What's the danger of a little debt?
Text: Proverbs 6:1-5
Hosts:
J. Kent Edwards
Vicki Hitzges
Nathan Norman
Narrator: Brian French
The CrossTalk Podcast is a production of CrossTalk Global, equipping biblical communicators, so every culture hears God’s voice. To find out more, or to support the work of this ministry please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org
Produced by Nathan James Norman/Untold Podcast Production
© 2025 CrossTalk Global
Brian: According to an article in the Economic Times this week, global finances are in peril as the debt levels of many nations have reached, quote, insane, dangerous highs, with major economies carrying heavier burdens than ever before. Japan sits at the top of the global debt rankings. Its government debt to GDP ratio, the value of all the goods and services a nation produces, stands at 234.9%, the highest among advanced economies. The United States is close behind with a nearly record high 125% debt to GDP ratio. China's debt load has also surged. Its debt to GDP ratio has climbed past 110%, doubling in just 10 years. And the European Union's debt ratio is approximately 95%. Together, these four major economic regions now have global debt exceeding 337 trillion, a significant share of the world's public debt. The problem with debt is that you have to repay it with interest. And if interest rates rise, skyrocketing debt servicing costs can bankrupt a nation. If a nation declares bankruptcy, no one will lend it more money and its currency becomes worthless. The dangers of debt are not limited to wealthy nations. 78 of the world's poor countries, home to one quarter of humanity, are trapped in a financial doom loop. To grow their economies, they go into debt. To service the rising costs of debts, many of these countries are cutting the investments in education, healthcare and infrastructure that they need to ensure future growth. No wonder that in June 2025 the World bank warned of a looming global debt disaster. Debt is dangerous. Debt can be destructive. That's why you will want to join Nathan Norman, Vicki Hitchkiss and Kent Edwards as they listen to Solomon's warnings and suggestions for those who are not careful with their Credit. Welcome to CrossTalk, a Christian podcast whose goal is for us to encourage each other to not only increase our knowledge of the Bible, but to take the next step beyond information into transformation. Our goal is to bring the Bible to life, into all our lives. I'm Brian French. Today, Dr. Kent Edwards, Vicki Hitchkis and Nathan Norman continue their discussion in the Book of Proverbs. If you have a Bible handy, turn to Proverbs, chapter 6, verses 1 through 5 as we join their discussion.
Kent: Before we jump right into our latest discussion on Proverbs, let's just remind ourselves of what Solomon is doing in these opening chapters of the Book of Proverbs, chapters one through nine. He began by saying that one of Satan's snares is to lure us into the wrong kind of friends. Gangs who woo us with a promise of ill gotten gains. The second snare Satan uses to tempt us is to live in the moment rather than first establishing our life's purpose and then starting to make decisions today that will lead us to our tomorrow goal. According to Solomon, wise people walk backwards through life. First they decide on their end goal, what they want to accomplish in life, and then walk backwards to say what decisions do they need to make along the way to end up at that destination. Satan's third snare was much simpler. It's just adultery. How common it is for people to exchange the life they could have enjoyed for a season of lust. But the fourth snare Satan uses to try and ruin our lives is, is debt. And man, is he seeming to be successful in that today. I find it interesting that in the third quarter of 2024, Americans owned a total of $17.5 trillion in debt, up 2.4% from the previous years. That's an incredible number, isn't it?
Vicki: Yeah, that sounds like a national debt number to me.
Kent: That's just private debt, not public debt. That's amazing.
Vicki: Wow, that's amazing.
Kent: This debt comes in many forms. Could be student loans, car debt, mortgage on a home, credit card debt, or personal loan. But US consumers are carrying each US consumer is carrying an average of $105,056 of debt. That is incredible. And I know that our listeners can't see the chart that I provided for you, but did you notice the debt load of Gen Z, for example, people who are from 18 to 27 years.
Vicki: Of age, it's almost double what say my parents would have had. It's unbelievable. It's almost $300,000. And these are people under the age of 27, 18 to 27.
Kent: So think of the ramifications. They couldn't buy a house, probably because look at all the debt they already have. These are younger.
Vicki: Is that why they say Gen Z can't buy a house? Because they already have. I didn't know why that was.
Nathan: Well, it's multifaceted. I mean, one of the things is that the housing market is astronomically high. You know, that's why I thought it was. And Gen Z, it's not as bad as millennials. But Gen Z, what they're making, adjusted for inflation, is significantly less than say, Generation X was making at the same time in their age.
