The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender. - Proverbs 22:7

Today’s Scripture Reading (September 5, 2016): Proverbs 22

I believe in the fundamental equality of the human race. I don’t say that lightly. And I don’t mean that I believe that we all possess the same abilities or aptitudes. The American Dream is fundamentally a lie. Each of us has things that we excel at, and things that we do not and will not understand. The trick is not in trying to be like everyone else, but rather it is in finding our God-given place in the world. But none of us are less equal. The great George Orwell Quote from Animal Farm – All animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others – is a human perversion of the ultimate truth. We are all equal, period. And because we are fundamentally equal, slavery is wrong.

I am severely bothered by the perceived racial inequality in the United States. It is basically wrong. But there might be another deeper problem in our culture – the growing money gap or the increasing divide between the wealthy and the have-nots – and the slow disappearance of everyone in between. Let me stress that this is just my opinion, but even in the inequality that we see on our streets, it is generally the poor that are paying the price. And because there is a difference in the wealth of the races, we are going to see a racial inequality that, at least in part, is directly a result of an economic inequality.

Proverbs reminds us of this problem – The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is a slave to the lender. Slavery still exists, but now we walk voluntarily into our own slavery by being a people bound by debt. If we actually want equality in our society, then we have to erase debt. There is no other way to be truly equal. And that is only possible if we recognize the role debt plays in our own personal slavery. We have to be the ones to change it. Because as long as we owe, then slavery is still a reality in our culture – and the poor will get poorer and while the rich get richer and increase their rule over the rest of us slaves.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Proverbs 23