Residing as we do in a monetary economy, we immediately and thoughtlessly translate biblical warnings and cautions about debt into financial terms. “Owe nothing to anyone” (Romans 13:8) means “don’t take out a thirty-year mortgage.”
It’s much more likely that Paul has social debts in mind. This might include indebtedness incurred through receiving loans and gifts of material goods, but it’s a broader category that involves services and favors of all sorts.
How can anyone avoid becoming obligated to another for favors received? To live is to be indebted. Here we can perhaps answer by glossing the notion that Jesus pays our debts:
This too refers not merely to commercial/financial debts but to social ones. And it means that we can expect Jesus to reward those who benefit us. Thus Paul acknowledges that the Philippians sent a gift to cover his needs (4:16), but expects God to reward them for their generosity (4:18-19). Paul doesn’t plan to repay the Philippians, and he nowhere acknowledges that he is in debt to them (as would be normal in his world). He encourages them to look to his Benefactor and Patron to supply their needs, as He supplied Paul’s needs.
We give, and expect a reward from God. We receive favors, and we trust the God who rewards to cover our debts by rewarding our benefactors. Thus we receive, yet we “owe nothing to anyone.”
The infinite God underwrites the whole economy of benefit and return, the entire economy of generosity.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
