Obligated Romans 1:14
Nature of our Obligation I am under obligation
Gk opheiletes- one who owes another, a debtor, one held by some obligation, bound by some duty to pay a debt. It comes from a commonly used financial term that means to owe money or be in debt for, it is that which is due or owed.
Here Paul had a sense of “had to”, an obligation that drove him to proclaim Christ to all men. The nature of his obligation came from the mercy and grace that he received from Christ and was entrusted to proclaim to all. I am debtor to the world. I am under obligation to the lost world (v. 14). Literally, Paul says, I am a debtor. We have a debt of love. We are constrained by the love of God. We want to serve Christ because of what He has done for us. We can never pay back a debt of grace. We serve out of the goodness that God has placed in our hearts. Because of His work of grace in our hearts we want to take the gospel out of the realm of self-edification and share it with the world. (Wil Pounds). Believers have the steward’s consciousness, of being the trusted bearers of tidings of infinite importance directly from heaven. (William Newell). Every Christian is bound to communicate to others every good thing which he possess, in proportion to their need and his own ability; and the greater his advantage . . . in acquired knowledge, providential favors and gifts of grace, the greater his debt. (Albert Arnold). Paul was a debtor to the lost because of the gospel that had been given to him on the Damascus road when he became a believer. God gave him the treasures of Jesus and he was to spend the rest of his life telling others about Christ. (Steve Lawson). ). Paul's evident meaning is simply that he felt indebted to all people. Nothing that any man had done had laid this burden of debt upon Paul's heart; but it was what Christ had done for Paul which had made him debtor to all people of all races and nations. Christ had died for Paul, appeared to him, commissioned him as an apostle, saved his soul from sin, and made him an heir of everlasting life. Such a mighty weight of blessing had produced Paul's feeling of indebtedness, and where is the Christian who does not feel a similar debt, a debt of such weight and nature that the uttermost limits of one's ability, resources, and time may be taxed without fully discharging it? (Coffman)., I am a debtor. I am one who owes a great debt or duty to another because of what has been given me. Something has been entrusted to me (the gospel) that I must spend the rest of my life trying to give to someone else (non-believers) and that obligation remains until All (Greeks and barbarians, wise and foolish) have received what I have been entrusted to give them. Paul affirms the obligation that is upon him to preach the gospel, “For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.” (1 Cor 9:16).
Necessity of our Obligation
both to Greeks and to barbarian, both to wise and to the foolish,
The Commonality of Men
God is the father to all of us. He is our creator and sustainer. All life comes from Him and is accountable to Him (Acts 17:24-27, Col 1:16-17) ‘Greeks and Barbarians’ divides mankind, according to race and language. ‘Wise and unwise’ divides them according to culture and intellectual capacity. (Alexander Maclaren) In Jewish culture the whole word was divided into Jews and Gentiles (v. 16), by religious views. To the Greeks and Romans the world was divided into Greeks and Barbarians (v. 14), by civilized and cultural views. The word translated barbarian is Gk barbaros which means one who speaks a foreign or strange language which is not understood by another, it is used by the Greeks of any foreigner ignorant of the Greek language, and whose speech is rough and whose behavior is rude and brutal. Greeks were those that spoke the Greek Language and had the Greek culture, which included the Romans who were previously occupied by the Greek empire. Barbarians were those not knowing Greek and thus “uncultured”. (Newell). Greeks were the “educated” of society and barbarians were the ignorant uneducated savages. So here Paul in using these phrases encompasses everyone in the world. These declare that the whole world, all of mankind both civilized and uncivilized are to be the recipients of the message that we are to proclaim. We are a debtor to them to bring them the gospel. (Martyn Lloyd Jones). Such is the true missionary spirit still, in whatever region, under whatever conditions. (HCG Moule) High above all the superficial distinctions which separate Jew and Gentile, Greek and Barbarian, educated and illiterate, scientific and unscientific, wise and unwise, there stretches the great rainbow of the truth of the oneness of mankind under the Fatherhood of God. We are all created by God and accountable to our Creator, thus the gospel is for all. This oneness which makes us debtors to all men is shown to be real by the fact that, beneath all superficial distinctions of culture, race, age, or station, there are the primal necessities and yearnings and possibilities that lie in every human soul. All men, savage or cultivated, breathe the same air, see by the same light, are fed by the same food and drink, have the same yearning hearts, the same experience of the same guilt, and the same Savior and the same salvation. Because, then, we are all members of the one family, every man is bound to regard all that he possesses, and is, and can do, as committed to him in stewardship to be imparted to his fellows. We are not sponges to absorb, but we are pipes placed in the spring, that we may give forth the precious water of life. (Maclaren)
