You’re Not Out of Debt Yet!
Read Romans 15:1-3, 25-27
Consider two more spiritual debts.
What about your debt to your weaker brethren? All of Romans 14 deals with this problem. One Christian does this, another Christian condemns him and does something else. Some Christians are strong in their faith and enjoy the spiritual liberty in Christ, while other Christians are weak in faith and live in bondage to rules and regulations. What is a man to do?
Well, the Christian man has a debt to his weaker brethren to love them and never put a stumbling block in their way. “Own no man any thing, but to love one another,” Paul exhorts in Romans 13:8, and that’s one debt we will never completely settle! If we live to please ourselves, then our lives will hurt our weaker brethren; but if, like Christ, we live to please others for their own good, then we will build them up.
In 15:25-27, Paul reminds us of our debt to the Jewish nation. Paul was at that time taking a relief offering to the Jews at Jerusalem, a token of love and concern of the Gentile churches he had established. “Salvation is of the Jews.” Gentile Christians in this present age have a spiritual obligation to the Jews, for apart from them there would be no Bible or no gospel. “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee” (Ps 1226:6).
(Copyright, Warren W. Wiersbe. First appeared in Thoughts for Men on the Move. May not be copied or reproduced without express written permission of the author.)
Dr. Warren Wiersbe (1929-2019) was an internationally known Bible teacher, author, and conference speaker. He graduated in 1953 from Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Lombard, Illinois. While attending seminary, he was ordained as pastor of Central Baptist Church in 1951 and served until 1957. From September 1957 to 1961, Wiersbe served as Director of The Literature Division for Youth for Christ International. From 1961 to 1971 he pastored Calvary Baptist Church of Covington, Kentucky south of Cincinnati, Ohio. His sermons were broadcast as the “Calvary Hour” on a local Cincinnati radio station. From 1971 to 1978, He served as the pastor of Moody Church in Chicago 1971 to 1978. While at Moody Church he continued in radio ministry. Between August 1979 and March 1982, he wrote bi-weekly for Christianity Today as “Eutychus X”, taught practical theology classes at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, and wrote the course material and taught a Doctor of Ministry course at Trinity and Dallas Seminary. In 1980 he transitioned to Back to the Bible radio broadcasting network where he worked until 1990. Dr. Wiersbe became Writer in Residence at Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids and Distinguished Professor of Preaching at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary. In his lifetime, Dr. Wiersbe wrote over 170 books—including the popular Be series, which has sold over four million copies. Dr. Wiersbe was awarded the Gold Medallion Lifetime Achievement by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA).
