We've all heard sermons on love before, but have you ever considered love to be a debt?

Today, on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindall points to a startling command in Romans

Chapter 13. Paul said, owe nothing to anyone except to love one another. Sounds like a riddle, doesn't it? Well, here's the point.

Just as we have an obligation to pay our financial debts, we have an even greater obligation

to pay the debt of love through concrete acts of kindness, even to strangers.

Teaching from Romans chapter 13, Chuck titled today's message, legal tender and loving care.

Paul writes to us in this context, this is how to live the Christian life. That's the general context of this passage of scripture. Here's how to live the Christian life. The specific

context is, this is how to be a good citizen. So the general context is in verses 9 through 21 of chapter 12. The specific context is in chapter 13,

verses 1 through 7. 12, 9 to 21 is the general context, how to live the Christian life, and then 13, 1 to 7 is how to be a good

citizen. While on that subject, he doesn't leave the matter of love. He begins in a way that

would surprise you, and some have been surprised and even led astray by taking only the first four words

and teaching that there should never be debt. O owe no one anything. But the verse is filled with

many other words. First of all, the verb is in a present tense, meaning keep on owing.

So the idea is don't keep on owing on the same debt.

Pay it off.

In the Old Testament, as well as in the new, the question of usury is taken up,

also the question of paying interest on borrowed money, and they are not

prohibited. A legal loan correctly arranged is all right, as long as you observe the terms of the

agreement. It is wrong not to repay as soon as possible anything you have borrowed.

That's the point of the first four words.

But now that you have listened to that explanation on loans,

understand what he's really teaching.

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