foolishness – The Lowedown

Proverbs 6

¹My child, if you co-sign a loan for a friend or guarantee the debt of someone you hardly know—²if you have trapped yourself by your agreement and are caught by what you said—³quick, get out of it if you possibly can! You have placed yourself at your friend’s mercy. Now swallow your pride; go and beg to have your name erased. ⁴Don’t put it off. Do it now! Don’t rest until you do. ⁵Save yourself like a deer escaping from a hunter, like a bird fleeing from a net. (Proverbs 6:1-5, NLT)

The Daily DAVEotional

The Bible is a guidebook for living and the book of Proverbs, in particular, is written in order to provide instruction for living righteously and with “good conduct.” The author promises that those who read these Proverbs will grow in “wisdom and discipline.”

One area that is addressed throughout Proverbs is the area of finances and money management.

In this passage, Solomon advises the reader against the practice of co-signing a loan for another.

Solomon doesn’t mince words as he describes this scenario as a “trap” because you have placed yourself at your friend’s (or relative’s) mercy.

What does he mean and why does he say that? What’s the big deal?

Many people are unaware of the implications of co-signing a loan.

Co-signing a loan is not simply a matter of going into business with another person or becoming an equal investor in some financial venture.

When you cosign a loan with another person, you are essentially offering a guarantee to the bank that YOU will step in and honor the terms of the loan if the primary borrower cannot.

Co-signing a loan often occurs when the primary borrower (the signer) is deemed by the lender to be a credit risk, and therefore cannot qualify for a loan on their own for whatever they are purchasing.

There are any number of reasons why a person would not be able to qualify on their own for a loan.

One reason is that they don’t make enough money with their job to meet minimum standards the bank has set for income to debt ratios. In other words, based on basic loan standards, the monthly payment amount required for whatever loan the person might be seeking is too high relative to the amount of their monthly income. The bank has all kinds of statistics and predictors to evaluate various loan scenarios and they know that the higher percentage your payment is relative to your income, the more likely you are to default on a loan.

Another reason why a person might not be able to qualify for a loan on their own is because they have a poor credit history. A person’s credit score is a reflection of their ability to honor their financial commitments. Low credit scores often mean the person has missed payments in the past and/or they have too much personal debt. The lower your credit score, the more you are perceived by the lender to be a risky borrower – someone who has missed payments, made late payments or has completely defaulted on a loan.

So when a person finds themselves unable to borrow money, they may turn to a friend or relative to help them secure the loan by acting as a co-signer for the loan.

Solomon says that you shouldn’t put yourself in the position of being a cosigner. It’s incredibly foolish for a number of reasons.

When you co-sign a loan for another person, you are legally guaranteeing to the lender that if the primary borrower defaults, you will be responsible for the loan.

Why would anyone do that?

Think about it. If the bank won’t lend to the person on their own, why would they lend to them with you as a cosigner? The reason is because you have good credit and you are essentially vouching for the person in such a way that you’re putting yourself on the hook for that financial obligation should they default. If they are already deemed by the bank to be a person who cannot be relied upon to pay back a loan, they will STILL be unreliable even after you cosign. You will then be the guarantor for that loan.

In other words, cosigning a loan is incredibly foolish because there is a good chance it will become your legal obligation.

Horror stories abound when things go sideways after cosigning a loan. You may have creditors coming after you. Your wages could get garnished as creditors seek to recover unpaid payments, penalties and interest. Your credit score might get damaged as someone else’s debts and poor financial track record gets tied to you.

A poor credit score might impact your own ability to get a car loan or even buy a house, as lenders now view you as a borrowing risk, all because someone else decided that being financially responsible wasn’t important to them.

I know what you’re thinking…

“Shouldn’t we help people? Wouldn’t it be mean not to help a person who is in a bind? Shouldn’t we be Good Samaritans?”

Yes, it is a good thing to help people but not every course of action is helpful or wise. Helping another person does not mean you should do something foolish like guarantee their loan. Perhaps the best way to help a person is to force them to live in the reality of their financial situation.

Cosigning a loan for someone else has zero upside for the cosigner but the downsides are innumerable. This is why Solomon says it’s a trap. With absolutely no financial benefit to you, cosigning a loan has the potential to bring about tremendous personal financial ruin.

For a more complete list of possible downsides to cosigning a loan, see this article.

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Reflection

What are some reasons a person might ask you to cosign a loan?

On a scale of 1-10, how hard would it be for you to say no to a close friend or relative who asked you to help them by cosigning a loan?

If you gave a low value to the last question, meaning that it would be very difficult for you to say no to some people if they asked you for financial help by cosigning a loan, what options might be available to you to help ensure that you did not fall into this “trap”?

If a person were to come to you wanting you to cosign a loan (a friend or relative) what do you think are some options for helping them that would NOT require you to risk your own financial position by cosigning a loan?

Or put it another way….if you are the person in financial stress and you are wanting a loan that you cannot get, what options might be available to you BESIDES asking someone to cosign a loan for you?

