Five-minute study · Day 134 · Romans 13
Romans 13:8
A word worth stopping on: owe ὀφείλω opheilo
Paul has just told the Roman Christians to pay their taxes. Verse 7: 'Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.' Obligations fulfilled, debts cleared, accounts settled. Then verse 8 pivots: 'Owe no man any thing, but to love one another.' He uses the same financial vocabulary, opheilo, the verb for legal indebtedness. Pay every debt you owe, Paul says. Except one. The debt of love is the one bill that never reaches zero.
Word study: owe
- Greek
- ὀφείλω
- Pronounced
- opheilo
- Strong's
- G3784
- Definition
- To owe, to be indebted, to be under obligation. Used of financial debts, moral obligations, and relational duties.
Opheilo was everyday financial language. Papyrus documents from Hellenistic Egypt use it routinely in loan contracts, tax receipts, and commercial agreements. P.Oxy. 269 (first century AD) records a debt acknowledgment: 'I opheilo to you two hundred drachmas.' The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant (Matthew 18:28) uses the cognate noun opheilema for the debt owed. The Lord's Prayer uses the same word: 'Forgive us our debts (opheilemata) as we forgive our debtors (opheiletais).' The word lives in the world of ledgers and balances due.
Paul's rhetorical move in Romans 13:7-8 is precise. Verse 7 uses opheilo's cognate for the debts (opheilas) owed to the state: taxes, customs, respect. Pay them. Clear the balance. Then verse 8: medeni meden opheilete, owe no one anything. The accounts should be settled. Every obligation resolved. Except, ei me, unless, to love one another. The financial metaphor carries over deliberately. Love is a debt. You are perpetually in the red.
Robert Jewett's Hermeneia commentary on Romans notes that Paul collapses the distance between economic ethics and relational ethics with a single verb. The same word that describes what you owe the tax collector describes what you owe the person sitting next to you. The obligation is real, ongoing, and has the same binding force as a legal debt. You cannot discharge it. You can only keep making payments.
The participial phrase 'he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law' (Romans 13:8) connects the love-debt to Torah observance. Paul then lists specific commandments: no adultery, no murder, no stealing, no coveting. Each one is a payment on the debt of love. The negative commandments describe what love does not do. The summary, 'Love thy neighbour as thyself' (quoting Leviticus 19:18), describes the total obligation. The law is a living, ongoing debt, serviced permanently through love.
Historical context · Mid-first century AD, written from Corinth circa AD 57
Taxes, Debts, and the Obligation That Never Ends
Romans 13:1-7 is Paul's most direct engagement with political authority. He instructs believers to submit to governing authorities, pay taxes, and honor officials. The passage was written during a specific political moment. In AD 58, Nero imposed new indirect taxes on the empire, provoking public complaints. Tacitus (Annals 13.50-51) records that Nero considered abolishing all indirect taxes in response to the outcry, though his advisors dissuaded him. Paul's emphasis on paying tribute and custom may reflect an environment where tax resistance was actively being discussed.
The Roman tax system in the provinces was multilayered. Direct taxes (tributum soli on land, tributum capitis on persons) were collected by Roman officials. Indirect taxes (customs, tolls, sales taxes) were contracted to publicani, tax-farming companies that bid for collection rights and profited by collecting more than the contracted amount. The system was ripe for corruption, which is why 'tax collectors' appear in the Gospels alongside 'sinners' as a social category.
Paul's pivot from taxes to love in verses 7-8 is a rhetorical bridge. He moves the Roman Christians from the domain they find most burdensome (state obligations) to the domain that should define their community life (mutual love). The financial vocabulary creates continuity. You understand obligation because you pay taxes. Apply that same understanding to how you treat each other. The difference: tax obligations end when the bill is paid. The love-debt renews with every encounter.
The early church took this seriously. Tertullian (Apology 39, circa AD 197) describes how Christian communities pooled voluntary contributions to support widows, orphans, the elderly, prisoners, and the shipwrecked. The fund was called the arca, the chest. Tertullian says no one was compelled to contribute, yet the giving was constant. The love-debt Paul described in Romans 13:8 had, within a century and a half, generated an entire social welfare infrastructure that Roman observers found remarkable. Julian the Apostate (fourth century) complained that 'these impious Galileans support their own poor and ours also.' The perpetual debt was producing perpetual payments.
For reflection
Paul used the language of financial indebtedness for love. You owe it. The balance never reaches zero. Think about one relationship in your life where you have been treating love as a completed transaction, a debt already paid. What is the next payment that relationship requires from you?
Opheilo describes a real obligation with binding force. Paul was serious about the metaphor. Love is a debt you are obligated to pay, today, to the person in front of you. The feeling may follow. The obligation does not wait for it.
Sources: BDAG Lexicon; Jewett, 'Romans' (Hermeneia); Moo, 'The Epistle to the Romans' (NICNT)