The Cultural Mandate and the Greatest Commandments
Theologians have long noted “the cultural mandate” in the first chapter of the Bible. After creating Adam and Eve, God tells them to “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen. 1:28, ESV). Before the fall and the curse of sin, God intended men and women to have families, cultivate the earth, domesticate animals, and engage in other forms of cultural and economic activity.
Working, creating, and building involve stewarding resources well and developing technology. Furthermore, creating wealth provides us means for obeying the greatest commandments: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 22:37–40).
We can demonstrate love for God by how we use our physical resources. God required regular material sacrifices in Israelite worship. In the New Testament, God commends the sacrificial giving of the widow’s mite and the woman who poured perfume on Jesus’ feet. God wants human beings to show Him love and honor with their wealth.
We can also love our neighbor with our resources. In both the Old and the New Testaments, loving one’s neighbor almost always involves material care—sharing or giving of one’s resources as well as forgiving debts (Lev. 25:39–40). Examples abound, from Abraham hosting angels, to Boaz providing for Ruth and Naomi, to David and Mephibosheth, to Elijah and Elisha toward the women who cared for them, to the sharing of all things in common (Acts 2: 44–45), to the gentile churches sharing resources with the church in Jerusalem during a famine.
The cultural mandate and the two greatest commandments demonstrate the importance and purpose of wealth, and therefore of debt. They also explain why many passages in Scripture prohibit lending at interest (usury) and taking profit. In those situations, doing so harmed one’s neighbor, and by extension the community, which reflected badly on God and displayed callous selfishness rather than love. Similarly, philosophers from Aristotle to Aquinas condemned usury because they thought its use was not consistent with the flourishing of one’s community or loving one’s neighbors—especially the poorest and the most vulnerable.
In agrarian societies, most people produced barely enough to survive. Children would rarely be richer than their parents. Income did not usually rise over the course of one’s life as it does today. The risk of starvation was always present for most people. This context presents a problem when you borrow something. Not only do you have to return what you borrowed, but you must generate some surplus to pay interest. That was a nearly impossible task for most people and often led to their selling themselves or their families into slavery.
But borrowing and lending in our modern era is not inherently sinful. With economic growth and prosperity, borrowing is not undertaken because of dire circumstances only. In fact, wealthy people tend to borrow much greater sums than the poor do. In class, I sometimes tell my students, most of whom are borrowing tens of thousands of dollars to pay for college, that I have borrowed more money than all of them put together. Yet I am far from poor—in fact, the reason why I can borrow so much is because I am not poor! I have assets, investments, and income to service loans and pay interest, and I can put that borrowed money to productive use in ways that didn’t exist a thousand years ago.