The Folly of Borrowed Trouble: Text: Proverbs 22:26-27
Introduction: The World as God Made It
We live in a world that is drowning in debt. Not just governments, with their nonsensical numbers that no one can really comprehend, but individuals, families, and households. Debt is the air our culture breathes. And a central part of this machinery of debt is the business of co-signing, of guaranteeing the debts of another. It is presented as an act of friendship, a gesture of help, a necessary step to get a start in life. But the wisdom of God, distilled for us here in the book of Proverbs, cuts through all our modern financial fog with a sharp and bracing clarity. It tells us that this practice is not kindness, but folly. It is not helpfulness, but recklessness.
Our secular age wants to arrange all of life as though God does not exist, and as though His created order has no fixed laws. We think we can redefine marriage, redefine gender, and redefine money. We believe we can create wealth by printing paper, and we can build financial stability on a foundation of promises we have no ability to keep. But reality, like a stubborn mule, refuses to budge. God's world has a grain to it, a structure, a set of operating instructions. And when we ignore those instructions, we do not break the laws of reality; we break ourselves against them.
The book of Proverbs is intensely practical. It is not a collection of ethereal platitudes for pious moments. It is divine wisdom for changing the oil, for dealing with a contentious spouse, for raising children, and, as we see here, for managing your finances. And the consistent warning of Proverbs regarding surety, or co-signing for a loan, is stark and severe. It is a trap. It is a snare. It is the act of a man "devoid of understanding" (Prov. 17:18). Why is the Bible so insistent on this point? Because it understands the nature of man, the nature of risk, and the nature of true responsibility before God.
In these two verses, we are given a direct command and a blunt, practical reason for it. This is not a suggestion for your consideration. It is a fatherly exhortation from God Himself, designed to keep His sons from ruin. To ignore it is to claim that you are wiser than God, which is the very definition of a fool.
The Text
Do not be among those who strike hands in pledge,
Among those who become guarantors for debts.
If you have nothing with which to pay,
Why should he take your bed from under you?
(Proverbs 22:26-27 LSB)
The Foolish Handshake (v. 26)
We begin with the prohibition in verse 26:
"Do not be among those who strike hands in pledge, Among those who become guarantors for debts." (Proverbs 22:26)
The phrase "strike hands" refers to the ancient practice of sealing a contract with a handshake. It was the legally binding gesture that said, "I stand behind this. My word, my name, and my assets are now tied to this agreement." In this case, the agreement is to become a guarantor, or surety, for someone else's debt. This means you are telling the lender that if the borrower defaults, you will pay the full amount. You are making their debt your own.
The wisdom here is not a prohibition against generosity. The Bible is filled with commands to be generous, to give to the poor, to lend to a brother in need. But there is a vast difference between giving and guaranteeing. When you give a man a hundred dollars, you have risked a hundred dollars. When you co-sign a ten-thousand-dollar loan for him, you have not given him anything; you have given the bank a claim on ten thousand dollars of your money. You have taken on all of the risk, with none of the control and none of the collateral. It is, from a stewardship perspective, insane.
Why does God forbid this? First, it is an act of presumption. When you guarantee a debt, you are making a promise about the future that you cannot possibly guarantee. You are presuming upon your own future ability to pay, and you are presuming upon the character and future actions of the borrower. James warns us sternly against this kind of arrogance: "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit' yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring" (James 4:13-14). Co-signing is saying, "I know that my friend will pay, and I know that if he doesn't, I will be able to." You know no such thing. It is to speak as though you are God, the one who actually holds the future.
Second, it entangles you in a web of obligations that God did not assign to you. Your primary financial responsibilities are to God (the tithe), to your family (1 Tim. 5:8), and to the household of faith. When you become surety, you voluntarily place the demands of a creditor above these God-given duties. If your friend defaults, the bank does not care if your children need shoes. They have your signature on a piece of paper, and you are now their servant. "The borrower is the slave of the lender" (Prov. 22:7). By co-signing, you have sold yourself into potential slavery for a debt that wasn't even yours to begin with.
