Owe No One Anything

“Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” -Romans 13:8

Paul makes a brilliant turn of phrase here to demonstrate how the law is fulfilled in our exciting love toward one another. Beginning in verse 7, he says to the believers, pay what you owe and owe no one anything but love. Discharge all debts to one another including the debt of love we owe one another which cannot be completely discharged. We will always owe this debt so we should continually pay it.

Paul then reminds the believers at Rome that to love one another is literally the fulfillment of the law as says the law:

“You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” -Leviticus 19:18

And so says Jesus:

“And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”” -Matthew 22:37–40

This exhortation of Paul’s suggests at least two practical applications:

First, don’t steal by not paying your debts. “The wicked borrows but does not pay back, but the righteous is generous and gives;” -Psalm 37:21

Second, love is a debt that can never be discharged and it looks a certain way. Pauls taught us what it looks like in his letter to the Corinthians:

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.” -1 Corinthians 13:1–8