No debt

DEVOTION

ROMANS

NO DEBT

Rom 13:6-10

6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. 7 Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. 8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself."   10 Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

NIV

Surely in Paul’s day there were no mortgages or car payments to be made, in fact for the most part there were banks, or credit system such as we have today. Everything was done on a cash and carry basis. When we read this we view it in like of our current social economic picture, however, as we know, the original readers lived in a completely different society and their financial was very different. This should give us reason to believe this does not speak directly against owing for a home, car, or other major purchases that we use credit for. The point is we should not cheat whoever we owe a debt to. Pay whoever we owe what is owed. But money is not the only debt which Paul speaks about here. The debt of respect and honor are also mentioned. Who do we owe the debt of respect to? How can we owe someone honor? What about revenue? This would speak to the idea of not begrudging a company the profit it is due. Revenue not only keeps the company in business so we can continue to buy the product they make or sell, but it also pays the wages of people who need that income to live as good a life as they can, like we do. We should respect them just as we would like to be respected, and to honor others above ourselves is spoken of often throughout the scriptures. Love, on the other had is the central theme of all of scripture. The love of God for his creation, Christ dead for us, and no greater love has ever been demonstrated. We are admonished, no commanded to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. This requires an honest examination as to how much do we love ourselves. Although we might say we put God first, family second, and whatever else third, do we not really put ourselves first? Isn’t our life more about us than anyone else? It is true we think about God a lot, most of the time we are aware of God or his presence, but we still think about ourselves most all the time. Our life is about us, it is our life. So then how much so we love ourselves? That is how much we need to love others. We would not do any harm to ourselves would we? Well maybe we do in some ways. Maybe what we eat or drink is harming us without us being aware of the harm it does. But that is not the type of harm which is spoken of here. We are not to do any harm to other people, gossiping is harm, bitterness is harmful, all sorts of ill feelings would constitute harm as it stands opposite love. Again we have to defer to God’s definition of love from 1 Corinthians 13. That is how we are to love all others, not just the spouse we stand at the altar with while a friend quotes from that verse. This love should be our lifestyle. We should never owe anyone one bit of love, we are to pay all of it all the time. Then we are fulfilling all the law.