Hi Friend,

One of the parallels that jumps out at a serious student of the Bible is the analogous relationship between the flow of money and the flow of the Holy Spirit.  Money is the most frequent metaphor used in the parables of Jesus.

Even Adam Smith, the father of capitalism, recognized the parallel between a free market economy and freedom of religion.  Economic freedom was exactly proportional to a strong national economy.  Religious freedom was exactly proportional to high per capita church attendance.

A friend attended a lecture on investing and summarized it with the statement that consumer confidence is the basis for a strong national economy.  The problem is that scholars don’t know what conditions affect confidence.

You don’t have to be an economist to understand that confidence is based in character. You can call it integrity or virtue, but from the beginning of history it has not changed. I am willing to pay a higher price for a product that I trust.

That same factor exists for loaning money—you are willing to extend credit to a person of character.  For example, a major force in the American economy was Amadeus Giannini, an Italian immigrant who was a successful banker in San Francisco. He noticed a strange paradox—banks had money to loan, but his Italian brothers and sisters needed financial help and could not get credit.

To solve the problem, Giannini started a new bank—The Bank of Italy—in San Francisco.  He changed the banking industry in a simple but profound way. He made character-based loans rather than collateral loans.

The problem he saw was that the only people who could borrow money were the ones who had money. So he agreed to loan money to poor people based on their character. He even hired a team of private detectives to investigate applicants. If they spent too much time in bars, had poor work habits, were unfaithful to a spouse, he would refuse to loan money to them. Simple as that. The result was that his new bank, The Bank of Italy, became a huge success.  Then a world phenomenon occurred—it was called The Great Depression.  Banks across the nation failed.  His was the only bank with money so the feds came to him to ask that he buy the failing banks.

This new bank, the largest in the country, could not be called, The Bank of Italy, so it was renamed, The Bank of America.  The bank that saved the American banking industry was based on credit—built on “character-based loans”.

There is a fascinating parallel in Christianity.  Just as economists know that credit is essential for economic health, Christians know we can’t exist without credit from God. There is a debt for sin that must be paid.  We need a loan from God.  Paul quoted King David when he wrote to the Church at Rome:  “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, And whose sins are covered;  Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.”  (Romans 4:7-8)

We know the inevitability of sin.  A man knows when he is baptized that he will sin again.  God know it too so, it’s as if God establishes a charge account at the store for His children.  The person with a repentant attitude will make mistakes but God does not “impute” sin to him.

Jesus said that the weightier matter of the law is Mercy! (Matthew 23:23).  It’s the credit God extends to believers to enable the development of Godly character. But liberal theology has abused the concept like the politicians running Fannie Mae.

Forgiveness does not depend on our righteousness any more than a nation’s economic health depends on the amount of goods and natural resources it possesses. It depends on our character to repay the debt we owe to Christ.  Jesus taught that he would return and “reward each according to his works.”  (Matthew 16:27)

The key to this mystery is repentance.  The church that fails to teach repentance may be teaching the same heresy that socialists in the U.S. are teaching—it’s okay to abuse the credit extended to people who have no intention of paying back their debts.

Until next time,

Jim O’Brien