Number 7

Owe no man anything means that we must be debt free

In this and 9 subjects I will outline the top ten lies that lcm screamed about and called "present truth". There is a genuine concept called "present truth" but it does not contradict scripture. The reason lcm had to scream about these things so much is because they were lies. The top ten are  newer Way II doctrines or practices introduced by lcm after 1994 and part of what he actually called "present truth".

The next great step down after the genuine suspicion thing was concerning debt. The top leadership did have the right to place certain restrictions upon the clergy and upon the full-time salaried leadership. In the Old Testament, the Levites were not supposed to own property. Why? Because it was an entanglement. Timothy, which is a leadership epistle says that we (leaders) are not to become entangled with the affairs of this world. They had every right to place this requirement upon the "Levite" level of leaders. (With the exception that the transition time should have been longer.) However, the issue was taken too far when what was for upper level leaders was forced upon everyone. There is no scripture anywhere that says debt is prohibited. Undesirable, yes, but prohibited, no. Romans 13:8, which says "Owe no man anything", is in the context of rendering due deference to leadership in degrees based upon their faithfulness, position and function: whether it be abundant sharing!

honorarium, respect or honor. It does not refer to debt as in taking out a loan or using a credit card any more than the higher powers spoken of earlier in that chapter refer to the secular government. The Word interprets itself in the context. How else could the following contrast "but to love one another" make sense? Furthermore, it was already known that this interpretation of Romans 13:8 was wrong. It had been taught correctly earlier but no one was brave enough to speak up at the time. This error was later retracted and was taught right, but the damage was already done. The momentum was already moving in the wrong direction and would not be stopped. This error set the precedent for further intrusions into believers' personal affairs in the name of the quest for purity.

Yes, it was a wonderful story they told about how they used to not go into debt for automobiles, but saved their money to purchase new ones. It seemed good advice to pay cash for a used car and save up the equivalent of a car payment every month till one could pay cash for a new car. But that example was from the 50's when you could open the hood of your car and know what almost every component was and do much of the upkeep work yourself. We tried to do that with our 70s and 80s used cars with all the strange and expensive stuff under the hood and found that this advice did not work the same because the frequent long trips to Way Headquarters and the car repair bills ate up what we were trying to save. And concerning the logic for the prohibition to get a new car via a loan being living beyond your means, it purportedly being a portrayal that you could afford a new car when you could not: Well, when I had bought new cars before, I'd bought them for me, not for my neighbors. I !

did not care what they thought. I was just so frustrated with trying to keep my old used cars running that when I finally was able to afford a loan payment on a new car and no longer had to put up with all that used car junk, I stayed in fellowship more! The extra cost of interest was worth it to me.

Being a good steward with your money is an important thing. Many valuable lessons can be learned and good habits gained through the proper stewardship of our resources. But when does good stewardship end and legalism begin? Being faithful in that which is least is great but when does it get carried to a fault? Jesus Christ, in the section on stewardship in Luke 16 gave the guideline for keeping this in balance when he taught that we should make to ourselves "friends of the mammon of unrighteousness." The Greek word for "friends" is a relative of the word phileo. This kind of relationship is characterized as: I'll be your friend as long as you are a benefit to me. The occurrences of phileo in the New Testament confirm that it is conditional, superficial and changeable. Jesus did not say to have agape, love: be devoted to or deeply committed to material things. We shouldn't carry it to the point where we become a control freak.

It says make them your friend - not too deep of a relationship. However, this instead got legalistic and out of balance and soon people were being treated the way that material things should have been treated and material things the way that people should have been treated. As soon as people were no good to us we were to throw them away. It should have been if any thing stands in the way of me reflecting horizontally the love that God shows me vertically, let it be damned! We cannot serve both God and mammon. Sure, it would be a wonderful goal of having the entire household of mature believers to be debt free. But to have effected it by corrupt methods corrupts the result!

