Debt of Love

In the last blog, we saw Paul urging his readers, “Give everyone what you owe him.” Rom.13:7. In other words, ‘Do not owe any debt to anyone.’ In short, ‘don’t be a debtor.’

This is a major ethical point for us, Christians. We are to manage our finances so carefully that we do not end up in debts, which we cannot repay. Planning and saving for children’s education, their marriages, our old age, etc., have to be done meticulously, so that when the events or problems come up, we find we have adequate resources to fall back upon.

Remember the blessings and cursed detailed by Moses? The blessings for obedience to God, Yahweh, included, “You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. The Lord will make you the head, not the tail.” Deuteronomy 28:12-13. Let’s not be borrowers in our lives.

Paul’s definitive mandate is, ‘owe no debt except the debt of love for one another.’ This is the debt of love, which we owe to our neighbors. Why so? Because Jesus loved us so much that he went to the cross for our sake. We can try and repay it by showing love to the others. Of course, we can never show similar love to others and can never repay sufficiently the love of Christ, so we will always owe one another a debt with regard to loving them.

Out of the Ten Commandments of Moses, the five commands concerning our conduct towards others in society, could all be summed up in one command, Paul says. Do not commit adultery, or murder, or theft or giving false witness or coveting, Exodus 20:13-17, can be summed up in this one rule, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Leviticus 19:18.

Jesus would sum it up in two commands, “Love the Lord your God… and love your neighbor as yourself.” Luke 10:27. There are two aspects to loving your neighbor. One, you love him or her every day of your life, in all that you do. Mind you, it needs to be agape love!

The other is to love others as you love yourself. Jesus never said, ‘do not love yourself, but love only others.’ The Golden Rule of Christ being ‘Do to others what you would have them do to you.” Matthew 7:12. Just as we look after ourselves, our needs and needs of our bodies, we need to take care of others also, especially those who are our neighbors, if they lack such basic needs of life.

Paul says that such a love is the fulfillment of the law. Once everyone loves the other, there would be no more strife or need to punish people, that is, no need for any law. Of course, this sounds highly impractical. As long as human beings are there, there will be no shortage of offences committed against one another and the long arm of law will have to operate to punish such culprits.

But as Christians we need to be better, in loving others, since we have Christ as our example. It is difficult to love anyone excepting our own families, unless such a love is poured out on us by the Holy Spirit. Romans 5:5. That is what we are to pray for, for help from the Holy Spirit, to help us love others as we ought to.

Paul’s exhortation to love one another comes because of an urgent situation. “The hour has come…”  and “the day of our salvation is nearer…” Paul firmly believed that Christ’s Second Coming was imminent, within his life time. He thought “the Lord is near.” Philippians 4:5. So he warns, the present age is passing away; a New Age has dawned; the Day of the Lord could be any day. So be prepared.

There have been ongoing speculations everywhere that Christ is coming now. Whether we are to believe this or not is a dilemma. One can get all confused and worried. But the point is, we may die today and in that case, we have to face judgement. Or Christ might return today; then also we are going to face the wrath of God, if we are not prepared. Either way, we need to be prepared. It is better to be prepared to face the Lord any day, instead of listening to these speculations.  

With this in view, to prepare ourselves to meet our Maker, Paul exhorts his readers to put aside the deeds of darkness. The deeds of darkness that Paul lists are orgies, drunkenness, sexual immoralities, debauchery, dissension and jealousy.

In Paul’s time the Roman aristocracy lived a very loose life and that set the trend in society. They were immoral, indulged in drunken revelries and sexual immoralities. Paul warns against such behaviour, as deeds of darkness, done under the cover of darkness, gratifying the desires of the flesh, the sinful nature.

It is interesting to note that St. Augustine of Hippo was converted mainly on this verse. Romans 13:13. He was living a godless life, all the same feeling bad about it. One day as he was crying aloud to the Lord in a garden, he heard the voice of a child, playing nearby, urging, ‘take and read, take and read.’ He took the Bible that he carried and opened it; his eyes fell on this verse. He took it personally as God’s command to him, gave up worldly living and entered monastic life. The rest is history.

In our own society and times, the rich and the famous set the trend, not only in fashion and in conspicuous consumption but also in loose morals. Even jealousy is bad because it could lead to strife; dissensions and hatred could lead to murder, as Jesus would point out in his Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5-7.

Instead, Paul would want us to be clothed with Christ, which means to be baptized, for whoever is baptized into Christ have clothed themselves with Christ. Galatian 3:27. We need to live a life reflecting Christ, loving our neighbor as ourselves and being kind and compassionate, as described in Colossians 3:10-17.

For this again, it is not possible to live like Christ, unless we are enabled by the indwelling Holy Spirit. We need to seek His presence in us and to have the ability to listen to His gentle nudging, nudging us to walk in the path of righteousness and love. Without his help the Christian walk is difficult. Let’s pray that the Lord will enable us through His Holy Spirit.

Amen.