Photo by RDNE Stock project: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photo-of-an-agreement-on-a-paper-7841821/

Isaiah 44

⁹How foolish are those who manufacture idols to be their gods. These highly valued objects are really worthless. They themselves are witnesses that this is so, for their idols neither see nor know. No wonder those who worship them are put to shame. ¹⁰Who but a fool would make his own god—an idol that cannot help him one bit! ¹¹All who worship idols will stand before the LORD in shame, along with all these craftsmen—mere humans—who claim they can make a god. Together they will stand in terror and shame.

¹²The blacksmith stands at his forge to make a sharp tool, pounding and shaping it with all his might. His work makes him hungry and thirsty, weak and faint. ¹³Then the wood-carver measures and marks out a block of wood, takes the tool, and carves the figure of a man. Now he has a wonderful idol that cannot even move from where it is placed! ¹⁴He cuts down cedars; he selects the cypress and the oak; he plants the cedar in the forest to be nourished by the rain. ¹⁵And after his care, he uses part of the wood to make a fire to warm himself and bake his bread. Then—yes, it’s true—he takes the rest of it and makes himself a god for people to worship! He makes an idol and bows down and praises it! ¹⁶He burns part of the tree to roast his meat and to keep himself warm. ¹⁷Then he takes what’s left and makes his god: a carved idol! He falls down in front of it, worshiping and praying to it. “Rescue me!” he says. “You are my god!”

¹⁸Such stupidity and ignorance! Their eyes are closed, and they cannot see. Their minds are shut, and they cannot think. ¹⁹The person who made the idol never stops to reflect, “Why, it’s just a block of wood! I burned half of it for heat and used it to bake my bread and roast my meat. How can the rest of it be a god? Should I bow down to worship a chunk of wood?” ²⁰The poor, deluded fool feeds on ashes. He is trusting something that can give him no help at all. Yet he cannot bring himself to ask, “Is this thing, this idol that I’m holding in my hand, a lie?”

The Daily DAVEotional

In this chapter of Isaiah, the prophet goes to considerable lengths to explain the process and foolishness of fashioning an idol out of wood and then worshiping it as your god.

Who in their right mind would take a block of wood, using some of it to heat their home and cook their food while fashioning an idol out of the remaining portion, which they then worship as their god? It makes ZERO sense. Isaiah goes so far as to call it “stupidity and ignorance!”

Why would people do this?

For starters, the people living in the Ancient Near East did not have the same technological and informational understanding that we do today. It was quite common to believe in a regional deity as a supernatural being who had to be appeased or worshiped in order to gain favor and blessings that would make life livable.

For example, if there was drought, the people would appeal to the regional deity to bring rain. If crops were failing, the regional deity would be appeased in order to bring a favorable crop.

The god you worshiped and to whom you appealed was largely a function of where you lived, as it was a commonly held belief that there were many deities, each of whom ruled over a particular territory.

The fact that the Israelites continually forsook the Lord in order to worship Baal was because Baal was the god of the Canaanites, the people who occupied the land when the Israelites arrived on the scene. Though God had instructed the Israelites to remove the Canaanites from the land, the Jews never fully expelled the Canaanite religious belief system, which became a constant thorn in their side.

Today, there are still cultures that worship regional deities but most of the modern world sees this as foolishness, just as Isaiah has described. But that doesn’t mean that the modern world doesn’t still worship idols. We do. We are just much more sophisticated in how we do it.

What really is an idol anyway, and why is it wrong to worship an idol?

An idol could be defined as an object of substitutionary trust.

Think of the 10 commandments. The first commandment, which is found in Exodus 20:3 is “Do not worship any other gods besides me”. But before the Lord shares the first commandment, He prefaces it by saying, “I am the Lord your God who rescued you from slavery in Egypt.”

At the core of this commandment is a recognition of who provides for you and who sustains your very life. It’s a remembrance and acknowledgement of all that God has done for you, including deliverance from slavery.

When the Israelites worshiped idols, they were essentially saying that God was NOT the one who rescued them; God is NOT the one who sustains them: God is NOT the one who delivers them or protects them or cares for them.

We do the same thing – we just attribute our trust to things other than carved wooden idols.

If an idol is an object of substitutionary trust, what are people today most likely to put their trust in instead of God?

Themselves!

The most common idol that people trust for their success, deliverance and provision is themselves. Many people have become their own gods. They alone determine their destiny. They alone can provide for themselves and their family. They alone are the masters of their own fate. They alone determine what they believe to be right and wrong.

In our modern culture, we no longer take a block of wood and use some of it for heating while fashioning a portion into an idol that we then worship. Instead, we simply reject God as the ultimate standard of right and wrong, while denying God’s involvement in our lives, His sovereignty in the world and His right to receive worship as the one who created us.

In short, we magnify and glorify ourselves and others, who serve as our means of trust to provide for us, deliver us, protect us, and bless us! It may not be as obvious as creating our god from a block of wood, but nonetheless, it’s just as foolish!

Reflection

What do you think of the author’s definition of an idol as a substitutionary object of trust? Do you agree with it? Why or why not?

What are the things that you are most likely to trust to provide for you, care for you and deliver you in place of God?

What can you do to ensure that God has His rightful place in your life and that you worship Him and Him alone? What steps can you take; what practices can you implement?

Photo by Nathan Lemon on Unsplash