A Clear Duty

The U.S. debt-based economy makes it possible for people to have more but to owe more on what they possess. Under normal circumstances people manage their finances adequately. However, when something catastrophic occurs, many are ruined in a heartbeat. Wisdom argues that it is better, if possible, to have little or no debt. In fact, Scripture instructs Christ-followers to “owe no one anything, except to love each other” (Romans 13:8).

Paul connects loving others with financial responsibility. It is loving to “pay to all what is owed to them” (Romans 13:7). Keeping up with one’s financial obligations is a moral duty, but believers also have a greater obligation to Christ’s new commandment: “Love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34). Paul shows that this duty fulfills the law (Roman 13:8).

The more relevant question is how this information connects with the fifth petition, “Forgive us our debts” (Matthew 6:12). The Greek noun (opheilema), translated debts, simply refers to what is owed to another. Jesus takes a financial term and uses it metaphorically of trespasses (lapses of uprightness) or offenses. “For [to explain this] if you forgive others their trespasses [lapses in uprightness], your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:14, 15). To forgive someone is to release them from their debt obligation. We have plenty of debt to God of which we are mostly unaware due to our ignorance of what God expects of us.

In the Lord’s Prayer we are to ask God to release us from these debt obligations. These offenses are, more often than not, omissions. We offend others more often by what we fail to do for them than the sins we might commit against them. Because of the flesh (that we are required to kill everyday through the Spirit, Romans 8:13), we tend to be more focused on ourselves than on others. About this Paul wrote, “So, then, brothers, we are debtors” (Romans 8:12). Debts are not so much overt sins against others as failures to glorify God as salt and light. Believers fail to “shine before others,” having no good works that may be seen to glorify the Father (Matthew 5:14–16). These omissions can be forgiven only as we forgive the offenses others have committed against us.

Why would the Lord condition forgiveness in that way? First, this request is not for salvation and forgiveness leading to eternal life. This request is family business between brothers and sisters in Christ. These “saints” are duty-bound to “hallow” (make holy) their Father’s great Name and so glorify Him in the earth as kingdom citizens doing the will of God.

Second, the last two petitions connect to this debt. This is seen by the explanation of verses 14 and 15. Thus, we must not misread the sixth petition as suggesting that God tempts or causes temptation (James 1:13), but see it, rather, as rhetorical, asking protection from failure to love others and, so, cause them harm (evil). “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).