Ep 106: Usurer Error

00:00And Ezekiel 18, he rattles off a list of bad folks.

00:05And the last thing on the list is, "takes advance or accrued interest."

00:10Wow.

00:11Shall he then live?

00:12You shall not.

00:14Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

00:19And I'm Dan Beacher.

00:20And you're listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast where we increase public access to

00:25the academic study of the Bible and religion.

00:28And we combat that pesky spread of misinformation about the same.

00:33And how are things today, Dan?

00:34Good.

00:35Good.

00:36Things are...

00:37Things just come off the rugby pitch.

00:38Yes.

00:39I hope you all won.

00:40I'm a never lose rugby player.

00:43I've literally never lost a rugby game in my life.

00:46Nice.

00:47There you go.

00:48I've never played a rugby game.

00:49But yeah, Dan, for those of you listening at home, is referring to the shirt that I'm

00:54wearing, which is actually, do you want to know why I got this?

00:59I'll just briefly, last year I went to, you'll recall, I went to Mardi Gras with a bunch

01:06of friends.

01:07It is.

01:08And the whole group of us decided that our theme for that entire week that we were there

01:13was "Spinal Tap," the movie "Spinal Tap."

01:16Yeah, there's going to be a new one coming out.

01:18I know.

01:19They were literally in New Orleans at the same time that we were there, and we didn't

01:22see them, which proves to me that fate isn't real.

01:27But yes, from my character, I played E in the band manager, and this...

01:32That was your...

01:33Rugby shirt with a leather vest over it, he's inexplicably dressed the entire time.

01:39Yeah.

01:40Anyway...

01:41Oh gosh.

01:43And it's the colors for the Washington football team.

01:47So all I'd say to that is boo.

01:50Well, this isn't a football shirt, so everything's fine.

01:54Yep, they do.

01:55All right.

01:56Well, today we are going to have some fun.

01:59We are going to discuss, and we're going to tread, I think, a little bit back onto Dave

02:06Ramsey's turf.

02:07A little bit.

02:08Because we're getting economic up in here again.

02:11A little bit.

02:14But we're going to be talking about, you actually did a video in your social media

02:19recently, that set up a question.

02:24And the question is, what is this thing that's been prohibited so much in the Bible?

02:30And we're going to...

02:31So I'm not going to say what it is.

02:32We'll get to it very quickly in the first segment.

02:36And then in the second segment in our chapter and verse, we're going to be talking about

02:41the parable of the talents, which I find utterly befuddling, and hopefully we'll shed

02:49some light on it.

02:50Maybe that light will just further befuddle.

02:52I don't know.

02:53There might be a mass befuddling.

02:56Yeah, I think we might be able to clear a few things up, but mainly it's going to be

03:00muddying the waters and then running away.

03:02Well, that's as we do.

03:04That's what we do.

03:06It's kind of our thing.

03:08But let's get on with our first segment, taking issue.

03:14And the first issue we're going to take, the issue that we are taking, is with something

03:21that is prohibited far more in the Bible than any particular kind of sexual act or orientation.

03:33We've talked about how there are no orientations that are prohibited in the Bible.

03:39It's prohibited in direct ways that you can't say transness is prohibited or abortion.

03:50This has hit so many times.

03:53What are we talking about?

03:54We're talking about usury, which is a word that I really did.

03:59I don't know that I ever heard it before I joined the LDS church and then on occasion

04:03you would hear the word usury, which is kind of old fashioned, but Latter-day Saints are

04:11old fashioned and they still, for some reason, and yes, I know the reasons, still use the

04:17King James Version of the Bible despite my best efforts and there were a lot of them.

04:24Keep trying.

04:26But yeah, usury is something I don't think a lot of people are aware was a huge deal,

04:31not only in the Bible, but within early Christianity, up to like the Reformation and even since,

04:38and overwhelmingly it was vehemently condemned by an awful lot of folks, but I want to start

04:45way back in the before times in the Hebrew Bible where we have a handful of prohibitions.

04:51We see this in Exodus.

04:52We see it in Leviticus.

04:53We see it in Deuteronomy.

04:55It is a, and usury has come to refer to like the exorbitant charging of interest, like

05:04charging to much interest.

05:05We're talking about lending and then charging interest on a loan.

05:10Right.

05:11In the Hebrew Bible, it seems to refer to charging any interest at all.

05:15Just any interest in it.

05:16Oh, okay.

05:17Yeah, any interest at all.

05:18It wasn't like, well, once you're up to eight and a third percent, you're okay, but anything

05:21above that, you know, we cut your hands off.

05:23You know, that's that kind of, that's a later developed idea in the Hebrew Bible.

05:28It's any interest at all, but you have an, in Exodus 22, this is the covenant code.

05:32I and other scholars think this is probably the earliest legislative layer that we have

05:37in the Hebrew Bible verse, or chapter 22, verse 25, if you lend money to my people, to

05:44the poor among you, you shall not deal with them as a creditor.

05:47You shall not exact interest from them.

05:51And then we have very similar things going on in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

05:55You shall not.

05:56And that's very clear.

05:57Like that's not, you shall not exact a lot of interest.

05:59Yeah.

06:00Yeah.

06:01That's just any interest.

06:02Any interest at all.

06:03And in Leviticus, do not take interest in advance or otherwise make a profit from them,

06:07but fear your God.

06:08Let them live with you.

06:09This is talking about the poor, you shall not lend them your money at interest, taken

06:14in advance or provide them food at a profit.

06:17So that's Leviticus 25 verses 36 and 37, Deuteronomy 23, 19, you shall not charge interest on

06:22loans to another Israelite interest on money, interest on provisions, interest on anything

06:27that is lent.