Kent: And they've many of them who have been striving to get ahead, as they should have decided to go to college and take on student debt. And that can be an enormous weight, financial weight on a person for decades. So Vicki, I have A couple of questions for you.
Vicki: Okay. I'll straighten this out.
Kent: Why do people get deeply into debt?
Vicki: Well, I think it's two things. I think if you value education and think a college degree is going to help you, you'll go into debt because you have value that education. I think some people go into debt because of medical debt and they can't help it. And then I think there's lazy debt, and that's where people just buy things they don't need and it just stacks up and stacks up and stacks up and it ruins their life.
Nathan: Yeah, those are great answers. The only thing I would add to that is I think there's a narrative, there is a subtext narrative in our culture that says, okay, education, debt is good debt, because if you get educated, then you're going to be able to have a job and pay this off really quickly. But largely, most of the debt that people are taking on to go into education, they're not going into jobs that are going to be able to service that debt effectively or anytime in the near future. You also have. The bearing of the weight of debt that you have to pay back. This interest rate, this interest rate, in a lot of our narratives, live the big life now. All you have to do is swipe the card. I mean, these companies, they target students who are in college, 18, 19 years old. They've never experienced this before, and they're very aggressive. Oh, yeah, you can have this, you can have this, you can have this. And so I think. I think there's a narrative aspect to it as well.
Kent: And it's so easy. I mean, we've just gone through, as we record this podcast, Black Friday in the United States. Lots of sales, on sale, on sale, on sale, 30, 40, 50% off. And you can pay over time. You can pay over time for three, four months for a sweater. So buy it now. It feels like almost nothing, but you know that interest is involved there. You know that these tiny micro purchases will add up and add up and add up. What impact does debt have on people individually? Let's start with individually. What impact does it have?
Vicki: Oh, it's. It's a. It's a. It's like taking cement blocks and hanging them on your shoulders. I have friends that are in debt and they're miserable. They are absolutely miserable. And maybe in the beginning it's fun to have all this stuff, but down the line, and it's not far down the line. They can't do things, they can't go places. Their lives are ruined. And maybe they Start out in a great place, but they end up in a hobble and they're miserable.
Nathan: Yeah. I've known individuals who didn't get married because one of the couples was carrying crippling credit card debt and the other one did not want to take that on.
Vicki: I understand that.
Kent: No, because A, it's a lot of money, and B, if they've done it in the past, are they going to keep doing it in the future?
Vicki: And then you, the other person, are saddled with that debt. You don't want that.
Kent: How does debt affect families?
Nathan: Oh, I know a guy who ended his marriage. He made well over a million dollars a year, and. He couldn't keep up because his wife would spend and spend and spend and spend well over their means, and then she'd max out credit cards. And he tried to get help, and they tried to go into, like, some sort of rehab and everything. She wouldn't stop, and she'd take out stuff. And so eventually he just. He said, I can't do this anymore. And they got divorced. And he tried for a few decades. It. And it decimated the family. Kids are angry at dad, they're angry at Mom. Everyone's taking sides. It was terrible.
Kent: Yeah. And for families, often people decide not to have children or have fewer children because I can't afford it. Look at the debt that I have. That's one of the factors, I think that's responsible globally, in many places around the world for declining birth rates. It's fascinating to me that is very true of Japan, which was rated as having the greatest dead load. I don't know, off top of my.
Nathan: Head, I think their birth rate is like 0.7. Right. So it's supposed to be two to refresh, you know, the. The population size. And I think it's at 0.7, last I saw.
Kent: That's one of the reasons why they're concentrating some of their activities in developing robots. Robots look after elderly because they can't find people who could actually care for people. That leads us into generational impact. What is the generational impact of debt?
Vicki: Oh, I think of the emotional impact of it. Like you said, Nathan, people are angry. They're frustrated. They pass that down. Instead of having love and respect, there's anger passed down. It's a terrible. And respect doesn't get passed down. It's a terrible thing.
Nathan: Yeah, well. And there's a possibility that the kids see you do this, and so they just fall into the same kind of sin.
Vicki: Oh, yes.
Nathan: I'm sorry.
Brian: Oh, yes.
Nathan: The same Kind of pattern, I shouldn't say. Yeah. Yeah.
