Life and Debt

The New Testament includes the words of Jesus, the apostles’ Spirit-guided recollection of what Jesus did, and their letters to the churches, teaching us Christ’s way in the Spirit.  These books came together over the first fifty years or so after Christ’s Ascension.  The only Bible Paul, the other apostles, and the early church knew was the Old Testament.  This was the Bible Jesus quoted, challenging his listeners to read, remember, and know it.  The Old Testament emphasizes fulfilling any vow made to God.  A vow is like a promise.  It may be spontaneous and unconditional.  Sometimes, a vow has a condition: if you do this for me, I will do this for you, so help me God.

God is doing for us all the time.  He asks no vows of us, requires no promises.  All God wants is faith.  What about love?  We love those in whom we have faith.  Faith, as I mean the term, is rather more robust than trust.  I trust the clerk isn’t shortchanging me, though some have.  I trust the police officer is of high integrity, though not all are.  I can trust but not love.  Can we love someone in whom we have no faith?  I suppose we could, if we love being hurt and made a fool of.  All God wants is faith.  What about obedience?  True faith, vital faith, obeys, knowing God will help us.  Love lives up to love.  Our lapses and failures are not failures of faith: I sinned!  I must not really believe in God, after all!  Our lapses come from our old habit, our default, of handing over the reins to our sin: I love God, but I can’t shake this lifelong sin; sometimes, I don’t even want to!  What to do?!  We have a love problem—flesh and spirit contend with one another in lifelong struggle.  Don’t let yourself be discouraged, only have faith.  Paul wants us to be clear-eyed about our residual sin so that we will be clear-eyed about salvation and sanctification.  If God expected perfection in this life, He would not have sent Christ or the Spirit.  Stay calm and keep discipling.

The Old Testament puts a high premium on following through: obedience.  If you say you will do it, follow through.  Then we begin to lose confidence; it begins to feel hard: giving up pleasures promised by the flesh, for example.  All those old, worn out promises—they’re just pathetic lies, as we know.  Not that we let that stop us.  Our highest pleasure, as the Spirit is teaching us, is in loving God.  Anything less is just that, less, a substitute, and a sad, poor one, at that.  Sin doesn’t care.  Like all those phishing calls we seem to be getting these days, sin’s promises are just a flimsy cover for making fools of us.  Just trust us, and we’ll give you something good.  What was it we told our vulnerable children?  Don’t take candy from strangers?

Commitment requires follow-through, costly though it may always feel.  Following through demonstrates consistency, integrity, trustworthiness, truthfulness, and . . . faith.  Consistency, integrity, trustworthiness, truthfulness, and faith—the character of God.  How we are to behave toward God directly shapes how we are to act towards one another.  The Golden Rule, what Jesus taught as like the distillation of the Ten Commandments, was do to others—whether your fellow human beings or God—as you would have them do to you.  It’s not primarily a matter of owing them anything, though there is that.  To do the Golden Rule is to exhibit Christ: righteousness, holiness, godliness, living in salvation.  Live, now, to exhibit Christ who is our life.  The constant note through this section of Romans is see those around you and value them; to do so is to live into our shared ministry from God, demonstrating the potent, dynamic reality of God’s love.

We are indebted to others in ways we probably don’t often enough consider.  It’s not only financial, though there is that.  My grandparents came through with a timely help for my parents on more than one occasion.  At a former church, a couple who seemed perpetually in debt—whether from imprudent choices or an ongoing series of little disasters—would periodically go to the office of a member of the congregation who had done well for herself in life.  I don’t know the arrangements or amounts.  I have to suppose they turned to her in part because no bank would give them a loan and, in part, because their generous sister in Christ probably charged no interest.  It’s a blessing to know there is someone who can and will help when we find that our resources—whether financial, physical, emotional, or spiritual—aren’t going to be enough.  Many regularly come up against these challenges!  Our means—whether external or internal—don’t easily keep up with life’s demands.

I have a friend from seminary days who is a firm believer in DIY life: raise animals, grow your own food, your own medicine (plants and herbs—natural remedies), and, of course, become proficient in self-defense: armed and ready.  My friend believes this is the way to become ungovernable—owing nothing to anyone.  Sound good?  Maybe.  But from whom do you buy the animals, the seeds, the tools, the soil amendments, the guns and ammo?  Will you dig your own well?  Install your own septic system?  Will you generate your own electricity, refine your own fuel for the equipment and the truck, or go full on Amish (except for the arsenal)?  Are you really going to do all that yourself?  Do you even know how, or will you go online to teach yourself?  Homestead life, freehold life takes a village, too.

Economies—systems of exchange—are built upon debt.  The United States owes China—“Let’s borrow a few billion from China!”—there’s an electable slogan.  South Korea, Germany, and even Saudi Arabia (if you can believe it) owe the U.S.  Companies go into debt in order to finance expansions and improvements.  We know about this in our households, as when we begin a remodeling project (oh, that kitchen!) or consider buying a vehicle (ooh, that truck!).  Debt can be an indication of growth and confidence in future earnings.  Debt can also be a sign of trouble, and I daresay many of us have experienced the trouble of being in debt.