06:29Now there are, there is an allowance charging interest on loans to non Israelites.

06:35Right.

06:36Yeah.

06:37I was like, that's pretty clear.

06:38You pick up on that pretty quickly is that like it repeatedly says to our people, to my

06:44people or whatever.

06:45Right.

06:46So here is, is protecting the wellbeing and the equity, the social stability of the Israelite

06:54people.

06:55This is about protecting the Israelite people.

06:57And then we have a, we have an Ezekiel 18, a handful of passages.

07:05We have what's, what's known as a, a vise list.

07:08This is more popular in like Greco-Roman literature where it's like, everybody sucks, who does

07:13A B C D E F G all the way to, you know, double Z.

07:18This is what Paul is doing in, or pseudo Paul is doing in a lot of places.

07:22But in Ezekiel 18, he rattles off a list of, of bad folks.

07:26And the last thing on the list is takes advance or accrued interest.

07:31Wow.

07:32Shall he then live?

07:33You shall not.

07:34Oh, wow.

07:35Yeah.

07:36Death penalty.

07:37Death penalty.

07:38Yeah.

07:39According to Ezekiel, he has done all these abominable things.

07:40He shall surely be put to death.

07:43His blood shall be upon himself and yeah.

07:48And then after that, it talks about the righteous person withholds his hand from iniquity, takes

07:54no advance or accrued interest, observes my ordinances and follows my statutes.

07:58He shall not die for his father's iniquity.

08:00He shall surely live.

08:02Mm.

08:03So, and, and you have, in Ezekiel 22, these are the things that are mentioned one after

08:09the other, takes bribes to shed blood.

08:13You take both advance interest and accrued interest and make gain of your neighbors by

08:18extortion.

08:19And you have forgotten me, says, I don't know God.

08:23Wow.

08:24So, they're, like, they're pretty emphatic about this.

08:27Yeah.

08:28That's, it doesn't seem like they're, they're pussy footing around this thing.

08:31No, no, they're not being shy.

08:33They're coming in strong.

08:34They're coming in hot.

08:35Not bashful.

08:36Um, yeah.

08:37Guns hot.

08:38Yeah.

08:39And then you have a couple of places in the Psalms where, uh, you have reference to people

08:44who are good because they do not lend money, money had interest and do not take a bribe

08:49against the innocent.

08:50Those who do these things shall never be moved.

08:53And then, uh, one who augments wealth by exorbitant interest gathers it for another who is kind

08:59to the poor, uh, which is, um, kind of contrasting the good, um, against the bad.

09:07Right.

09:08But so Hebrew Bible firmly against interest.

09:11You have 12 occurrences of the word Neshech, which is the, the term for interest.

09:16Every single one of them, condemn the Tory toward the practice as long as it's, it's,

09:21uh, in-house.

09:22Right.

09:23We don't do this to our own people because what does it do?

09:25It makes the poor poorer, makes the, makes the wealthy wealthier, makes the poor poor.

09:30And, uh, and we're not going to do that to our own people.

09:34And this gets, uh, picked up in the New Testament really only talks about interest a couple

09:40of times once is in the parable that we're going to be, um, we're going to be talking

09:45about right here.

09:46Here.

09:47Shout le.

09:48We'll get to that.

09:49Yes.

09:50Yeah.

09:51We'll, we'll get to that.

09:52And, um, and then there's another reference in, I believe it is Luke six, uh, Luke six 34

09:59through 36, um, even if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what is, what

10:06credit is that to you?

10:08Even sinners lend to sinners expecting to be repaid and full, but love your enemies

10:11do good to them and lend to them expecting nothing in return.

10:15Now the idea here might be a little, um, you know, this might be a rhetorical exaggeration.

10:20This might be her hyperbole, lend money and don't expect to be repaid.

10:25Uh, but I think the idea that's, uh, people are lending money and expecting not only to

10:29be repaid, but to make a profit off of that, I think those people are, uh, as the great

10:34poet once said, right out, uh, but I don't see any reason to assume that it is, uh, hyperbole.

10:41I, you know, I, it, to me, it feels like it comports with a lot of what Jesus had to say

10:46about giving to the poor, not being rich.

10:50You know what I mean?

10:51When it comes to the poor, it's, it's very clearly sell all that you have, give it to

10:55the poor.

10:56Right.

10:57So it seems like it would, it would make sense to me to say, get, you know, if you're

11:03going to lend, just don't expect to get it back.

11:06If you get it back, great, but don't expect anything in return.

11:09That seems reasonable to me to hear from Jesus.

11:12I, I know that a lot of people would not like that.

11:15I know a lot, a lot of people who, uh, who want, you know, who are asked for loans would

11:20not like that, but that, that makes sense as a, just as an idea to me.

11:25Yeah.

11:26And, and we live in a world that where the financial system that holds our world up is

11:30built on interest.

11:32I think I think there's an estimated somewhere around a trillion dollars, uh, is made on,

11:38on interest, um, between 500 billion and a trillion dollars is made on interest in the

11:45United States.

11:46So, uh, that's just a part of our, our world these days.

11:51Anciently not so much, uh, there's an interesting, the council of Nicaea, we talk about this

11:56a lot about how, you know, the main controversy they were talking about was the Aryan controversy.

12:01There was also this little matter of how we determine the date of Easter.

12:04So that, uh, you know, people can figure it out for themselves.

12:07They can stop hassling us, um, and then there are a bunch of canon laws, which I think some

12:13people confuse for talking about the biblical canon, but that's has nothing to do with the

12:17council of Nicaea.

12:18Dan Brown, nothing to do with the council of Nicaea, but one of the count, one of the,

12:23and we've, I think we've mentioned the very first one, I think it's the very first one

12:27at the council of Nicaea was basically prohibiting, uh, anyone who had castrated himself from

12:33being part of the clergy.

