Pay What is Owed

“Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.” -Romans 13:7

Having worked through the logic of this last exhortation to obey the rulers and pay the taxes, Paul concludes with a command. Pay is an imperative verb and shows that Paul is moving beyond the general appeal to the believers’ conscience and stating emphatically that Christians need to discharge their debts to society—even the society which doesn’t honor God. 

He begins with a general command to pay everyone what is owed them, and then moves to particular examples. Taxes are those monies levied against person and property. Revenue seems to be those monies levied against traded goods (i.e., imports and exports). But the debt to be discharged is not merely monetary; it is also personal. Christians are to pay the appropriate respect or honor due to those who hold office or stations that afford them honors. (i.e., Rulers, Luke 20:22-25; Spiritual Leaders, Philemon 2:12; Masters, 1 Peter 2:18; Spouses, Ephesians 5:33, etc.)

In our modern democratic state there is a general disdain for the concepts of authority and hierarchy. Equity is the modern man’s virtue. And because this is the case, those tasked with exercising authority often become tyrannical in their office either out of pride or out of necessity—often out of both. What might be a worthy exercise is to read through the New Testament letters with an eye to see the way the apostles treat authority and how they emphasize the manner in which the gospel prioritizes love, not force or rebellion, as the means of transcending conventional authority.