Happy are those who consider the poor; the Lord delivers them in the day of trouble. The Lord protects them and keeps them alive; they are called happy in the land. (Psalm 41: 1-2)

Jesus was confronted by a society where most were poor and getting poorer.

Prior to Jesus a widening gap between the poor and the wealthy was explained by the sinfulness of the poor. Most religious leaders taught that poverty was the punishment of God for sin. Just as wealth was the reward of God for faithfulness.

Instead Jesus saw that the small farmer and others were being forced into poverty through huge debts and high interest rates... paid to those becoming wealthy.

What Jesus also saw was this economic relationship getting in the way of a relationship with God. The poor came to see themselves as so profoundly sinful that they could not approach God. (In many cases they literally could not enter the Jerusalem temple.) Meanwhile the rich were separated from God by perceiving God's blessing where no such thing was intended.

According to the Laws of Moses all debts were to be cancelled every seven years (the sabbath year). But during the life of Jesus this requirement - seldom practiced in full - was undone through legal reinterpretation. Much of the teaching of Jesus can be better understood as a reaction against this legal reintrepretation and - especially - its spiritual implications.

When Jesus taught, "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors," he was encouraging both an economic and a spiritual practice.

More is available on the reinterpretation of the Sabbath Year at Jewish Law.

Above is Normal Debt by Terrence Payne.