Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-july-22-2024
Romans 13:8-14
Love, for the Day Is Near
8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
11 And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. 12 The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13 Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. 14 Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.
There’s an important principle of Bible interpretation in our Reformed tradition – one that goes back over 400 years – that probably doesn’t get as much attention as it should. That principle is that when we look at the commandments of God in the Bible, we’re supposed to interpret them broadly. We’re supposed to think about the spirit of the commandment as well as the letter. This principle has been followed as far back as the Westminster Catechism, from around the same time as the King James Version of the Bible.
For instance, the Westminster Catechism says that the commandment “You shall not steal” also prohibits things like fraud, dishonest weights and measures, and false advertising. The Catechism interprets the commandment broadly, not narrowly.
And when you think about it, interpreting the commandments broadly is also consistent with what Jesus had to say about indulging in lust and hateful anger. Those things might not technically violate the commandments against adultery and murder, but they clearly violate the spirit of those commandments. And we need to be mindful of the spirit of God’s commandments in order to discern how those commandments apply to the circumstances we encounter in our daily lives.
This passage from Romans gives us a good example of how the apostle Paul applies this principle of interpreting God’s commandments broadly. He starts with the commandment to love our neighbor and shows how that one commandment is supposed to govern our relationships with everyone else we meet.
Paul starts by telling us to “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another.” In the previous passage, Paul was talking about how followers of Jesus should relate to our governing authorities. He wrote that we should give them what we owe them, whether it be taxes or just respect. Now in this passage, he goes on to talk about what we owe one another. And what we owe one another, Paul says, is love.
We should probably always remind ourselves that when we read the word love in the New Testament, it’s almost always translating the Greek word agape. And that word doesn’t really mean the warm feelings of affection we might think of when we hear the word love. The word agape really means a commitment to the welfare of another person. That person can be rich or poor, and can even be a person you don’t really like that much. That’s why Jesus can say with a straight face that his followers are to love our enemies.
And in our reading for today, Paul makes a point that is completely consistent with something Jesus himself said to his disciples. You might remember that when he was asked about the greatest commandment, Jesus said that it’s the commandment to love God with all our heart and soul and mind. But he also said that there’s another commandment that’s “like it,” and that’s the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves. Then he said that all the law and the prophets flow out of these two great commandments.
Now in our reading for today, Paul expands on what Jesus said on that occasion. He says that “whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.” All the other commandments, like those that forbid stealing and murder and adultery and coveting, they’re all just examples of what real love for others looks like. If you scrupulously avoid doing anything to harm others, Paul says, you fulfill the whole law.
Paul would probably say that none of us really lives up to that standard, since he’s already confessed that he himself struggles with a sense of his own sinfulness. In various ways, we all fail to do what we can to advance the welfare of our neighbors. But the standard we’re called to aim for is pretty clear.
Then Paul goes on to call his readers (including us) to live the kind of lives that will bring glory to God and honor to the church. He says we should live as though everything we do is done in broad daylight. He gives examples of sinful behaviors that are commonly done “under cover of darkness,” like drunkenness and debauchery and sexual immorality.
But in addition to these sins that Christians love to talk about, he also points to some sins that he thinks are equally unacceptable – sins that happen all the time, even among “good Christians.” He mentions jealousy and dissension. It seems that in Paul’s mind, stirring up trouble in the church is just as bad as debauchery. Interesting to think about the fact that Paul was writing to Roman Christians before there were churches of different denominations competing for members. I wonder whether he would regard the sniping that different churches do at each other as a form of sinful “dissension.”
The bottom line, Paul says here, is that we followers of Jesus should ‘clothe ourselves’ in him. In other words, we should live in such a way that when people look at us, what they see is Jesus – or at least, they see a life that’s totally informed by his teachings and his example. That’s a life marked by a commitment to advancing the welfare of other people, and not by the pursuit of sinful worldly pleasures, including bickering and dissension among ourselves.
Let’s pray. Lord, let your Holy Spirit pour out on us day by day, and transform us so that we become more and more committed to serving others in any way we can, just as Jesus served others around him every day. And let us live in obedience to the standards of morality he set out for us, not so that others will praise us, but so that they will praise you. Amen.
Every Blessing,
Henry
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