The Price of Presumption (v. 27)
Verse 27 provides the stark, practical consequence of ignoring this wisdom. It brings the high-minded folly down to earth with a thud.
"If you have nothing with which to pay, Why should he take your bed from under you?" (Proverbs 22:27 LSB)
This is not complicated. The logic is brutally simple. If you make a promise to pay, and the time comes to pay, and you cannot pay, the creditor will come and take what you have. The "bed" here is not just a piece of furniture. It represents your most basic securities, your home, your place of rest and peace. Under the Mosaic law, a creditor could take a man's cloak as a pledge, but he had to return it by sundown so the man would have something to sleep in (Ex. 22:26-27). But by foolishly entering a surety agreement, you have waived that basic protection. You have gambled with your own household's security.
The question is rhetorical and dripping with holy sarcasm: "Why should he take your bed from under you?" The implied answer is, "There is no good reason!" It is an unnecessary, self-inflicted wound. You did this to yourself. You walked into a trap that God had clearly marked with a bright yellow sign. Your friend comes to you with a sad story and a loan application, and peer pressure or a misplaced sense of compassion makes you sign. A year later, he has vanished, and the bank is at your door, legally entitled to repossess your car and garnish your wages. And God's response through Solomon is, "Well, what did you expect?"
This is a call to be governed by wisdom, not by sentimentality. True love for your neighbor does not mean enabling his financial irresponsibility by putting your own family at risk. True love "rejoices with the truth" (1 Cor. 13:6), and the truth may be that your friend is a bad risk. The most loving thing you can do is not to co-sign his loan, but perhaps to give him what you can afford as a gift, or to sit down with him and teach him how to handle money responsibly, or to tell him a hard "no." A soft heart should not lead to a soft head.
The Ultimate Surety
This repeated biblical warning against becoming a guarantor for debt should also point us to a glorious theological reality. The reason it is such folly for us to do this is that we are finite, fallible, and sinful creatures. We cannot bear the weight of another's obligations. We can barely manage our own.
But there is One who was able to become a guarantor, a surety for a debt He did not owe. The book of Hebrews tells us that "Jesus has become the guarantor of a better covenant" (Hebrews 7:22). We had a debt of sin before a holy God that was infinitely beyond our ability to pay. The wages of sin is death, and we were utterly bankrupt, with nothing to pay. The justice of God required that our bed, and indeed our very souls, be taken from under us and cast into outer darkness.
And into this hopeless situation, Jesus Christ stepped forward. He struck hands with the Father in a pledge, in the covenant of redemption made before the foundation of the world. He became the guarantor for our debts. And unlike us, He was not presuming. He knew exactly what it would cost, and He knew He had the infinite resources to pay it. He had the perfect righteousness and the eternal life necessary to satisfy the demands of the law.
On the cross, the bill came due. The Father presented the full debt of all the sins of all His people to our Surety. And Jesus paid it. He paid it not with gold or silver, but with His own precious blood. He absorbed the full penalty. He exhausted the curse. He satisfied divine justice completely. Because He had something with which to pay, His own perfect life, His bed was not taken from Him. Instead, He was raised from the dead, and He is now seated at the right hand of the Father.
Therefore, our financial dealings ought to be a reflection of this gospel reality. We are to be generous, because He has been infinitely generous to us. We are to give freely, because we have been forgiven a debt we could never repay. But we are not to play the savior. We must not take on the role of guarantor, because there is only one true Guarantor, and His work is finished. To entangle ourselves in surety is a kind of financial hubris. It is to act as though we have the resources to underwrite the universe, when we cannot even guarantee our next breath.
So be wise. Be generous. Give what you can. Help where you are able. But do not strike hands in pledge. Do not co-sign. Keep your bed. And rest securely in the knowledge that your ultimate debt has been paid in full by the only Surety who could ever truly make good on His promise.