Some bleeding-heart liberal Christians act as if usury (the old fashioned term for interest earned on loaned money) is a sin. Is it? Well, it depends how one defines usury. Simply earning interest from the money one loans out is not necessarily a sin. I can prove it with Scripture.
In his Jesus’ parable of the servants, the disobedient servant who hid the pound that he was entrusted with was asked by his master (who was clearly supposed to be representation of God), “Wherefore then gavest thou not my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury?” (Luke 19:23 KJV) Of course, the only way a bank can afford to pay usury to its depositors is to exact a higher amount of it from those it loans money to. If usury were a sin, Jesus would not have encouraged people (and banks) to partake of it.
Now, if what one means by usury parallels the more modern definition of charging exorbitant interest rates, then I agree that it is a sin. An example would be a credit card company charging 21% on people’s balances. How can they justify this at a time when most banks are paying their depositors less than 2% on their savings accounts and no more than 5% on 10-year CDs? It seems to be me that 10% would be enough for them to make a decent profit as long as they are not making risky loans to those who would obviously have difficulty paying the money back. However, what they are actually charging is indeed a sin – and a shame!
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