A Debt With No Due Date

Word Unpacked: Devotionals in Romans

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Romans 13:8-10 (NIV)

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "You shall not commit adultery," "You shall not murder," "You shall not steal," "You shall not covet," and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Check your bank app. Somewhere in there is a number you're trying to bring down to zero.

That's how debt is supposed to work. You pay it off. You close the account. You breathe out when the balance finally reads zero.

Paul opens this passage with the opposite instruction. "Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another." Every other debt: pay it off completely. This one debt: leave it open. On purpose. Forever.

That should stop us for a second. Isn't a responsible person supposed to bring every account down to zero? Why does Paul want us to leave exactly one account open — and never close it?

Here's why. We didn't earn the love we've already received. The Lord gave his own life for us — a love too large to ever pay back in full. So this debt was never designed to be closed out. It was designed to keep moving.

But this love didn't only come from above. Paul calls this debt one we owe "to one another." We didn't get here on our own. Someone carried us — a community that held us, people who walked the road ahead of us, brothers and sisters who never let us walk it alone. We already owe each other a debt of love.

So what does paying this debt actually look like, day to day? Paul reaches for a familiar list — don't commit adultery, don't murder, don't steal, don't covet. More than six hundred separate commands. Then he gathers all six hundred into one sentence: love your neighbor as yourself. And he isn't the one who came up with this — Jesus had already named the heart of the whole law in two commands. Paul is simply holding up the second one.

Don't commit adultery — that's refusing to betray someone you love. Don't murder — that's treating your neighbor's life as precious as your own. Don't steal, don't covet — refusing to value what's theirs, or their blessing, as less than your own peace of mind. Six hundred commands, all guarding one and the same spot — the place where love should have been.

Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Someone who keeps rules one by one can slowly start treating God as a creditor to repay. Someone who knows this debt of love stands on the opposite side — as the one who still owes. That's the turn. But...