NO DEBT
“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 neighbour as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” Romans 13:8-10.
Paul, you make it sound so easy! Simple, yes, but not easy.
But this is what the law of God is all about. It was never intended to be a military code of conduct, but rather a description of what doing life together as a family of God’s children should look like.
First of all, Paul said, get out of debt and stay out of debt. There should be no reason to be in debt if we follow God’s economic system, even if we do fall on hard times now and then. That’s what the community of God’s people is all about. Whatever God has given us is not exclusively ours to be used selfishly but to be shared with others according to their need.
In the constitution God gave to regulate the lives of His people, the goal was equality, never the ever-widening gap between rich and poor. Of course, that does not sanction laziness. Rather, it fills in the gaps for those who suffer reverses in the ordinary course of events. Paul dealt with this principle in his second letter to the Corinthian church.
The believers in Jerusalem were in poverty because of famine. Paul campaigned for help from the churches in Greece and now it was time for them to make good on their promise.
“Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have. Our desire is not that others be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need so that, in turn, their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality, as it is written: ‘The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.'” 2 Corinthians 8:11-15.
In the end, debt is a slur on the name of God for at least two reasons: firstly, because in some cases, debt is the outcome of covetousness, and covetousness is an expression of discontent. “Keeping up with the Joneses” is a covert way of telling God that He has short-changed me! He is unfair because what He has given me is less than what He has given someone else – so I remedy it by going into debt.
Secondly, because I have not done my duty to God by fulfilling my responsibility to those whom to God has told me to give: to Him first because He requires the firstfruits of all my increase (which is to be given to my spiritual authority to support him and his family); my tithe to the storehouse (my local church); my family tithe to take care of my family’s future, and the poor, the alien, the widow and the orphan every third “harvest”.
Of course, sometimes debt is unavoidable, and this is where the family of God steps in to help. Unexpected illness, loss of a job, a natural disaster, whatever depletes the family’s resources is a call for the wider family to come to the rescue until the sufferers are back on their feet again.
But there is a debt that can never be repaid in full – the continuing debt to love one another. Why does Paul call it a “debt”? Why do we owe love to all people? Love is not like a sum of money which we owe someone and can repay in full. It is an ongoing debt to God because of His inexhaustible love for us. We can only repay our debt of love to Him by loving His children and, because He continues to love us, by continuing to love others as long as we have breath.
All the intricate and seemingly tedious details of the Law are intended for one purpose – to meet the needs of others at our expense. Loving others is not about being sentimental over them whether we like them or not. It’s about serving others by taking care of their needs when and where we can, regardless of who they are because that’s what God does for us.
And it never stops…
Acknowledgement
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