12:35Oh, cause that, that was popular, uh, back then, uh, but another one is, is, uh, prohibiting

12:42the clergy from charging interest on loans and, uh, the, we have this statement for as

12:49much as many enrolled among the clergy following covetousness and lust of gain have forgotten

12:54the divine scripture, which says he has not given his money upon usury.

12:58That's Ezekiel 18 and in lending money asked the hundredth of the sum, the holy and great

13:05synod thinks it just that if after this decree, anyone be found to receive usury, whether

13:09he accomplish it by secret transaction or otherwise, as by demanding the whole and one

13:14half or by using any other contrivance, whatever, of four filthy lukers sake, he shall be deposed

13:19from the clergy and his name stricken from the list.

13:22So basically, and, and you know, they started even 1% you're out, you're gone.

13:28Defrock.

13:29And they, and now that's, so that's, they, they didn't, uh, impose this on Christianity

13:35as a whole.

13:36Not yet. Oh, okay. But so that was just about the clergy.

13:40That was just about the clergy. Yeah. But then we get to, um, the, uh, second ladder

13:46and council, which is, uh, many centuries later, it's, uh, extended to pretty much everyone.

13:53And then the third ladder and decree, I think this is from, okay, this is from 1179. We therefore

14:00declare that no turt notorious usurers should not be admitted to communion of the altar

14:05or receive Christian burial. If they die in this sin, whoever receives them or gives them

14:12Christian burial should be compelled to give back what he has received and let him remain

14:16suspended from the performance of his office until he has made satisfaction, according

14:19to the judgment of his own bishop. Uh, it is, and they, they begin by saying, uh, nearly

14:26everywhere the crime of usury has become so firmly rooted that many omitting other business

14:30practice usury as if it were permitted and in no way observe how it is forbidden in both

14:36the old and New Testament. Wow. And then in 1311, the council of VN straight up condemns

14:43it as a heresy. Um, it is, uh, no, in this, at this point, are we still talking about

14:51lending, uh, with any interest or have we gotten to interest as, uh, as like onerous interest,

14:59okay? And it's not, it's, it's, uh, it's not until I think in the 16th century that we

15:06get a definition of usury, the fifth lettering council says for that is the real meaning

15:12of usury when from its use, a thing which produces nothing is applied to the acquiring

15:18of gain and profit without any work, any expense or any risk. So any attempt to try to, uh,

15:27make money without any work, any expense or, or any risk. In other words, lending money

15:33so that you get it back and then some, uh, it defines as usury, but we get, uh, if indeed

15:40someone has fallen into the error of presuming to affirm, and I've never seen this word before

15:45in my life, pertinaciously, uh, that the practice of usury is not sinful. We decree that he

15:54is to be punished as a heretic. Wow. Yeah. And we, and, and they condemn the secular

16:01laws that allow usury. Now, okay. So at this point, we're getting to the time period in

16:07which, uh, I first learned about usury, which is because I studied Shakespeare and, and,

16:15and, uh, and so I had to figure out, I was in a production of, uh, merchant of Venice,

16:21yeah, uh, which, which centers around a, uh, a Jewish, uh, lender who they had to go to,

16:30who they despised and they reviled because he was Jewish, but they had to go to him because

16:35they only man in town. Yeah. They needed money. And that's when I learned about the fact that

16:40at that, in that period, Christians were not allowed to lend, right, uh, for, for profit.

16:48And so, and, and because it was considered low and because it was, and the, and the fact

16:55of the matter is that Jewish people in, in those centuries in Europe had been relegated.

17:02They weren't, they weren't allowed to participate in sort of proper good upstanding, uh, uh,

17:10jobs. So they would, so this was sort of what was left to them. Yeah. And they were

17:16the only ones who were allowed to do it. Yeah. And because Christians were unilaterally

17:21prohibited from it, but for Jewish folks, the Old Testament only says, you're not allowed

17:26to do it for your fellow Israelites. They're permitted to, um, loan at interest to non-Israelites.

17:33So they become the only game in town for Christians who need to borrow money. And yeah, they,

17:39they were relegated to, and you know, this is physically, economically, socially, in every

17:46way, they were relegated to the drags. Um, and, and I went out, you can go on a tour if,

17:52uh, if you ever have the privilege of, of, uh, having extra time on your hands in Oxford,

17:57you can go on a tour of the Jewish quarter of Oxford. Well, they'll, they'll take you

18:01around and they'll show you, uh, that, you know, Jewish folks live downhill from, uh,

18:07the tannery and from the processing and all that. And so they were basically just, uh,

18:13they just had filth running through the ghetto that they were, they were relegated to. Right.

18:18And the, um, the, uh, shoot, I always forget the name of these places is where they have

18:26lots of plants and flowers and trees. Um, the, it's called a garden. Yeah. But a big one

18:32that you can visit that you go into. Oh my gosh. Botanical garden, good grief. I've

18:38been there multiple times. The botanical garden in, in Oxford. One of the reasons that this

18:43part of, uh, Oxford is so, um, fertile in terms of growing things is because, uh, it is constructed

18:51over the ancient, not ancient, but the medieval Jewish graveyard. Oh, so, and there they have

18:55a sign, uh, out front that, that explains this, but they are the tax collectors. They

19:00are the rent collectors. They are the money lenders. And obviously since they're charging

19:05interest, the Christians grow to hate them. They put them in that position and then they

19:10said, we hate you for this. Right. And it does seem to be like that's the, the, I mean,

19:15that is, that never gets expunged. Like to this day, anti-Semitism largely centers around,

