Print This Article“Render…to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour. Owe no man any thing, but to love one another….” (Rom. 13:7-8).
With love being so important, it’s no surprise that God expects man to love one another. In Romans 13, as Paul lays out the believer’s responsibility to be subject to “higher powers” and to “render therefore to all their dues…” (v. 7), he points out that one of the things we owe is love. He says, “Owe no man any thing, but to love one another…” (v. 8). The word for “owe” in verse 8 corresponds to the word “dues” in verse 7. Love is a due we need to render and a debt we can never pay off.
As Charles J Ellicott said, “When you have paid all your other debts, taxes, and customs, and reverence, and whatever else you may owe, there will still be one debt unpaid—the universal debt of love.”
Just as Paul reminded those in Thessalonica, this debt of love is to all men, not only to fellow or even like-minded believers: “And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men…” (1 Thes. 3:12). One of my mom’s favorite sayings was, “Practice what you preach,” and Paul certainly did. In 2 Corinthians 11:23-29, Paul describes many of the sufferings he endured but finishes with, “Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?”
If anyone had a right to “burn” because of how others behaved, it was Paul. What allowed Paul to endure so much and yet “abound in love…to all men?” The answer is found in 2 Corinthians 5:14: “For the love of Christ constraineth us.”
Christ demonstrated His love for all in His willingness to die for all. The love that Christ showed for all also constrains all believers “that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again” (v. 15). We are told to “walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour” (Eph. 5:2). The love of Christ compels us to “abound in love…toward all men.”
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