There are many scriptures which say that debt is undesirable, but none which prohibit it. There even are many scriptures in the Old Testament which codified rules for living and dealing with it. If it were wrong and should be prohibited, the Word would have clearly said so. Furthermore, there are no New Testament Scriptures which prohibit it for the average believer.

We knew something was seriously wrong about the teaching regarding debt when my wife asked them a question about leasing a car. The answer they gave was that car leases are "debt" and debt is wrong. They said you are simply trying to get and use something you cannot afford to pay cash for. My wife then said "Then what is the difference between leasing our house, that we cannot afford to pay cash for, and leasing a car?" Their answer was that you can "get out of a house or apartment lease easier". That was the first time I had ever heard an official answer from the ministry to have such a dishonorable tone. Since when is it ethical to justify breaking our word over anything? Over all the years I had been in the Way Ministry, we had been encouraged to be model citizens and handle all of our affairs with the highest of ethics including living up to a lease agreement. But now, more and more recommendations were being made where the ends somehow justified the means.

We were told that we needed to get somewhere quickly, but no one told us where were going and when we would know we would be there... If there were some financial crash coming, the prophet should say so, if they are genuine. If not, what's the difference between them and 1-900-Yo Stupid? Let them speak clearly and if it does not come to pass, then let them not be heeded any more!

Car leases at that time were not and still are not debt. But they were and still can be an entanglement if you don't understand what you are signing, just like any other lease or legal agreement. It was a relatively new financial instrument to the general populace. Car leasing companies had been more conservative at first regarding what they termed "normal wear and tear". And it was more difficult to "get out of" a car lease if you absolutely had to back then. Whoever it was that was consulted about leasing must have heard horror stories about leasing cars or maybe they feared one of those rumored financial crashes that the tabloids warn about or something… If we'd been taught that it was an entanglement, that would have been accurate. However, this was another example of how something imprecise took on a life of its own and pretty soon every limb wanted to be the first on the block to be debt free at any cost.

At first, debt was not a cause for expelling believers. It was even taught that way in the new Advanced Class. But later somehow it became one, and many believers were kicked out over it. Those excommunications did not meet the criteria for withdraw and avoid taught in Romans 16 and II Thessalonians 3 - ("Present truth" is not in the same category as "tradition"). Some people who had huge debts were successful in getting them paid off or cancelled. Hurrah! I'm happy for them. But many others, especially homeowners, did not receive such rosy results. Many of these believers who were forced to comply lost a great amount of their retirement savings by surrendering much of the equity they'd had in their homes to pay real estate commissions, IRS capital gains taxes, moving expenses and the demands for the increased abundant sharing that was "of necessity" thrust upon them. For all of those who now are debt free, what was the real cost? The loss of freedom of thought, the loss of their privacy and the loss of freedom of will!

Finally, to see if the prohibition of debt really was from God, we must consider the profit, both short term and long term. Was there any? Well the ministry profited from tithes and offerings that people that people gave when they sold their houses. But did the believers profit? You look at the wake of destruction left behind by Way II and tell me. As far as long term profit, consider the Way Corps - Full Time Minister thing. While they were screaming at us to live within our means and not go into debt, they were violating their own directives by not counting the cost before embarking on LCM's "roadway revelation" concerning the Full Time Minister thing. No one was willing to stand up and say, "We cannot afford it". The yes men that he surrounded himself with were too afraid to speak up. He had intimidated everyone so much that it came back to bite him on the ass. Then later when everyone saw the truth, no one was brave enough to say "we made a mistake." They just allowed LCM !

to teach the Abundant Sharing teachings and then the Plurality Giving teachings when everyone knew that at no time ever before had this been done at a Sunday Night Service. They permitted the leadership to invade the believers' personal affairs with the budget thing which gave leaders an accurate glimpse into everyone's financial affairs after which they could force the believers to tithe because they knew how much they made. The fear of standing up to LCM on this issue was like the proverbial flight from the bear into the mouth of the lion, because after this all the rest of the controls ensued.