19:24uh, you know, the, the money that Jews have and the power that they're hoarding because

19:29of all of the money and blah, blah, blah. And yeah, like they get written into Harry Potter

19:34as the, as the, the money lending, uh, whatever trolls or the trolls. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's,

19:42it's, it's, and I think a lot of the people that are participating in that sort of hatred

19:48of these people don't even realize that the root of all of that goes back to when their

19:53own people put them, put the Jewish people into that position. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

20:00That's a little yuck. Yeah. Isn't, isn't incredibly yuck. And, and if you want to really just be

20:06horrified, um, always, always, like don't go look at, uh, the interactions between Christians

20:15and Jewish communities in the medieval period and like Spain and Portugal and stuff like

20:20that. Like it was awful, awful stuff. Like, uh, and, and that's kind of the, the seedbed

20:27for the development of concepts of racism and race as, as a question of skin color, a

20:33lot of it comes down to Jewish and Muslim folks. They have different skin color from

20:37us. We're good. They're bad. And, and that's kind of how the notion that race is something

20:42about skin color develops. And yeah, but that's not what this segment is about. We're, we're

20:47talking about usury, but that's yeah, we have Christians are, you know, trying to hold

20:54themselves up, hold themselves to this standard while having a little relief valve. They have

21:00relegated Jewish folks to this relief valve and then they hate them for it. And so these

21:05days, an awful lot of anti semitism is semitism is rooted in these, uh, very old, um, stereotypes

21:13that were forced upon Jewish communities. Uh, and you know, you have your, uh, all of

21:21the blood libel stuff, uh, the, uh, I forget exactly what they call it. The notion that

21:27the Jewish folks would shave, um, shave the coins down and collect the, um, the shavings

21:35and all this kind of, all these are lies that developed so that Christians could vilify

21:40and demonize Jewish folks. Uh, but, but the Christians would come around, um, centuries

21:46later, wait a minute, not come around to being kind to Jewish people. No, no, they would

21:50come around to, uh, charging in the, in the interest charging. Yeah. Yeah. Now, um, you

22:02know, it first gets a lot more strict. You have, um, uh, Saint Anselm of Canterbury, uh,

22:09which was, he said that usually was theft. So, um, you know, the, the taxation is theft,

22:19folks. Um, it's like we've heard it before. Um, but it was interest is theft. Uh, back

22:26then, um, St Thomas Aquinas condemned it as well. Uh, we have, uh, Luther and others condemning

22:32it. And then, but you, you mentioned the merchant of Venice. This is the, this is the thing that

22:37kind of like begins to turn the tables a little bit. The Renaissance, a lot of that had to

22:43do with the fact that there was an awful lot of money and an awful lot of trade going

22:48through Italy that was facilitating, uh, you know, the translation of a lot of stuff from

22:52Arabic back into Latin and Greek. And it was pumping a lot of life into the Italian economy.

22:59And so money lending kind of had to be there if they were going to ride that wave all the

23:04way. And so you, there are cracks in the, uh, in the dam of this Christian attempt to,

23:11to keep usury at bay. And once you get, uh, up into the 18th and the 19th centuries,

23:18um, it is, you know, there's very little resistance to, uh, as you get the development

23:25of, of the capitalistic society that we have today, like it doesn't work really without,

23:30um, charging interest. Um, but then you have, uh, yeah, I don't know if you hear the idiotic

23:38conspiracy theories that I hear every day about the Rothschilds. Yeah. A lot of that

23:43has to do is rooted in, uh, loans to the Catholic church from the Rothschilds. Oh, interesting.

23:51Um, and I didn't know that that had happened. Yes. Uh, and so yeah, there was, there was

23:59interest that was, uh, being charged as well, which was, and then, uh, you've got the Medici

24:04bank lent money to the Vatican in the 15th century. Um, but they overcharged on a lot

24:11of stuff as a kind of a replacement for charging interest. There, there are a lot of ways to

24:16get around this. Uh, you know, the Medicis weren't Jewish, were they? Um, I don't think

24:20so, but this was another way that the, the Vatican found themselves in, in hot water.

24:25Right. Uh, because, uh, you know, interest was not supposed to work, but they weren't

24:29supposed to charge it, but there are a lot of ways that you could get around it. You

24:32could charge fees, you could overcharge on other stuff. You could say, well, I'm only

24:35loaning you this money. If you engage in this other, um, exchange with me, where you're

24:41going to get raked across the coals. Um, so they had a lot of, uh, ways to get around

24:46it. Uh, and then yeah, by the 20th century, the, that dam has, has burst and graded basically

24:52given up on it entirely. Yeah. If you tell Dave Ramsey, don't, it's not okay to charge

24:59interest. I, I think he'll disagree with you. Yeah. And, and this is a part of the renegotiation

25:04of the text. Like you can, you can not like it all you want, but this is very clear in

25:09the Bible and early Christians for an awful long time, uh, tried to hold fast to this.

25:16And then we just decided that we know better and, and we don't care. And, and we really

25:19want this. And, and so it's gone. Yeah. What other, and I saw, you know, as I was sort

25:25of researching this and looking into it, I saw so many different arguments for why it's

25:30okay now. And they're all, they all seem, uh, pretty disingenuous, but a lot of it was

25:36like, uh, you know, the old trope of that's just in the Old Testament and, and, and you

25:44know, Jesus fulfilled the covenant and now none of the Old Testament rules apply anymore,

25:52which has never made any sense to me because they still love the 10 commandments and whatever.

25:57I don't know. Like there's a, it's such a weird, our case to make, especially considering,

26:03like you said, it's also in the New Testament, like Jesus himself in that, in that Luke

26:08six, a passage or a, you know, yeah, basically says, just give your money away. Man. Yeah.