Kent: And, you know, I think most parents globally want their children to want their children to live a better life than they had. They want their children to thrive. But if they're massively in debt, then that's not possible. They can't provide financial resources for their kids to build on that, to enhance their living styles in every way. They just can't do that. It's because of the tremendous dangers and difficulties that are caused by debt that Solomon chooses to warn us in Proverbs 6, starting in verse 1, doesn't he?
Vicki: Well, it says, my son, if you put up security for your neighbor, if you have shaken hands in pledge for a stranger, if you've been trapped by what you said, ensnared by the words of your mouth. Yeah, this is all if stuff.
Kent: It's all if stuff. So he's warning of future calamity of what's coming. What is being described here is not what we think of as a traditional loan where if you go to the bank based on your good credit score, some person or institution will loan you money and charge you interest. No, the kind of dealings we have today with loans was forbidden in the Old Testament. In Exodus 22:25, for example, says, if.
Vicki: You lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not treat it like a business deal. Don't charge interest.
Kent: So Scripture is constantly encouraging generosity to needy people, but not debt. He's saying, if someone comes to you in need, feel free to give them some money that will help them. But don't tie your financial security to to theirs. Because the situation the Father is describing here in these verses is when a person is going into debt for some major purpose. Maybe they're buying a farm, a house, or whatever. The father is son and the son, if you co sign that person's loan, your signature guarantees that if the purchaser fails to pay back the loan, you will have to pay the whole thing for them. So Father's warning the son, if someone comes to you and says, I'm in trouble, co sign this loan for me. It sounds like one scenario is that he could do it and co sign the loan. Would that be a wise decision?
Vicki: Not unless you're willing to give up whatever the piece of property or house or car or boat or whatever costs.
Kent: Yeah, you'd have to be willing to swallow it all.
Vicki: Because you don't know if that person's going to make good on it. It's kind of like gambling. If you go to Vegas and You think I'll blow $100 and I'll lose $100. Okay. But if you think I can't afford to lose $100, don't go gamble $100.
Kent: Well, your metaphor is excellent, because around where I live, there's a lot of casinos. And on occasion, you know, because a hotel is attached, my wife and I might find ourselves walking through the lobby. I look up at all the. These ornate decorations, this glamorous building, and I say to myself, who pays for this?
Nathan: Yeah.
Vicki: Those people on the slot machines at the tables.
Nathan: Yeah.
Kent: The gamblers always lose. I mean, there's exceptions. But as a rule of thumb, the reason casinos thrive is because when you gamble with your money, chances are excellent that you will lose it. So this is a bad financial decision. That's what the father's telling the son. Do not do that. It will devastate you and for generations to come. So why. I mean, let's just look under the hood for a minute. What would motivate someone to enter into such an agreement? A friend comes to you and says, co sign this loan for my house, my mortgage.
Vicki: Oh, if you had a very good friend and you had a house and they didn't, and they were getting married, maybe, and they said, please help me. You know, you might be tender and think, oh, I'll do that, but it's stupid. And I can see a. And I can see a parent doing that for a child.
Nathan: Now, that makes sense. You're already bound to them anyways.
Kent: But.
Nathan: With a friend, now all their decisions are going to affect you, and you have no control over what decisions they make.
Kent: Yeah. No, those feelings of friendship, of goodwill are strong. I have a relative who. Can'T get credit and would love for me to co sign the loan so they can get the house that they have dreamed of. But I can't take the risk. I love you. I care for you. I'm sorry. You've made the decisions you've made. I can't fix that. I can't fix that. Sometimes friendship motivates us to make unwise financial decisions, but sometimes we just want to earn goodwill with even strangers. Right?
Vicki: I don't. I don't. That's too much money. I mean, I'm thinking about buying a house or something. Give me an example.
Nathan: No, I'll give you an example. So I'm kind of in the midst of this right now. Not personally, but watching it from an interested party. I know someone who had a creative endeavor, and they tried to do one of these crowdfunding things, the crowdfunding was going to, it was definitely going to come up a little bit short. He basically got into a relationship with someone who would front the rest of the money. And the guy has not been honest and he has held up the project and he has lied and he has thrown everybody under the bus.
Vicki: Which one?
Nathan: The creator or the guy he got into business with and the guy who loaned him money, essentially. His name in the industry. The guy who is the creator, his name in the industry is, it's less than worthless. He has people that he has to pay and he's never been able to pay. And it's destroyed his credibility within the industry that he has worked in for 30 years.
