Romans 13:7-8

Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law.

Paul commands those in his audience to obey, to give what is owed. And notice that we need to respect and honor those in authority. That’s especially hard to do when they don’t meet our expectations in their job. God put them there to serve; we must honor and respect them.

“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another.” People have understood this to mean that we should not go into financial debt, but that’s not what Paul is saying. Rather, Paul is aware that the borrower is slave to the lender, and thus he says that we should pay off our debts in a timely fashion. There is nothing wrong with borrowing books from the public library. That’s what it’s for! But return the books on time; avoid late fees. By repaying debts in a timely manner, you are being a good witness; by delinquency or negligence in debt payments, you are being a bad witness.

Let no debt remain outstanding – except that of love. We can repay a debt and scream, “I’m debt free,” as Dave Ramsey listeners often do, but we can never pay someone a debt of love and scream that. We will never pay enough love forward to be out of the debt of love. In fact, the more we pay on our debt of love, the more love we have. Think about it: When you pay a credit card debt with cash, you end up with less cash. But when you pay the debt of love with love, you end up with more love. If we ever think we are free of the debt of love, we will certainly be bad witnesses. This principle drives the apostle Paul in his ministry. What ever he does, he wants to avoid being a bad witness. Romans 1:14 – He is obligated (literally a debtor) to all people to share the Gospel with them in love. And because of this obligation, he is eager to do it! But how did we become debtors to love? We freely received the love of God by the grace of God, and thus we are obligated to share the love of God. Because the love of God is given by the grace of God, we dare not try to pay God back. It can’t be done. So we are debtors to the world. Love your neighbor as yourself; love your neighbor as Jesus has loved you. See Matthew 10:8, John 13:34, 1 John 3:16, 4:11.

But it’s more than just that. Paul is commanding us to pay every debt out of love. When you owe someone honor, honor them as a form of love. Return your library book on time as a form of love. Let all of your payments be paid as forms of love, out of love. That’s the idea. Paul says, “He who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law.” See Galatians 5:14. How is that that loving one's fellow man fulfills the law? We'll look at that next time in v9-10…