Bad Idea

DEVOTION
PROVERBS
BAD IDEA
Prov 6:1-5
My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor, if you have struck hands in pledge for another, 2 if you have been trapped by what you said, ensnared by the words of your mouth, 3 then do this, my son, to free yourself, since you have fallen into your neighbor's hands: Go and humble yourself; press your plea with your neighbor! 4 Allow no sleep to your eyes, no slumber to your eyelids. 5 Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the snare of the fowler. NIV

Not sure want to do with this, or just how to apply it to my life. I understand the stranger thing, this another, is actually to turn aside or be a foreigner in the Hebrew. I get not being in some business arrangement or unequally yoked with a non- believer. I know that is a very bad situation and if I ever made some kind of agreement I should do all I can to get out of it. I do wonder if that applies to the mortgage loan I have with the bank, or a credit card company. Or does this simply apply to making some agreement with a person, like co-signing for them on a loan? It makes more sense in the social structure as well as within the time frame of when this was recorded to see it in the later view. But again I would have to say that would apply to an agreement between me and a non-believer, a stranger, another. This surely would not preclude me simply giving them money, or lend a helping hand in service to some need. But as far as putting my own possessions which I know are not really mine, but God’s, on the line for a stranger would be like committing suicide. I wonder if that would also apply toward investing money. That Hebrew word that is translated security has several aspects. It means to braid, to intermix, to traffic, as well as to give to be security as in an exchange. Surely all of that should be avoided in terms of me and an unbeliever. Again, it does not preclude me from either straight out giving, or in fact straight out receiving. But I should not enter into some form of exchange or business deal, which I think investing is for the sake of gain, or borrowing in exchange for service may well be. But again I have to consider if those mortgages, credit cards and such fit into that category. Yet I think the co-signing idea is the key concept here and especially between a believer and a non-believer. So I think I will just leave it as that and get out of here. It is a bad idea.