Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.
To owe no one anything means to stay off forbidden ground by refusing to enter debt or to move ahead without means already in hand, rather than depending on hopeful expectations of money to come. The only debt to remain ever owing is love, for love does no harm to a neighbor and therefore fulfills God's law of love, which guards every person's rights and gives stability and happiness in this world and the next. That love is shown in paying every just claim including interest, refusing to defraud or oppress the poor, and relieving the needy without usury or rigor. In practice this calls for industrious labor, simple living within means, stringent self-denial and economy until every debt is paid in full, and solemn resolve never to incur another, while still giving God His due from what remains. The weight of teaching holds that God's work and schools must likewise defer expansion rather than go forward under heavy debt, though those who held otherwise taught that borrowing at interest to build chapels and carry on school work was permitted when repayment was trusted to follow.
Meaning of Owing Nothing
Owing no one anything means never entering into debt and never moving one step in financial uncertainty. No enterprise that absorbs means is to be engaged in until the means are already in possession, and no dependence is to be placed on flattering hopes of money to come from any source at present or in the future. Debt is forbidden ground, a snare and a curse, a yoke of dependence and slavery to tyrant debt. It puts one under Satan's power of temptation, destroys peace and influence, brings discomfiture and unrest, and leads to unjustly accusing others of neglect of duty. Keeping the command to the exact letter gives peace for one's own soul and for fellow workers and keeps in the straight line of duty so that God is honored.
Neglecting it brings shame, reproach, sorrow and inconvenience. It involves others by bringing unnecessary burdens upon them and opens the door to temptations that hurt their souls and one's own soul. Such disregard of light in warnings and instruction creates moral inability that disqualifies God's army to possess the goodly land, and it dishonors His name by diverting means greatly needed in His cause and work in these last days of peril. The same command requires earning an honest living by hard physical labor even when it brings weariness, sustaining oneself instead of looking for an easy place agreeable to feeling, appropriating nothing that belongs to another, and spending no money before it is earned, so that to have no horror of debt is disobedience. It means to make no unwise investments and to carry no debt, refusing to bind up borrowed money on overconfident future calculations of repayment.
Every debt is to be paid as God opens the way, leaving no human claim outstanding so as to stand in God-given liberty as a free man. This requires learning wisdom from the past, staying at the God-given work of holding forth the Word of life, walking cautiously and softly and humbly with God, binding about the imagination, keeping under ambitious business projects and speculations devised by finite judgment, and not trusting deceiving men nor following own wisdom and imagination. Avoiding such indebtedness corrects a persistent weakness toward financial overextension and belongs to safety in walking softly before God while holding forth the word of life, receiving the precious light God gives, and serving as a chosen bearer of light. On the holding behind , the verse does not forbid borrowing money and paying interest to establish the truth by building chapels and carrying on school work, where a large loan for that kind of working is taken in faith and trusted to be repaid after a few months' notice when the lender calls for it.
Love Fulfills the Law
Owing no one anything except love fulfills the law because love does no harm to a neighbor, and therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. Such love does no harm by refusing to give the sick what made them sick and by refusing to indulge perverted appetite. It calls for coming into line in faith and love to bring the fullness of Christ into life, standing on the elevated platform of health reform, and knowing the time that now it is high time to awake out of sleep because salvation is nearer than when first believed. It means casting off the works of darkness, putting on the armor of light, walking honestly as in the day and not in rioting and drunkenness, chambering and wantonness, strife and envying, putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, and making no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. God's law is a law of love, an expression of Divine Goodness swept clear of encumbering exactions.
Far from arbitrary, the law is given as a hedge and a shield, and whoever accepts its principles is preserved from evil. Obedience to its principles brings the happiness of mankind and gives stability as the very foundation and framework of human society. Fidelity to God involves fidelity to man, so the law guards the rights and individuality of every human being by restraining the superior from oppression and the subordinate from disobedience. It insures well-being both for this world and for the world to come, and to the obedient it is the pledge of eternal life because it expresses principles that endure forever.