26:14Yeah. Don't, don't expect anything in return. If you're going, and it's, and it's encouraging

26:19you to lend just without any expectation of even getting it back. Yeah. I, yeah, it's,

26:26it's fascinating to me. Um, like you say, the entire way our economy is currently built

26:34revolves around this, but I think that that's, I mean, I don't know. I guess what I was

26:41going to say is that it says we can also look at our world and notice that it is vastly different

26:50than the world of, you know, of the Old Testament and New Testament, like, like, like, you know,

26:57we're not subsistence farmers the way most of them were. Yeah. And, and this is one of

27:02the reasons that I point out, like negotiating with the text, if you want the text to be

27:06authoritative, you have absolutely no choice to negotiate with it. And that's not, that's

27:09not necessarily a bad thing. Circumstances change. That's one of the reasons you have

27:15to negotiate with it. You know, the, the abolition of slavery to the degree that it was abolished

27:19was an awesome thing. And now we have to figure out how to make the Bible work in a world that

27:25does not have slavery, but I think just being transparent about the fact that we're negotiating

27:30with it. And so, um, if you, if you want to defend interests, like make a secular case

27:36for it and say, you know, we don't really have, uh, much of a choice if we want to, uh,

27:41we want to survive in the world, but that might have, that might have some bearing on

27:46how emphatically you want to defend other, uh, increasingly unpopular and harmful ideologies

27:53that you insist the Bible demands you, uh, you endorse and you defend. So, uh, yeah,

27:59just be consistent with whatever you're going to do about it. Um, but I might be asking

28:05a lot of some people. Yeah. And to this day, and, and Muslims also, um, my understanding,

28:11I had a bunch of comments on that video from, um, members of the, uh, Islamic communities

28:16saying that, uh, they're prohibited from charging interest. And there are banks in the, in the

28:22Muslim world where you can get interest-free loans. And evidently there are groups, I don't

28:27know how formally they are organized as banks or if they're affiliated with banks, there

28:32are groups that will also, uh, make loans to, uh, members of the Jewish community that

28:39are interest-free. And I'm sure there are, um, there are different kinds of standards

28:44and requirements and criteria and things like that, that must be met, but, um, but there

28:49are a lot of groups that still take this seriously, at least for the end group. Uh, but yeah,

28:55I was, I was raised in the wrong group. I, uh, my mortgage is telling me I was, I'm in

28:59the wrong group altogether. Yeah. And when it, one of the interesting things I've seen

29:04in, in folks who, um, who defend the validity of interest from a Christian, uh, standpoint

29:10is saying that it, that it helps mitigate risk. And I've, I've wondered about that because,

29:16like, if somebody's not going to pay back the loan, like you're not getting the interest

29:20either for the most part, like we frontload a lot of interest, uh, but you know, if you

29:25don't even get back the, uh, the loan that, the money that you loaned, uh, but also we

29:31saw that some of these early Christians were like, Oh, you want to try to mitigate risk

29:36so that you can make money. Uh, yeah, that's not good. That's bad. Uh, and, and so the,

29:41the argument wouldn't, wouldn't have flown for, uh, the medieval Christians. They would

29:46have been like, yes, that's part of the problem. You're trying, you're trying to make money,

29:51but you're not assuming the risks that are involved with trying to make money. You're

29:55just putting the risk entirely on the other person and saying, I don't, I'm not doing,

29:59I'm not going to take any risks trying to make this money. Yeah. Well, I, I think that

30:06is a good place for us to transition into our next segment because, uh, I feel like the

30:14next segment gets into some of these issues, uh, and, and, and illustrates them in ways

30:19that I do, I, gosh, I hope I walk away understanding something here. Uh, so let's go into our, our

30:27chapter and verse. And the chapter and verse that we're talking about is, uh, Matthew 25.

30:35Uh, and we, we're deep in parable town, uh, in Matthew 25. Uh, I, you know, I, I went

30:42and looked, uh, there's the first part of 25 is the parable of the 10 bridesmaids, uh,

30:49which is interesting. Uh, and then it transitions directly into what we are looking at, which

30:58is the parable of the talents. Yes. Uh, and we should first start by, I, I looked up

31:03what a talent was, uh, and it is, it was a unit of weight originally, uh, and then became

31:12a unit of heavy money, heavy unit. Well, well, back then money was basically a weight, right?

31:20You had usually silver or something like that. And, and it was that much silver. And, and

31:27a talent is not a small amount. It is gigantic amount. Enormous. Yeah. So a single talent

31:34was, I think I, in one thing I saw, it was, it was the equivalent of, of, uh, how was it?

31:42It was like years of a, of, of a standard person salary. I think, um, one of them was

31:50given like five talents, like that would, that would require, I think it was like working

31:54for 84 years every single day at a standard day labor wage without spending anything just

32:00to get that amount of money. So, um, it's an enormous amount of money. And when we look,

32:06and there's a parallel in, um, in Luke, but it's, uh, it's like the 10 mean us with, or

32:13the 10 pounds, which is another, uh, unit of weight. Right. And it's a much smaller one.

32:19So when Luke tells the story, it's kind of like, let's get real. This is how much, how

32:23much, um, he gave him. Right. Because it does seem a little weird. I mean, I mean, it's

32:29a parable. It's not something, we're not supposed to understand this as actually having happened.

32:33Right. But, uh, but yeah, it does seem a little weird that like the, yeah, the, the masters

32:38like here, take two million dollars and go see what you can do with it. Um, I'm going

32:43out of town. Here's five million dollars. Um, have a good time. Yeah. Take care of it

32:49for me. And then when he comes back, the sums that are the profits are also astronomical.

