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1. The language is commercial, and yet the obligation is not precisely that which a merchant commonly understands. Debt is that which a man owes to another for something received. But Paul was not in any such way indebted to the Gentiles, He owed no one a penny. Neither did he owe the Gentiles any gratitude, for in almost every city he had suffered wrong. It was not, therefore, on this ground that Paul acknowledged himself to be a debtor, but solely on the ground that he had received something for them. "The glorious gospel of the blessed God" had been "committed" to his "trust"; he had been "allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel." This, therefore, he could not honestly hold back. On the one hand he had been signally blessed by Christ. Then, on the other side, were the needs of the Gentile world. The vision of the Macedonian crying, "Come over and help us," was, indeed, a special Divine indication of what the Lord would have him to do; but it came in that form and time because it was already in the line of all his desires. He knew the hollowness and degradation of the idolatries of the Gentiles, and having learned the value of his own soul at the Cross of Christ, he was eager to be the means of communicating the same revelation and conveying the same life to them. Whether they should accept it or not rested with themselves. But as for the proclamation, necessity was laid upon him, and he felt that it was at his peril if he should hold his peace,

2. How that motive operated is seen by his course at Athens. He was there alone. He had not intended without companions to do anything publicly there; but when he saw the state of things his spirit was so stirred that, at the risk of scorn and persecution, he could not but speak. He was always on the outlook for opportunities of paying this debt, He was not afraid to speak to men like Sergius Paulus or Festus; and yet he was not above seeking the salvation of a runaway slave like Onesimus. He was equally earnest in the little prayer meeting at Philippi and upon the summit of Areopagus, and even in Rome he found a congregation large enough for his ambition in the soldier that was chained to his right arm. He never saw a man without remembering that he had a debt to pay to him, and so, not more for the benefit of the stranger than for the exoneration of his own conscience, he sought his highest welfare. When I put it so, I cease to wonder at the unwearying assiduity of the great apostle, while at the same time I am filled with shame at the paltry littleness of our modern Christianity.

3. His was only a specific instance of a principle, which holds for us as really and powerfully as it did for him, viz., that personal possession of privilege is of the nature of a trust, and involves the obligation to use it not for individual profit merely, but for the welfare of others. The greatness of exceptional endowment carries with it an obligation to exceptional service. The highest of all, by virtue of his very elevation, is to be the servant of all. The power of the strong is Divinely mortgaged in the interests of the weak; the sufferer has a God-given claim upon me for relief and the ignorant for instruction. This is clearly the true interpretation of the parable of the good Samaritan; and indeed it is the true and proper outcome of the gospel itself. I know that selfishness would repudiate all such indebtedness. The man of wealth, rank, learning, power, says he has won his position, and that he has a right to use it as he will, no matter what may become of others.

4. But Christ has reversed all that by introducing the principle on which I am now insisting, and already we see indications of its operations among us. Take power, for example; and how readily now men assent to the statement that it has its duties, i.e., debts, as well as its prerogatives! Then as to wealth: the conviction is becoming stronger among us that the man who is blessed with it is a debtor to the community of which he is a member. The same is true of education, etc. True, we are a very long way yet from a full recognition of this principle; but it is making its way.

5. The principle has had its origin in the gospel, for until Christ came men cared little for anything outside of themselves. The question of Cain, "Am I my brother's keeper?" gives the key to the explanation of all the enormities Of the ancient civilisations. But Christ taught His followers to look "not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." And this principle furnishes what is needed to meet the perils of our modern civilisation. The tendency of the times is to increase the separation between different classes. We continually hear it said that the rich are becoming richer and the poor are growing poorer. The gulf which has long yawned between employer and employed is widening. Now some of that is no doubt inevitable. We can never have a dead level of absolute equality. What we have to do is to bring the gospel principle to bear upon this subject with more force; for see how it takes the poison out of all this diversity of condition. It makes the powerful man the trustee for the weak, the rich man the guardian for the poor, the learned man the teacher of the ignorant, and the free man the emancipator of the enslaved. When His followers disputed among themselves which should be greatest, the Lord, instead of seeking to uproot ambition, gave a new definition of greatness as service, and bade them be ambitious of that. And in precisely the same way here the gospel, far from blotting out all distinctions in society as the Communist would do, makes the very privileges which mark the distinction between a higher class and a lower the basis of obligation, so that the one is the debtor of the other, and the obligation increases with the increase of the privilege.

6. But we should expect to find the highest manifestation of this principle in the Christian Church. And here, though it has not attained anything like its legitimate development, we are not entirely disappointed, for it has originated and sustained the great missionary enterprise; and though the Church as a whole has not yet anything like come up to the level of Paul, still there have been individuals who are not unworthy to be compared even with the great apostle of the Gentiles. While we here at home are enjoying our privileges with self-complacency and satisfaction, and thinking that we perform our part by giving a small annual donation, missionaries are labouring with devoted heroism to carry the gospel into benighted lands.

(W. M. Taylor, D. D.)

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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.