Romans 1:14 Commentary and Bible Study

‘I am debtor.’ Here is a third motivating influence. Now the apostle does, in a sense, repeat himself here. The Greek speaker would be abreast of Greek culture and learning, so he would classify as the wise. The Barbarian, the non-Greek, the foreigner, he lacked that; he was more primitive. He would, in the estimation of the Greek, be the unwise. Why is the apostle a debtor to both? Reason number one: he had been both himself. Figuratively speaking, he was a Greek. He wasn't really; he was a Jew, but under the terms of this description, he could be compared to a Greek. He was an intellectual, a cultured man. He was educated, a high flyer among the Jewish intelligentsia and leadership; he knew much. And yet he didn't know Christ. While being wise, he was also unwise, ignorant. He knew his Old Testament like the back of his hand, we might say. He could quote freely from all parts of it. But he had never spotted the big things, the great cable of grace and mercy, the true way of salvation in the Old Testament as well as the New. He was blind and ignorant and pathetically lacking in understanding. So, as a persecutor of Christians and full of venom towards them, he was in a sense, himself, one of the unwise like the barbarians. Paul could have said, ‘I have been both, and I am a debtor to win them. I would still be one of the entitled wise people and an ignoramus, if it were not for the mercy of God.’ In fact, Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles. He was a specialist in preaching to the unchurched. It is very difficult to get preachers to preach to the unchurched, even if they have been unchurched people themselves once upon a time. After a while in the kingdom of God and after a while as preachers, they tend to preach to unconverted people in the church using only fairly religious language, and they lose the art of preaching to the unchurched person who doesn't know any Christian language and reasoning with them as outsiders. Paul was an expert in that. He was a Jew, but he was called to be the apostle to the Gentiles. And did he reach them! His sermon on Mars Hill, for example, you didn't have to know a thing. You could be an Epicurean, a Stoic, a Greek, know nothing about Christianity, and yet he knew how to reason with you. Paul had an overwhelming sense of indebtedness. There was no one he did not try to reach with the gospel: all classes, kings and common people; all nations, Jews, Greeks, Barbarians (who else would bother about such, or see any value in such?); educated and primitive people. He cares nothing about status in this world. All men are precious because all have an eternal soul. He puts it in the strongest way: he was indebted to all. How could he be a debtor to those he had never met? Debts normally involve a previous transaction, but Paul was a debtor to some who had never heard of him. They had given nothing to him. How could he owe them anything? In many places where he went they gave him only beatings, stoning, imprisonments, false accusations. Why should he pay back good things for this? How could he be a debtor to those who made no claim on him? Claimants are not usually ignorant of a debt owed to them. What steps would they have taken to enforce the repayment of this debt? How could he owe them his preaching when the gospel is a message of grace? Why was he so eager to pay? It is not usual for the one owing the debt to be keener to repay it, than those to whom it is owed. But he saw the eternal benefit that would come from the gathering in of the gospel net. For Paul this was a debt which he could never fully repay. It was in a sense of a debt to the unsaved, but his debt was not really to the unsaved, it was to God. Paul was a debtor by a far higher scheme than any transaction between men. He was a debtor because of God’s commission. How could he let it lie idle? His sense of debt made him ready to overlook sin, and personal wrong. He understood that the work involves hardship, and that he was required to take an unusual role in bringing them a message which, initially, they were reluctant to receive. He did not give up on those who persecuted him and say, ‘You don’t deserve the gospel’, but was ready to love his enemies. Not knowing who were elect, he preached indiscriminately to all, and hoped that all might believe. We cannot tell by the initial response who the elect are. It is God’s will that some of most hostile will eventually be won to Christ. Paul himself was such a one. He did not try to excuse his debt by saying, ‘If I do not go and preach, God will send another.’ There was no fatalistic reasoning. If Paul told them he was their debtor before their conversion, they would have thought him mad. Only after conversion would they understand and bless him that, when they cared nothing for their own souls, he laboured for them. Paul fully intended to pay off his debt, and looked for ways to come to Rome. We are also debtors. He tells us his attitude for us to imitate. This is why he tells the Romans about his being a debtor. He wants all to have the same compassion and drive that he has. What he means is that he has an obligation to the unsaved, on account of his sense of indebtedness, that he has been shown so much mercy, that he has been given such riches. He is so indebted that he feels obligated to other lost people, to reach them and to take the gospel to them. A debtor, in ancient times, was bound to pay his debt, and would suffer great penalty if he did not, and Paul feels bound. It was not a material debt; Paul was in the habit of paying off his material debts quickly (Romans 13:7-8), and even taking on the debts of others (Philemon 1:18). He was indebted because he was appointed by God to that very duty. God had appointed him therefore he was bound to it. God has called and appointed us too to make known the glorious Gospel of Christ. If only we could cultivate that same obligation. Because he was so rich spiritually, he could not keep it to himself. That would be an utterly selfish thing to do. He felt obligated to share his riches. God had opened his mind and set him free from the bondage of his religious past. God had given him understanding and insight. He was obliged to impart it to others, because he was so undeserving himself. He also feels obligated to reach the lost, because he knows what will happen to them, if they die unsaved, unforgiven. Why, he knows the terrible future that awaits them, and he cannot just stand by without preaching to all, for all his worth, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Saviour.