STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS

In the court of law there is a provision called “The statute of limitations”. It is placed there to allow the injured party, however one defines “injured”, to have enough time to obtain enough evidence to pursue a case against the party who inflicted the injury. But there are limits to the length of time one has in cases of misdemeanor. Criminal cases often have no limitations set in law.

The origin of the statute of limitations actually comes from biblical times and it was instituted to protect the poor. Deuteronomy 15:1 states this: “Every seventh year you shall grant a remission of debts.” In Old Testament times the poor often borrowed money from the wealthy in order to simply survive. The statute in Deuteronomy was promulgated to keep the poor from a life of abject poverty. It was also a reminder that if the Hebrew community was to survive as God’s Chosen People, those who had an abundance of blessings, especially financial blessings, were to share with those who were not so blessed.

I suspect that there are millions of people today saddled with credit card debt, much of it of their own foolish making, who would love to have such a statute in place. That, of course, would miss the point of the original statute just as it was missed by those for whom it was originally intended. Yes, there were those back then who abused the system just as there are those who abuse it today. But the truth is that the law was written more to help the blessed, the rich, than it was to help the not-so-blessed, the poor.

In many ways the law was a reminder of two fundamental truths. The first is that those who are blessed with abundance are so blessed only because of the grace of God. Why they – and we – have such blessings and others do not is a question only the bestower of such blessings, namely, God, can answer. Their and our response is to be thankful and to share some of our abundance with the less blessed. The law was instituted to ensure that happened.

The second point about the statute of limitations is that it is a reminder that there is a statute of limitations on everything, the most important of all being our very lives. The span of life, everyone’s life, is limited. We only have a number of years to live and no one knows just what that number is. The only truth we know for certain is that someday our number will be called and all we have obtained, all our possessions, all our wealth, all our blessings, will be left behind. We take none of that with us into death.

In essence that truth was what was behind the original statute in the bible. The people were to share their blessings one with another, especially the rich with the poor, now, in this life. as a way for the rich to give thanks for their blessings, none of which they could hoard forever, and for the poor to be able to live with dignity in spite of it all.

The same is true for us. There is a limitation on how long we will keep that with which we have been blessed. Better to share now of our own free will with those whom we know need our help now than to have others do it for us after we have died.