by KeithE » Sat Nov 02, 2019 8:46 am
I’ve been told (Rev Dr. G Todd Wilson and Rev Howard Williams) that the word (alternately translated debts, trespasses and sins) really implies a monetary “debt”. If that be true, it is another radical teaching from Jesus that Western “civilized” people just cannot accept. I (no expert in Greek or in Jesus’s time) don’t think it is necessarily talking about the formal/literal Jubilee normalization of debts in sabbath years; but it does mean radical and generous cancelation/lessening of debts (both forgiving our own debts {easy} and forgiving debts we hold on others {not so easy}). As in other matters in the Sermon on the Mount, our inner attitudes are at issue as much or more so than outward acts.
Translated to our world, at a minimum we ought to:
a) not allow payday lenders/credit cards who charge exorbitant interest rates (say over 10% a year)
b) return all estate money to a collective source of money (say to reduce our national debt) when one dies (exception wife) and not pass it on to offspring or anyone else. Yes that amounts to a 100% estate tax at all estate levels. This has the side benefits of restoring the USA to our claim of being a 'Land of Equal Opportunity’ and substantially reducing our national debt.
Transition to these more Jesus-following approaches in the civilized world would take a long time and probably too utopian to bring about (may already be in place in the uncivilized world). But the two steps above can be implemented, if it can be politically handled (Christians should be on the side of Jesus).
Informed by Data.
Driven by the SPIRIT and JESUS’s Example.
Promoting the Kingdom of GOD on Earth.