32:56Right. Like in that time period, you can't really make that much money. Um, even with

33:01that much, with it, unless you are like, uh, doing some pretty devious and, and, and probably

33:08questionable, uh, buying and selling of property and, and things like that, you're exploiting

33:14people to make that much money. Let's, let's quickly just sort of tell the story just so

33:18that everybody's up on it. So we have, uh, and a man, uh, and all it says is a man. Right.

33:28Although there's a man. I think that, uh, the KJV has an interesting thing. It says for

33:35the kingdom of heaven is as a man traveling into a far country, uh, which one of the things

33:43that I read was like, um, yeah, they just chucked in that kingdom of heaven thing to try and

33:48make sense of something to try and make their own kind of sense of this. Yeah. It's, it's

33:53in italic. So it's not there in the Greek. Okay. Uh, because I, I think the, I think

33:58if you read this and you, and it doesn't say, well, what are we supposed to be comparing?

34:02How are we supposed to be understanding this? One might interpret this as a negative thing.

34:08And so maybe the King James translators were like, we need to kind of massage them in the

34:12direction of understanding this as, as, um, how heaven is supposed to be. All right. Let's

34:18add kingdom of heaven, uh, into that. I, I'm going to question that because I still interpret

34:24this as a negative thing. So we'll get to that. We'll get to that. Um, but as we've

34:30got a man, uh, and he's very obviously a very wealthy man. We can take that from the context

34:36clues later on, uh, he's going on a journey and he summons his slaves and entrusts his

34:42property to them. Uh, to one, he gave five talents to another two, to another one talent.

34:48Uh, and it says each according to his ability, I don't know. Does that mean ability to lift

34:54it? I don't know what abilities we're talking about here.

34:58I think the idea here is that he knows the, uh, the economic prowess of his, of his enslaved

35:06folks. He's got his, yeah, he's got his, his 18. He's got his JV squad. Um, and, and he

35:13knows, uh, what he can give them and expect a return on. Uh, so then he goes away. Uh,

35:21and the two top guys, the guy who, who received five and the guy who received two go off and

35:28immediately, uh, do whatever they do and make money. They both double their money.

35:35100% return. Yeah. Which is crazy. Uh, and I kind of want to find out what they did. Uh,

35:41and then the last guy just goes and buries his talent in the ground and waits for his

35:48master to kind, doesn't want to take a risk, doesn't want to get in trouble, uh, seemingly.

35:54And so, uh, he just does that. And this is an, and interestingly enough, we have some

35:59rabbinic literature that's about how the only way for money to be safe is if you bury

36:03it and like, sir, they, they even talk about how deep you have to bury it to certain things.

36:09Yeah. Okay. Just make sure you remember where you put it. Yeah. Yeah. Write it down somewhere.

36:18Anyway, uh, so master comes back, uh, and it says after a long time, okay, which is, um,

36:25suggests we got to give them time to, to make this money. It's still ridiculous. Right.

36:31The amount of 100% return on five talents is, is, is stupid. Um, but after, after a long

36:38time, meaning 45 years or something, uh, he, he comes back. He summons the slaves. He

36:45says, what'd you do? Number one guy says, I look at this. I doubled. I, here's your 10

36:52talents back. Double your pleasure. Number two guy says, here's your four talents back.

36:56I doubled up to he's pleased with both of them. Good and trustworthy slave. Uh, you've

37:04been trustworthy and a few, he says, I'm going to put you in charge of some stuff. Uh, congratulations

37:09on your new things being billions of dollars. Yeah. Yeah. I know a lot of money. You're, you're

37:15going to be, I think in Luke, don't, don't they get to be like, uh, in charge of cities?

37:20Yes. Yes. So, so I mean, we're talking about like, yeah, ha, you get to be a big, a big

37:26shot now. Yeah. And then comes the guy, uh, who buried his and he, yeah, he comes in

37:33and he says, here you go. It's, here's your talent back, but he doesn't just say that.

37:39He says, master, I knew that you were a harsh man reaping where you did not sow and gathering

37:46where you did not scatter. So I was afraid and I went and hid your talent in the ground.

37:53Here you have what is yours. Uh, and that did not go over well. Yeah. Uh, and this is like,

38:01this is fair though. Oh yeah. He's like, I'm leaving town. I want you guys to make me

38:06money while I'm gone. Right. And, uh, that's, that's reaping where you did not sow gathering

38:11where you did not scatter, trying to make money without working for it. And also clearly this

38:15guy knew that he, like, if he comes back empty handed, he's screwed. So he's not willing

38:22to take that risk. He says, I was afraid and I went and hid your talent in the ground.

38:27Uh, and then, uh, the man, the master replies, you wicked and lazy slave. You knew, did you

38:34that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I did not scatter, then you ought to

38:39have invested my money with the bankers and on my return, I would have received what was

38:44mine with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to the one with the 10 talents

38:51for to all those who have more will be given and they will have an abundance. But from

38:58those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away as for this worthless slave,

39:05throw him into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Now

39:12that has always baffled me. Uh, I be like, because here's the thing, the explanation

39:21that I always got of this parable is that talents, even though, you know, even though

39:29it's a different word, I was always told the talents, what a, what a fun little cognate

39:33or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Our spiritual gifts and things. Right. Yeah. So, so you're, we're

39:38supposed to, that somehow the master in this story is God or Jesus and, uh, and he's given

39:46us these, whatever he's given us, whatever gifts he's given us and that we are to magnify

39:51them and, and, uh, and, you know, sort of blah, blah, blah. And so when you read on and

39:58you hear about the, you know, that all made sense to me until I read the part about, uh,

40:05you know, the, the last slave criticizing the master and the master doesn't rebuke him

40:12and say I'm not that, but he doesn't say that's not true about me. He just says, Oh, you knew,

40:18you knew that about me and so you didn't do anything. Well, you're out, uh, which says

40:23to me that that, I, I don't know how we can interpret that as being God in that case. It,

40:30it feels very strange. So talk me through it. Help me understand who, what am I missing

40:37or, or, or, uh, or are we just going to live in confusion?

