describing a situation where loaning money is a way to generate new or expanded economic activity.

There are a few passages that prohibit charging interest without a specific context.  Psalm 15 mentions a righteous man that doesn’t lend his money at interest.  That doesn’t mean that lending money at interest is unrighteous, but more that a righteous person genuinely looks to help others and take care of others.  The Psalm represents one example of a righteous man.  It is not a universal commandment.  Plus the Psalms use poetic language so interpretation has to take genre into account.

The two passages that sound the most negative are Ezekiel 18 and Deuteronomy 23:19-20.  Ezekiel says that charging interest is a sin without adding a direct condition.  However, he does imbed this statement within a list of sinful behaviors.  Several of the sins refer to oppressing the poor.  So this could be an indirect reference to the same situations found in Exodus, Leviticus, and Nehemiah.  In Deuteronomy 23:19-20, there is a law for which there is no direct or indirect condition.  Comparing these two examples to the other occurrences, it seems more like a particular law for Israel than a universal moral law that Christians need to follow today.  Examining the different passages shows that usury isn’t a bad thing in principle, but a tool that can be used to oppress the poor.  Yet, at the same time it is a tool that can lead to economic growth and improved material wealth in society, even as a source of aid for the poor.  

To summarize, we learn natural law from what the Bible says about humanity and the creation including Jesus’ parables, because He uses truth about the natural world to teach us about His spiritual kingdom.  Jesus bases His parables about the talents and the minas on the economic truth that money is a measurable weight of a physical commodity like gold or silver.  He teaches that charging interest on loans is a moral activity because it is economically productive, when it isn’t used to take advantage of the poor.  Lastly, Jesus teaches that society should not be built on the concept of equity, egalitarianism or equality of outcome, but on meritocracy based on the talents of the individual.