Owe No One Anything
By Dean Collins
Hopefully you will come to understand that as a follower of Jesus, you can never be debt free. Hear me out. Your financial advisor may have you on a plan to get out of debt. That is wonderful! And you may want the experience of yelling out “I am debt free” as the popular financial talk show host and financial consultant has his talk show listeners do when they hit that milestone of financial freedom. So go ahead and work your financial plan.
In Romans 13:8, Paul does say: “Owe no one anything.” Some might take that to mean that you should never finance anything, but I don’t think that is Paul’s main point. Paul didn’t spend the bulk of the book of Romans discussing God’s great rescue plan for humanity found in Jesus, just to pivot to giving financial advice in chapter 13. After spending a lot of time describing how God has not forgotten his promises to Israel and then talking about the importance of unity in the church, Paul is not suddenly concerned about how much you still owe on your mortgage.
In fact, if you read the whole verse, it says: “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” Paul goes on to explain how all of the commandments of God can be satisfied and summed up with this one verse: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” We are never free from the debt of love. Love for God and love for one another is our path forward. It is also the way we can change the world forever.
In verse 10, Paul tells us that “love does no wrong to a neighbor." This might be a verse we need to write on the mirror and put in our pocket in our current politically divisive culture. There is a lot of abusive language, rhetoric, and worse currently at play from Christians who are adamant that their preferred candidate gets elected, or else all is lost and the world will end. I keep looking, but I can’t find any scripture to support that view.
What I can find, over and over again, is that Jesus calls us to love others the way he loves them. And the way Jesus loves requires laying down our lives for others. And we might then have to lay aside our anger, our hatred, our name-calling of others who have different opinions and even lifestyles than we have.
Reading the gospels, it doesn’t seem that Jesus was too bothered by who was ruling the ancient world. God was not surprised or unaware of the Roman Empire when he sent Jesus to earth. And reading all of Scripture, we see how God’s plan cannot be stopped. And just before Jesus ascended to the Father, he told us to go and make disciples, to baptize, to teach others to observe his commands. He then said that he would be with us until the end of the age or when he comes again.
I will admit to paying attention to the politics of the United States and even to world political issues. But I wonder what would happen if we who profess Jesus as Lord spent even half the energy and time focused on loving others and discipling the nations that we do arguing about the best presidential candidate and which party will solve our national issues. I am pretty sure that what would happen is God’s kingdom would move forward.
Before we spend our resources on political activism and our time in campaigning, maybe we could focus on Paul’s to-do list in this passage and see what happens next.
Love your neighbor as yourself
Cast off the works of darkness
Put on the armor of light
Walk properly as in the daytime
Do away with drunkenness, sexual immorality, quarreling, and jealousy
Put on the Lord Jesus Christ
Make no provision to gratify the flesh
When we focus on loving others the way Jesus loves us, then his kingdom grows and his return will hasten.
Father, today we choose to put on Christ and watch you change us and our world. In Jesus's name, amen.
Your Time with God’s Word
Romans 13:8-14 ESV
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