The Condition of Man
We are debtors to all to proclaimed the good news of the gospel because all men are under the same condition of sin that we have been freed from in Christ (Rom 8:1). Every human being is affected adversely by the sin of Adam. Adam’s sin brought sin and death to all men (Rom 5:12). We are all by nature children of wrath (Eph 2:3) We have all sinned and fall short of the Glory of God (Rom 3:23). There is no human being that is righteous (Rom 3:10) and we are all guilty before God (Rom 3:19). The gospel of is needed by all, for all have sinned. It doesn’t matter if people are good or bad, morally; they all need the gospel. So you need to talk about the gospel to all. Here is the common denominator for the whole of mankind, all men are miserable, wretched, hopeless sinners. If we fail to make the gospel known, to that extent we fail as Christians. (Jones). We must take the whole gospel to the whole world (Acts 20:26-27, Ezek 33:1-9, 2 Cor 5:20, Mark 16:15) (James Montgomery Boice) I have a debt because of man’s need and my capacity to meet that need. (Mac Arthur)
The Commission of Men
The plan of God throughout the scriptures is to use his people to proclaim his name to those who are not his people. He entrusted the Israelites to “proclaim his salvation from day to day and to declare his glory among the nations” (Ps 96:2-3), God blessed them that they might “make his way known on the earth and his saving power among all the nations” (Ps 67:1-2). The Israelites were more interested in exploiting and expanding their borders then evangelizing those on the borders. God calls and commands us to be light (Matt 5:14), be salt (Matt 5:13), be ambassadors (2 Cor 5:20), be witnesses (Acts 1:8) and be disciple-makers (Matt 28:18-19), but most are content to be callous and complacent and let those “gifted” do the work of evangelism that He is entrusted for all believers to do. We are not converted to contain the gospel within ourselves or our churches for our own self-gratification, but to carry and communicate the gospel message to all men for God’s glory for the purpose of drawing all tribes, tongues, peoples and nations to himself through Christ. Once Christ had commissioned him (Paul) to carry the gospel throughout the world . . . he was under obligation to fulfill his calling. Love of Christ constrained him to carry out his commission (Acts 26:19-20) (RC Sproul). To Paul, because as to his Lord, all these were . . . his creditors; he “owed them” the gospel which had been entrusted to him for them. Paul’s duty as to the Lord was to bring the gospel to all of them, regardless of the expense or difficulty (Acts 27:9- 28:6, 2 Cor 11:23-28). Paul was entrusted with the gospel as a steward, and was therefore bound to carry it to all sorts and conditions of men. (Acts 9:15-16, Gal 1:15-16, Acts 26:16-18) Like Paul, every servant of Jesus Christ, who has received the truth for himself, has received is as a steward, and is, as such, indebted to God, from whom he got the trust, and to the men for whom he got it (Acts 1:8, Matt 24:14, 28:18-20). We are not at liberty to choose whether we shall do our part in spreading the name of Jesus Christ. It is a debt that we owe God and to men. (It is a man’s responsibility to pay his debts.) We do not expect to be praised for that; and we do not consider that we are at liberty to choose whether we shall do it or not. We are dishonest if we do not. (Alexander Maclaren) Paul was under the calling and commissioning of God to take the gospel to all men (Greeks and barbarians) just as Moses was called and commissioned by God to receive the tables of the law written by the finger of God and take them down from Mount Sinai to the people of Israel. He was bound, he was a debtor, both to God and to Israel, to deliver the tables without alteration or adjustment as given by God. Paul received the gospel for us, and he was a debtor, both to God and us, till he had that gospel committed to all (Rom 15:19-20, 2 Tim 4:7, Acts 20:24). (Newell). Just as every particle of inert dough as it is leavened becomes in its turn leaven, and the medium for leavening the particle attached to it, so every Christian is bound, or, to use the metaphor of the text, is a debtor to God and man, to impart the Gospel of Jesus Christ. to all men we are bound, as much as in us is, to carry the Gospel. Here is a man who wants the Gospel; I have it; I can give it to him. That constitutes a summons as imperative as if we were called by name from Heaven, and bade to go, and as much as in us is to preach the Gospel. Brethren, we do not obey the command, ‘Owe no man anything,’(Rom 13:8) unless, to the extent of our ability, or over the whole field which we can influence at home or abroad, we seek to spread the name of Christ and the salvation that is in Him. (McLaren)
Lloyd Jones suggest three things about this verse concerning the “debt” or obligation that believers are under:
1) We have something (the gospel) to impart. We have knowledge of it and have personally experienced the effect of it.
2) Everyone everywhere needs the gospel because all men are in darkness and need the light, enslaved in sin and need to be freed, blind and need sight and without hope and need the good news of the gospel.
3) We can give them the gospel. Paul says that he became all things to all people that by all means he might save some. (1 Cor 9:19-23).
Like Paul, We are under obligation to share the gospel with all in our classes, our resident halls, and our apartments, in our families, where we work, where we work out, and everywhere we encounter people wherever we go.