40:42Well, so, so the biggest issue is, is the fact that a parable and, and, um, this comes

40:51from a word that means to, to throw beside or to lay beside. It's a comparison. Right.

40:57Is, is that thinking that there is significance to the, the structure of the parable, like

41:03we're, we're supposed to be comparing one thing to another, but when we put God in the

41:07role of, of the master, we're now thinking, okay, this must be an endorsement some way

41:12of what the master is doing because that's what we're supposed to be understanding God

41:16to do. Right. And, and you know, that's a pretty natural way to approach these things.

41:20And it is kind of how traditionally we have approached things, but I, I'd want to bring

41:25up Luke 19, which says, which says something peculiar. It tells a parable. Um, he says,

41:32a nobleman went to a distant region to receive royal power for himself and then return. Right.

41:40And a lot of scholars have pointed. So, so this is not just somebody's, I got a business

41:45trip. This is somebody who is making a special trip to go be endowed with political power,

41:49which is why he can come back and say, I give you five cities. I give you two cities. Um,

41:56and a lot of people point out that this sounds an awful lot like Herod Arkelaus, who went

42:02off to Rome to be given power to be, um, the, the leader of this tetrarchy, uh, after his

42:10father, Herod, the great died. And, and Herod Arkelaus was a bad dude. Like he was, he,

42:18he ends up being deposed, uh, for just rank incompetence in six C. E. And, um, it's after

42:26this that we have, uh, the need to have a census of the area, this, which is probably

42:31what Luke or the, whoever wrote the, uh, the nativity account in the beginning of Luke

42:36was, was confusing with, uh, you know, a period during Herod's life. But so in Luke 19, it

42:42seems to be suggesting that God is in the, is slotted in for this villain. And so it

42:50does, it does raise questions about how we should be understanding what the actual, um,

42:56structure of the parable is, um, is, uh, is functioning. Yeah. Should we be taking this

43:03as, as an endorsement of usury, uh, of, uh, the reaction? I think, uh, I think there are

43:11problems with that, particularly on the other side of, um, abolitionism as well, because

43:16all of these parables are about enslaved people. Right. Right. And so if none of them are about

43:21how bad it is to enslave anybody, right? It's all about, yeah, the slave did this, the

43:25slave did that, the master went good slave. Right. Um, like that. If, if you want to understand

43:31the structure of the parable to have some moral freight, uh, that it's carrying, then,

43:36then what do you do about, uh, the fact that it's all about enslaved folks and the fact

43:41that the New Testament consistently represents the ideal relationship you have with God as

43:46the relationship of slave to master. So there, there are a lot of problems with that as well.

43:50Um, but additionally it seems like what's going on in these passages are one, they don't

43:57go back to Jesus. Almost certainly don't go back to Jesus. These are probably traditions

44:02that develop later on and, and perhaps even though they are, they are put in Jesus's mouth

44:09right in the text. They're put in Jesus's mouth and it's possible that, that we have,

44:14um, some layers that post state the original composition of these gospels as well, uh,

44:20particularly because, you know, like when it says the, the master left and after a long

44:26time, um, this could be kind of, uh, this, uh, delay of the perusea. Why hasn't Jesus

44:32come back yet? Because, um, at the end of Matthew, Jesus tells the people there are people

44:37standing here now who are, uh, well, you know, will see me coming in, uh, clouds of power

44:43and great glory, the second coming, which didn't happen. Um, and so maybe this, this

44:48is something you know of. Let's not get our all, all preterist, uh, on, uh, right now,

44:57but this could have been a parable that was put in Jesus's mouth, even after the original

45:02gospel of Matthew was written as a way of kind of talking about how we need to be, we

45:07need to be doing our thing until Jesus comes back because Jesus is going to demand an accounting

45:13of us. Uh, and so the, the story could be doing that. Now you, you, uh, found another

45:20reading that, um, well, it was sent into us by a listener, uh, a listener who was a rather

45:26prescient listener. Yeah. Uh, who, so they sent in, uh, a really interesting, uh, view

45:33of this. Uh, it's sort of a liberation theology view, but it takes the, the idea that, uh,

45:43it basically makes the third slave, the hero of the story. And it, it claims that, uh, that

45:51the ancient Israelites would have under, or the, you know, the, the sort of neo-Christians,

45:56the early Christians would have understood it in a way that, uh, that what was happening

46:03was that the, uh, the, you know, the last slave was the one speaking truth to power and, uh,

46:11and that that was the right thing to do and that he was speaking out against the idea

46:16of usury and saying you are, you know, you are a usurer, uh, and that that, and somehow

46:23that ended, that's a bad thing. And then he gets condemned, which, uh, that's, that's,

46:28that kind of sucks. Uh, he gets thrown out, but, but one of the interesting things was,

46:34uh, that this author, and this is, this is from, uh, uh, an author named, there's a name

46:42associated with it. Uh, Andy Wade, I guess is, is the one who posted this particular

46:47thing. Uh, anyway, uh, one of the interesting parts of his theory is that by burying the

46:56talent in the ground, there was also this sort of, um, metaphorical idea that money can't

47:05grow in the ground. And that's, that, that subsistence, uh, living is the correct way

47:11of living. So you know, you, what you put in the ground is something, and you know, obviously