Vicki: So this is really the reverse. Instead of don't lend money, this is the guy who asked for the money who's getting ruined.
Kent: Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nathan: But he was trying to. And there's a lot of creators involved with this project. He was, he, he'd gotten some big names involved. He, he really, you know, got them all up here, got all this money and. And it's, it's ruined lots of relationships. It really has. And so that's an example. He's trying to get goodwill. And in trying to, to enter into a financial situation with goodwill, it's, it's ended up just decimating his credibility.
Kent: Yeah. And sometimes we enter into relationship out of goodwill because if I help them in this, then we could work together for other more profitable ventures in the future.
Nathan: Another guy, let's build up capital. He lent a large sum of money. I think it was like $10,000, which was huge for him, be huge for me. He lent it to a former NFL. Player who is going to help him with his football coaching career. Right. And lo and behold, the football guy, you know, basically took the money and ran and never did anything for him. Right. But, but because he figured, hey NFL, now I got credibility. Yeah, no, you just been burned.
Kent: So what motivates us to make financially risky, stupid decisions? I think it's a refusal to recognize worst case scenarios. We tend to think of all the positives. Like your friend, this will help my coaching career without thinking about what happens if this turns upside down. Can I afford the opposite? It's interesting how that happens around the world, the housing market particularly. I was reading recently about housing situations in China and in Toronto, Canada. In both these situations, prices for housing was going up and up and up so fast that people thought there's no downside. So they would put down payment on a condo and an apartment that was not even built yet. But they put down deposit because they knew that they could sell it again in just a few months, even though construction had not started to another homeowner. And they would just leverage the small amount of money and sell, flip it over and over and over again, believing that things would always get better until they didn't. Today in China, there are literally whole cities of constructed building, apartment building, shops that are all empty. They built it in hope and it didn't happen in Toronto. I'm told that the condo market in downtown Toronto has been crashing because people don't have the money. And these people who put down money for a fast, easy win have faced terrible, terrible consequences. Sometimes we just refuse to consider worst case scenarios. And what would happen if things did go south? What happens when you realize your mistake? Well, the father's telling the son here it's going to be too late. Look at what he says in verse two.
Vicki: He says, you have been trapped by what you said, ensnared by the words of your mouth.
Kent: So look at that just in verse two. You are trapped. You are ensnared. Your fate has been sealed. He's not saying you may be trapped, you may be ensnared, he said, because you've made this decision, you are ensnared. So he says in verse three and.
Vicki: Following so he said, here's the cure. So do this, my son, to free yourself since you have fallen into your neighbor's hands, Go to the point of exhaustion and give your neighbor no rest. Allow no sleep to his eyes, no slumber to your eyelids. Free yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the snare of the fowler. Well, he's into this. Get out of this deal, he's saying.
Kent: Yeah, and so his suggestion is the only thing this one can do. Because he trapped himself, right? You trapped yourself by what you said. You have ensnared yourself by the words of your mouth. So the only thing you have left, the father selling the son is go beg, right? Well, beg and beg and beg and beg.
Vicki: And that's assuming the guy can let.
Kent: Him out of the deal or has any indica. Any desire to do that. The examples we've given have said no. There was no restoration. The person who made a bad deal suffered from the results. In fact, it's interesting when it says, free yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter. Well, it's fascinating. You know, we've had conversations, Vicki, with your family's good friend, your good friend Bruce Waltke.
Vicki: Yes.
Kent: And in his commentary on this section, he says that this probably refers to the principal method of hunting gazelles by the use of large natural stone corals in the shape of triangles open at one end, into which the gazelles would be driven. Trapped here and often injured, they would be slaughtered with ease. So when he says in verse five, free yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, there is no opportunity for freedom. You've put yourself in a triangle where there is no escape, you will be slaughtered. And when he says, free yourself like a bird from the snare of the fowler, well, the snare was a literal trap, often described as a wooden structure surrounded by netting with an opening to catch birds. Remember, we looked back at Proverbs 1 and talked about how fowlers would come with a net, and as the fowler came with a net, that would capture the birds and there was no escape. So this is not giving a solution to the problem, Vicki. Here the father is telling the son, you have just hung yourself. You can beg and beg, but the person that you are obligated to pay is under no obligation to free you from that. You're done, and you did it yourself. This isn't meant to give us a solution, but it's telling us that don't enter into any agreement without doing your due diligence. I have a sister and her husband who have a small business in Canada, and they're getting ready to sell it. Easier said than done. This is not putting an ad in the paper. Do you want to buy a used car? They have to supply all kinds of financial evidence to a potential buyer. So what was their revenue? What were their expenses? What is their net profit over a certain number of years? Likewise, the buyer does the same thing. In fact, I looked online to talk about what does it mean to do due diligence? And, well, there are a number of things that business people must do to avoid the snare that the son got himself into.
