# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1860_S321
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Lehre und Wehre.

Volume VI.    November 1860.    No. 11.

Fifteen Theses on Usury.*)

I. Christ, the Lord and Head of His Church, not only forbids
the children of God to lend at usury, but the Holy Spirit also
declares in Holy Scripture that lending at usury is an act that
leads the life of one's neighbor to ruin, is an abomination
before God and a misdeed which not only excludes one from
the congregation of God and results in eternal damnation, but
also incurs temporal punishment already in this life.

A. That Christ forbids the children of God to lend at usury is clear from
the passage Luke 6:35: "Lend, hoping for nothing again, and your
reward shall be great, and ye shall be children of the Highest." Since
we, as children of the Highest, may and can lend only in such a way
that we hope for nothing in return, while lending at usury consists
precisely in this, that one hopes to gain something for oneself by the
loan, and since further we are to do everything we do in the name of
the Lord Jesus, Colossians 3:17, it follows that lending at usury is
absolutely forbidden to the children of God.

B. That, according to Scripture, lending at usury is an act which, so far
as lies in it, leads the life of one's neighbor to ruin, is proved by:

1. The passage Leviticus 25:36: "Take thou no usury of him, or
increase, but fear thy God, that thy brother may live with thee."

2. The passage Deuteronomy 23:20: "Unto a stranger thou mayest
lend upon usury, but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon
usury." The "stranger" here is not the sojourner to whom love
was to be shown, but rather the nokhri [hanachri] — that is, the
idolater under God's curse whom the people of Israel were to
exterminate at God's command.

*) This is a paper by the Rev. Prof. Lange, which was read at the general pastoral
conference of the Synod of Missouri and, at its request, appears here in print.
The Editors.