47:17he uses, uh, metaphors that are agrarian metaphors. You, you, you know, you reap what you do

47:24not sow. You, you know, you gather where you do not scatter. Right. Um, so it's, so I think

47:31it makes sense to, to look at the fact that he buried his, this money in the ground and

47:36nothing grew from it. And that the idea was that, uh, because, but the money itself has

47:45no inherent, um, growing value. You have to exploit other people in order for money to

47:53grow by itself. And he should have been planting things in the ground that would grow. I don't

47:59know. I just found that really interesting. And it made more sense of this, of this parable

48:05to me than saying that the master is God. The master then becomes sort of the, uh, the

48:13villain of the parable. Um, even though the outcome for this, for the hero, for the, you

48:19know, this hero slave is a very bad outcome. Yeah. Yeah. And, and this leads into the parable

48:26of the sheep and the goats where God is, is sifting through and putting the sheep on one

48:31side and the goats on the other. And, um, sheep go to heaven and goats go to hell as,

48:37uh, as we know from, uh, another great poet, but, uh, yeah, there are, I think that is

48:45a, an interesting reading. I think it certainly helps us to it's, it's a, it's a great interpretive

48:53lens to, to turn on our own selves in our own time and to think about how we engage

48:58with, uh, the economy around us and, and how so many people treat it as a zero sum game

49:03where, um, to get ahead, other people have to fall behind. We have to step on the next

49:09grind, the faces of the poor in order, uh, to, uh, to secure the bag. And, um, and, and

49:17I think that is a great reading. I don't know that it has much legitimacy in, in terms of

49:25trying to understand what the authors or the earliest audiences understood, uh, about it.

49:30But it, it is a, it is a pickle because it does seem to, um, to do the kinds of things

49:36that other parts of the gospel of Matthew. And here I'm thinking of, uh, Jesus's excoriation

49:42of the pursuit of wealth and of the, um, the sermon on the Mount, uh, those, those things

49:50just don't jive with, uh, with what we have here in the parable of the talents. And, um,

49:56I think there's an interesting, uh, there's a, the hermenea commentary volumes on Matthew.

50:02It's a three volume thing and it's from about 2005. I think it needs to be updated, but

50:07there's a good, there's some good final thoughts here because ultimately what this is coming

50:11down to is, is it's trying to tell the story about how, uh, the folks who are, um, followers

50:18of Jesus need to be productive followers of Jesus and, and, um, increasing value quote

50:25unquote, not monetary value, but they at least need to be doing something in the world in

50:30which they're supposed to be sharing the gospel, uh, in order to actually achieve the kingdom

50:37of heaven. If they just bury their thing in the ground and, and they don't go out and

50:42engage then they're going to be one of the unprofitable servants, which, you know, raises

50:47questions about, about faith alone, uh, so teriology in, in the gospel of Matthew.

50:54But, um, it's, it's basically trying to say it's going to be really good for the people

50:59who do the right thing. It's going to be real bad for the people who do the wrong thing.

51:03That's kind of the main rhetorical point here. And, uh, the, the author of the Hermanary

51:08Herman, a commentary, uh, volume here says the parable itself invites misunderstanding.

51:15When Jesus his whole message in his God becomes the parable signature in the definition of

51:19its contents, such misuse cannot happen. So if, if we just think about, if we set aside

51:26the idea of master slave talents, usually all that, and we just say, okay, God's, uh,

51:31Jesus is coming back. We need to be found to have been, um, doing Christian things. Everybody

51:39wants to do Christian things, tell us time to do Christian things. So if we want to, um,

51:43do the Christian things, then, then misuse cannot happen where this was not the case.

51:48The parable was misuse. The parable of the talents is theologically true only when it

51:52speaks of the God of Jesus Christ who loves people in such a way that they are indebted

51:56to him for everything that they are and that they can't achieve. It is theologically true

52:01only when it speaks of his commission of love or to love and of the gifts that are used

52:07for that purpose and not for just any human activities. It is theologically true only

52:12when it is related to the community of love that Jesus wanted when it does not speak of

52:17these things is merely an empty shell of words with which every human activity can be legitimized,

52:24such as exploiting other people in order to, uh, acquire wealth. Uh, and so I think there's,

52:34there are ways that we can acknowledge that this is probably an infillicitous, uh, metaphor

52:40that is, that is being leveraged here while still trying to, to understand the point the,

52:44the author was, was making, because certainly we can't expect the author of the gospel of

52:49Matthew to have actually endorsed not only usury and exploiting other people for wealth

52:55and investing to, um, to acquire just obscene amounts of money, uh, but also that it would

53:05endorse, uh, basically the death sentence on somebody who doesn't perform, uh, well enough

53:12or an enslaved person who doesn't perform well enough. It seems pretty ridiculous to,

53:17to think of God being in the role of a master of a slave who has, you know, uh, control over

53:24the life and death of that person. That's not, that's not a very Matthew and it's not

53:29a very Christian way to approach these kinds of relationships. So I'm, I'm going to say

53:34I, I don't know exactly what was going on in the, in the mind of whoever put this here,

53:40whether it was the, the original author of the gospel of Matthew, somebody coming afterwards,

53:44uh, comparing the, the version of the story that's in the gospel of Luke even makes it

53:50even weirder. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. And the parable in Luke is, it's clearly the same

53:57parable. Yeah. It's just, just with modifications and differences. Yeah. But it, but it, it's

54:03absolutely the same. Um, but it, yeah, I, I'm still, I'm still, uh, well, as you say,

54:12the mutters or muddies, the water is muddied, uh, and then we take a leave. I guess that's,

54:18that's when we run away. So, uh, thanks for that, I suppose. Um, listen, friends, uh,

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