Epilogue: Jesus on Money and Usury
The purpose of this article is to solidify the conclusions from a previous article, here . In it, I discussed the earthly basis of Jesus' parables on the talents and minas in Matthew and Luke. The fundamental conclusion is that Jesus assumes the general goodness of usury in those parables. However, you do see in other places of the Bible that usury, loaning and charging interest in repayment, can be immoral in certain situations. Namely, you are not to charge interest as a way to oppress people. Like any other technology it is a tool that can be used for benevolent or malevolent purposes. In the Bible, the clearest instruction against usury is that interest should not be charged when the recipient uses that money to provide for the basic needs of life like food, clothing, shelter, or even taxes. I think this list could include any good or service, including cars and houses, that a person uses for personal consumption. That lis...