Nathan: Yeah, well, first, I mean, you want to do financial and legal due diligence. You want to read the financial statements, analyze it all, examine the legal documents. Maybe. Better yet, if you're not a lawyer yourself, have a lawyer or a friend who knows legalese. Look at it. Verify the assets and liabilities. So trust but verify kind of thing, Right? Don't just take their word for it. And taxes. Look at taxes. I know where I live in Westchester county right now, many people have just reached the threshold where they can afford the mortgage, but the tax burden is greater than their mortgage payments. Which is incredible. Right. So you have to keep that into account. Many people don't take into account and they, they get into a really bad situation.
Vicki: No, there's all kinds of stuff. Analyze the operations in the market. Make sure that going forward there's still going to be a need for this business. Review products and services. Their profitability, the growth potential. Just because they could run a successful business doesn't mean this new company could.
Kent: Yeah. And that would include even examining what key employees are going to be staying with you and for how long and what.
Vicki: I don't know how you do this, but I know a dentist that sold his practice and people like the dentist, it wasn't so. I mean his, his clients, whatever you call him, they left and this new dentist bought the practice. And I don't know what he got besides some teeth scraping tools and some chairs. But there's a lot that goes into buying a business.
Kent: I think that's why they recommend getting professional advice. Don't try to do it yourself. Have a disinterested third party come and examine the opportunity, the challenges that are being presented when someone comes and asks for financial help to make sure you don't come in with rose colored glasses. Even if it's a friend, even if it's someone you think you know. Well, you know, American President Ronald Reagan is famous for saying, let's trust but verify. I think that applies in any financial dealing as well.
Nathan: Well, and you think about just in general, the decisions we have to make or any kind of legal process you want to go through. I know a number of years ago, the church I was at, the Orchard Church in Michigan, we were redoing our constitution and bylaws which if anyone really needs to have a fun, go redo those in a church. But I mean, we were just going through this and it's such a slog. And I remember at one point, man, we just got stuck on this one area and I felt like what was being proposed to be put in was overly complex and was too much. And I said the likelihood of that ever happening is so infinitesimally small. It'S not going to happen. Let's just hope for the best. And he said, we are not putting this document together to hope for the best. We're putting this document together to plan for the worst.
Kent: Good advice.
Nathan: And I have kept that with me for a long time. Scott Hinson, you're a genius. Right? Just. We're not planning for the best, we're hoping for the best, but we're planning for the worst. And I think that's how we go into all of our financial decisions. Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.
Kent: Yeah, we need to follow the Father's advice to the son not to put up security for a neighbor. Don't strike hands and pledge for another. Not without doing due diligence. Because you could be trapped by what you have said and ensnared by the words of your life. Look, one of Satan's snares. One of the ways he wants to diminish harm, reduce our effectiveness for the kingdom is by putting us deeply into debt. Let's not make the son's mistake. What can you do when you realize you've made an abysmal financial decision? All you can do is humble yourself and plead for mercy from the one who has no incentive to give it to you. So do everything in your power to avoid the danger of debt. Do due diligence before every major financial decision. Listen to the Father. Don't make the son's mistake.
Brian: It's wise to avoid bad financial decisions because once you've committed to it, the only option you'll have is to beg for mercy from the one who has no incentive to give it. Let's learn from Solomon's wisdom going forward. I trust that today's discussion of God's Word has been helpful and serves as an encouragement to not just be hearers of the Word, but doers. Together, let's bring God's Word to life, to our lives. This week, the crosstalk Podcast is a production of crosstalk Global, equipping biblical communicators so every culture hears God's voice. To find out more about this educational nonprofit organization, please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org Crosstalk just completed successful training. Trainings in Moldova and Bucharest, Romania, help us train the next generation of biblical communicators. All you have to do is click Donate in the show notes and make a donation of any size. You can also support this show by rating it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find it. Be sure to listen next Friday as we continue our journey through the Book of Proverbs. You won't want to miss it.