Live within—no, live below your means.  That would be great!  Then there’s the dental work that can’t be put off any longer, or the car breaks down (again), the (full) refrigerator stops working, and the dog needs a prescription refill.  It’s not just everybody who happens to have a few thousand in savings, or even a few hundred, these days!  An article from Forbes reported that, in 2024, for each of the generations currently participating in the workforce, the largest single share for each generation had less than $1000 in savings.[1]  Would we even be very surprised, now, at how quickly a few thousand can go?  Well, just stop spending; just say no.  Yes, that would be best, wouldn’t it?

A professor at community college lived in a boat on the river; I never saw the boat; I guess it suited him.  He also mentioned one day in class how, at different times, he had loaned money to friends: he had it to give, so why not?  It wasn’t just little, piddling amounts.  At the time, I thought it must be nice to have enough to be able to do that.  And I’m sure it is, especially when the loan is repaid.  Not all loans are.  Bad debt is a real drag for all concerned parties.  Paying off my own debt might rely at least in part on money I’ve loaned out being repaid to me.  If loans I’ve made are not repaid, that impacts how I can repay my own borrowing.  Neither a borrower nor a lender be, Ben Franklin counseled.  We understand why it’s good to avoid debt.  If we’ve ever made a loan to a friend who then became hard to get hold of, we’ve also discovered some wisdom in Franklin’s advice to avoid lending.

Paul doesn’t speak about lending, but he does urge us to pay our debts.  “Let no debt remain outstanding” (13:8).  Practice mindfulness regarding what we owe others, and not just financially.  A good credit score relies upon paying our bills, letting no debt remain outstanding.  From time to time, I would remind my college students that to be in debt was to be working for someone else.  That paycheck you just got?  That money belongs to someone else: the credit card companies.  You’re working for them.  Debt is future earnings already spoken for: Fork it over; oh, here’s a little something for you, too.  Live and work in such a way that you are actively seeking to clear your debt.  This isn’t merely wise advice for the business of living.  Over the last few years, debt forgiveness was a big topic in the news.  The choice of words is significant: forgiveness.  Debts are repaid or forgiven.  If a debt cannot be repaid, perhaps it might be forgiven, unless we’re willing to let it become bad debt; then the repo man comes.

Those who are paying their debts are those fulfilling their obligations.  Those who pay their debts are those working for a purpose beyond debt.   As I listen to Paul, I’m reminded of how he urges the believers in Thessalonika not to stop working because they’re convinced Jesus is coming back very soon.  Expectation of the Rapture is no excuse to skip out on your obligations.  Jesus is coming back, so I don’t have to repay you!  If you want to eat, you’ve got to work: pull your weight, shoulder your load; do your part.  Reports indicate that the US workforce participation rate is declining, and not just because the Baby Boomers are retiring.  There seems to be a growing number for whom the aim isn’t to work but to get on the dole.  Work feels like . . . well, work.  They’re okay with “guaranteed monthly income” magically, virtually available through their government-issued cards.  And Mom and Dad’s basement or trailer isn’t so bad.

For Paul, love for the Lord, knowing the Lord’s love for us, was always impetus and inspiration to get back at it, throw himself into life, work, relationship: into making a positive, constructive contribution.  Faithfulness in our obligations to one another: Paul is asking us to keep that at the heart of our discipleship.  And faith was always there as a reminder for Paul, as well as for us, that we can.  Faith changes how we encounter the challenges life will always throw at us, including those the Tempter sends our way.

William Barclay, Scottish pastor and Bible student, helpfully emphasizes Paul’s words about our “continuing debt to love one another” (13:8).  Paul is telling us to do our part, do our work, while also remembering that God has given us one another to depend on one another, even as we all depend upon God.  Barclay reminds us that the one debt that never can be fully repaid is the debt of love.[2]  No one says to another: “There.  I’ve paid back all your love; now I’m free.”  Love is not a financial arrangement; love is sacrificial service, attention, concern, presence.  Love continues; as Paul puts it elsewhere, “Love never ends” (1 Cor 13:8).  Yet my hunch is that we’ve all known a love that ended.  Maybe, in hindsight, it wasn’t quite love?  Maybe it was something dressed up in what we wanted to believe was love, something that would say it was love, but wasn’t.  There’s a difference between loving each other and being lovers.  Oh, all the sad songs about how somebody don’t love somebody anymore!  “The thrill is gone!”  And that’s when the actual work of loving one another begins.  Love is not indulgent leisure, beloved, love is commitment, devotion, a vow, a labor; love is work.

