Should Christians use credit cards?

Christians and Credit Cards

Although credit cards can be a useful tool, borrowing money and accruing debt is dangerous. Carrying credit card debt goes against some Biblical principles:

1. Don’t’ be a servant to the lender: “The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender” (Proverbs 22:7).
2. Live within your means: Jesus told the disciples “For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?” (Luke 14:28). Similarly, we should be practical in calculating a monthly income and expense budget and live within our means.
3. Debt presumes upon the future: When we use credit card debt, we assume money we don’t have right now and may not be there in the future. “Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow…” (James 4:13,14).
4. Credit card debt is very expensive: Unpaid balances on credit cards can carry monthly interest rates upwards of 25 percent. The cost to carry an unpaid balance from month to month means that you are paying a monthly premium on that balance.
5. Be Content: “But godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6).
6. Don’t fall into the temptation of overspending: Jesus’ words become applicable. “If your eye (credit card) causes you to sin (make decisions that you otherwise wouldn’t make that lead to your detriment), cut it out (up)” (Matthew 18:9).
7. For a financial blessing, tithe your money instead of borrowing: “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the LORD of hosts” (Malachi 3:10,11).

The Lord promised blessings for those that heed His Commandments: “The LORD shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow” (Deuteronomy 28:12).

In His service,
BibleAsk Team