Diane and I have continued to work to keep ourselves debt free. Sometimes it seems like an endless task. Just when we get there, some unforeseen obligation comes up; sometimes it’s because we chose to incur it. But nevertheless, it seems that throughout our married life we have always owed something to someone.
Well, I was reminded this morning that there is a debt with a much higher priority of repayment than even my mortgage or hospital bills.
Rom 1:14 I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise. KJV
Now, before I go on, be certain that I am not talking about some debt we owe for our salvation that we somehow are obligated to repay. That is not what Paul is referring to, although his salvation is the underlying reason why he deemed himself a debtor; a dulos; a bond slave of Christ. Let’s see what he meant.
Every member of the bride of Christ has been given a gift. Each of us has been endowed with a gift from the Holy Spirit that is not for ourselves. It belongs to the entire bride of Christ. If we are going to see the complete truth of God, the complete beauty of His bride, then we have to see it in all it’s parts. Like a precious gem, every way you turn it you see a different facet, a different part of its beauty.
Each of us represents one of those facets, the facets that make up the bride. And the gift(s) we have been freely given are for one another; for the building up of the “body of Christ.” Paul makes that clear in the next verse when he says that he is ready to use his gift for the Christians in Rome; to exhort, challenge, encourage, and lift them up with the truth of the Gospel.
Rom 1:15 So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. KJV
Paul understood the debt he owed. He, like each of us, had become a steward, a trustee, holding onto the gift he had been given. But he wasn’t holding onto it for himself. His gift was for those to whom God had called him. And our gift is for those to whom God has called us. We, each member of the bride of Christ, are dependent upon the gifts of the Spirit that have been given to each of us. We have a debt to share those gifts, whatever they are, for the benefit of the entire body of Christ.
But, that is only part. Go back to verse 14.
Paul understood that the gift of salvation that He had been given by Christ was not his alone. He owed a debt to Christ to share that gift with the Greeks and the Barbarians; everyone to whom he had been sent. He was not sent to Jerusalem to share with the Jews; God gave that calling to Peter, James, and John. To whom have you been called to share the Gospel?
Paul knew that he was a debtor and he was ready to repay. He knew he was a “double debtor;” to Christ and to man. He was a debtor because his life, like ours, was bought and paid for on the Cross.
1 Cor 6:19-20 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. KJV
Whatever blessing we have been given by Jesus is ours, it belongs to us. But at the same time we immediately owe a debt to pass it on to others. To the other members of the bride and to lost world that they may also be blessed. We have been given a debt of honor toward all those around us to freely give them the Gospel that has been freely given to us.
And here’s the beauty of the Lord.
As soon as we begin to pay our debt, He immediately reimburses us! The very instant that we do anything for Him out of love for what He has given us, He is ready to return all that we have done a “hundred fold.” He repays us with the confidence that we hold His promise of eternal life and that we are in perfect line with His purpose for our life. And each payment we make draws us that much closer to Him.
So let us be like Paul. Let us be ready “with so much as is in us.” We have a debt to our fellow members of the bride and to the lost world because we have a debt of love to repay to our bridegroom… are we ready to pay? Paul was, and the life he led can only be explained by the fact that he knew he was a debtor to Jesus.
But remember, it was a debt that he was not required to pay for his salvation, it was a debt he chose to repay out of love for Jesus. The word debtor refers to one who is held by some obligation. Paul understood his obligation and his duty to repay it because he never forgot that he had been bought with a price. Let us never forget that we have also been bought with that very same price. We owe a debt that can only be repaid with love.