If we’re going to know anything real and true about love, we must learn it from God.  What God shows us about real, true love is that it abides, endures, sticks it out, in responsible, mature, grateful awareness of mutual indebtedness.  Love is not foolish.  Love is not blind.  Love does not make an idol of the beloved; love is clear-sighted.  And love maintains the commitment to love: “whoever loves others has fulfilled the law” (13:8).  Not in debt to the law—always frantically, resentfully throwing earnings at the voracious deficit—but free under the law.  One way of thinking about the law is that it convicts us of our sin—by this standard, just look at how awful we are!  And, yes, I suppose I’ve preached like that on one occasion too many, or at least it has sounded like it to some.  I hear Paul, who was listening to Jesus, telling us that the law, what the law is really about, is a call to love, to teach us, in our willfulness and ignorance, about love God’s way, love that leads to life.  Love lives this way, not that way.

In our younger, inexperienced years, we sort of test drive an idea of love: we must; it’s the only way to gain experience, learn, make mistakes and survive them.  If we invite God along on the drive, we gain much wisdom and perspective.  God asks us to love others—to fulfill the law—in Spirit and truth.  When we do, we are living that summary command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  All the laws, laws, laws we read in the Old Testament—God’s teaching—amount to one law, as Jesus reminds us: love God.  Love for God is lived by living the way God loves.  If we love God, we will love one another, in Spirit and truth.  To the extent that we do not love one another—in Spirit and truth—to that extent we have a love problem with God.  Our love problem with God, at heart, is not primarily love of self but our residual love of sin.  We each say we hate sin, hooray!  There’s a place in our hearts even today that craves to indulge sin—not just the sweaty sins.  Greed (that’s mine!  None for you!), envy (it’s not fair!), pride (I know better than God’s Word!), sloth (let someone else do it!), anger (let me take it all out on you!).  Whatever sin seems most often to trip us up is an effect of the condition under which you and I continue to struggle: that remaining desire for what is not God, not of God, for what is anti-God.  There is a spiritual force of darkness at work in the world, beloved, I assure you; it already has access to our hearts.  Let us remember and be alert.

The crimes Paul jots down—the sins—are not crimes begotten by love; love begets no sin.  Sin is anti-love.  Sin is anti-Christ.  What counters sin is the love of God: regard for others, concern for their health—in every sense of that multi-faceted term—concern for their flourishing, concern for their salvation.  Love is available and takes an interest.  Love will always need to contend with hard histories of damage done.  Love is disaster response.

You may not know much about a TV show that has been on air for thirty-five years, The Simpsons.  One neighbor is Ned Flanders—very Christian, a bit of a joke.  He is also always so . . . friendly!  So available, so concerned . . . so . . . Christian.  It’s not that Flanders is a Christian because he is a good man; he is a good man, a good neighbor, because he is Christian.  One of the dark ironies of the show is that Homer Simpson is, too.  Or at least he goes to church once in a while.  Homer Simpson has done plenty of harm to Ned over the years—broken into his house, stolen from him, insulted, exasperated, and embarrassed him to the point of humiliation on many occasions.  All the while, Flanders has continued, consistently, patiently, perseveringly—faithfully, that is—to live by Paul’s words here in Romans: “Love does no harm to a neighbor” (13:10).  Flanders lives to bless, even those who make it really, really difficult.  This is part of how Flanders lives his indebtedness to God; this is how the poor believer lives love for God.

Do no harm.  That sounds a bit like the gist of the Hippocratic Oath, the oath for healers.  Truly, Christians are called to be healers in a world of injury, hurt, and brokenness.  We begin with one another here, the congregation.  If we aren’t getting it right, here, we won’t, out there.

The great, durable foundation is love.  Even non-Christians get that Christianity is supposed to be all about love.  The problem you and I face today is that we inside the church are getting our teaching about love from cultural Christianity and not from biblical Christianity.  We fail to see a difference, and we are not inclined to find out.  As we learn what the Bible teaches about love for God, we learn about God who is love.  God is love: we love that verse!  And we don’t look into it any deeper; why would we need to?  Love moves us to do our best by one another as well as for ourselves; love moves us to offer our best to God.  Not works righteousness but love righteousness, which, with God, can only be faith righteousness.  One old Bible student helpfully reminds us that, while Paul has insisted that “our standing before God depends wholly on the Mercy [sic] of Christ, and not on our own good works,” it is also the case, “that mercy, which so graciously forgives, is the very thing that supplies us with a powerful [. . .] urge to good works, and transforms our whole outlook on life.”[3]  If we’re being honest with ourselves, we know even our best really isn’t good enough for God, and we know, because God tells us, that it will be alright.  God is also even now giving His best for us; he will make up the difference.  When by faith we receive Christ from this table, we are acknowledging our debt and praising God for paying it, many times over.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/savings/average-american-savings/

[2] William Barclay.  Letter to the Romans.  1955.  Daily Study Bible.  Philadelphia: Westminster P, 1975.  176.

[3] Henry H. Halley.  Bible Handbook.  1927.  Chicago: Henry H. Halley, 1955.  528.