Paul’s Gift Economy: Wages, Debt, and Debt Cancellation

http://ctt.canterbury.ac.nz Abstract: My focus is on the Biblical prophetic warning about, and solution to, severe debt injustice – whether individual or collective. I seek to demonstrate the New Testament’s continuity with the Jubilee theme of economic justice and debt cancellation laid out in the Hebrew Scriptures. In particular, I argue that Paul of Tarsus well understood the economic difficulties faced by wage laborers in the first-century Roman Empire and the all-too-real possibility of debt bondage, and – through his collection “for the poor among the consecrated at Jerusalem” – devised a creative means to reclaim the Biblical tradition of debt cancellation. In short, Paul envisioned what we could call a “gift economy” based not only on mutuality but also, and especially, on addressing the needs of the weak, vulnerable, and poor.