Debtors to All Men
A. Maclaren, D. D. Romans 1:14-16 I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise.… Then I am afraid there are a great many dishonest Christians who scarcely recognise, and never pay, their debts! What was it that Paul felt he owed to the whole world? It was the gospel, the message of God's love in Jesus Christ. I. WE ARE ALL DEBTORS BY THE POSSESSION OF A COMMON HUMANITY. The differences between slave or free, cultured or uncultured, rich or poor, are but the surface. What lies beneath is the one human heart, with the same wants, the same weaknesses, the same aspirations, the same fears, the same possibilities. Here stand a range of Alps, separate, frowning, white-topped, the Jungfrau, the Eiger, and the Monch, and all the brother giants of that mountain system, parted from each other by profound gulfs. Yes! so they are, at the top; but at the bottom all rise up from the one formation. And so mankind. And that unity involves, as a distinct consequence, the thought that every man possesses all his possessions in order that through him the benefit and the use of them may pass to his fellows. II. WE ARE DEBTORS BY THE POSSESSION OF A COMMON SALVATION. God's purpose in giving you and me Christ for ours is that we should give Him to others. The world needs healing; you there have the healing that the world needs. Is anything more required to prescribe duty? What would you say about a man that, in the midst of famine, sat at home and feasted luxuriously whilst his brethren were starving, and then pleaded that nobody had bade him go out to supply their wants? III. WE ENGLISH CHRISTIANS ARE DEBTORS, IN MANY CASES, TO THE WORLD, BY BENEFITS RECEIVED. This great commercial, maritime, colonising nation, what does it not owe; what do your homes not owe; what does the business of Manchester not owe to the heathen, to whom you owe your Saviour? We have received our civilisation in its germs, our language, and much high thought, from that far off East which is still the possession of the English Crown. IV. WE ARE DEBTORS BY INJURIES INFLICTED. That is a sad but, as it would appear, almost an inevitable law, that the contact of the superior, or, at all events, of the civilised, with the inferior or uncivilised races, shall result in the gradual fading of the latter from before the stronger conquerors. And, in addition to that injury, the vices of our modern civilisation are carried whithersoever our ships and our colonies and our commerce goes. "How much owest thou unto thy Lord?" You pay Christ when you pay your fellows. (A. Maclaren, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise. WEB: I am debtor both to Greeks and to foreigners, both to the wise and to the foolish.