The law is fulfilled when people love God supremely with all heart, mind, soul and strength and love their neighbor as themselves. This love is the living principle of brotherhood imparted to human hearts by the Holy Spirit. It is purity and charity that suffers long and is kind, the sanctified knowledge most prized in Christ's representatives. Where this love is exercised toward one another as Christ loved, His love is perfected in believers and God dwells in them and they in God, while coldness and lack of sympathy come from the wicked one. When expressed it brings glory to God in the highest and peace and goodwill on earth toward men.
Love to one another requires paying what is due and paying just and honest debts including interest rather than refusing payment because it is inconvenient. Failing to settle a debt one can pay is injustice and robbery, and failing to pay damages Christian witness so that Christians are regarded as unreliable. It requires not defrauding a neighbor, refusing to accumulate debts one cannot honestly repay, and acting with integrity and economy. It includes relieving the poor, the stranger, the fatherless and the widow, taking no usury or increase, and ruling without rigor or fraud, with the requirements of the Old Testament agreeing perfectly with the New. Oppression of the poor is nothing less than actual robbery, marked as an abhorred practice God will in no case tolerate though punishable by human courts only in very extreme cases, and wherever schemes withhold money from those to whom it is due or deprive any man of his right His disapprobation rests and He condemns injustice by whoever and in whatever business it is manifested. The command to love one another does not excuse unpaid obligations but makes faithful treatment of a neighbor part of the duty of love, so Christians must not leave honest debts unpaid even if unknown to others, and neglected vows and unpaid pledges are also violations for which people must answer to God.
Loving without doing harm requires intelligent, practical health reform and temperance as individual accountability. It educates the intellect and arouses the moral sensibility to take hold of health reform in an intelligent manner with moral understanding. Particular foods and articles of diet are not to be made a test question or a test of faith.
Debt-Free Life in Practice
To owe no one anything requires those who are able to work to correct indolent habits and live so that the truth is honored rather than reproached by inconsiderate conduct. It means laboring industriously for small wages as well as large, living simply, economically and within means, and using physical strength faithfully to keep the family above want rather than depending on others. Help from fellow believers is limited to temporary assistance such as a start when relocating, while ongoing support as a duty of charity belongs only to the infirm who are unable to labor. Speculative spending and unreasonable business ventures are forbidden because they create burdensome debt and destroy the freedom of owing nothing.
Becoming free means paying all existing debts and determining never to incur another, by solemn covenant with God. It requires diligent, unselfish work as handling sacred things, faithfulness to duty with diligence and close application to business, putting the mind into work without faltering, discouragement or turning back. It requires a humble spirit willing to be led, a heart made right and sanctified by the Spirit of God, putting away pride, suspicion, jealousy and malice, digging deep to lay the foundation sure, fighting the continual fight of faith with Jesus as helper, and living for God rather than self with firm undeviating principle. It demands denying self a thousand things rather than running into debt, even living on porridge and bread, refusing extras and indulgence of taste and appetite, guarding small spending and saving pence because pennies and mites soon run to dollars, until one stands forth as a free man, which is a great victory for Christian character attainable by God-given opportunities used in God's strength.
Until free, the rule is close self-denial and most stringent economy, spending only for food to sustain life and simple clothing for respectable appearance. Every cent above that is to be treated as creditors' money belonging to other men, not to be spent on handy conveniences, inventions, schemes, or needless indulgence, with one's own judgment and independence about spending laid aside for a modest humble position that lets others plan outlay. One must live very plain, remain almost niggardly in spending, earn and save every possible dollar to lessen what is owed, be content with modest apparel rather than the most expensive articles because they are nicest, and even suffer lack of food and clothing rather than withhold payment. Buying dress or house furnishings that can possibly be done without while still in debt is sin and virtual dishonesty, especially when driven by pride and desire to keep up appearances, bringing reproach, withholding prosperity and blessing, and making one accountable for bad influence until an honest honorable course in business is kept.
Every outstanding debt must be settled in full before other investments or new work, taking time in counsel with God and with brethren and counting the cost as before building a tower to see whether one is able to finish. Hasty movements involving borrowing make the way hard, dishonor the Lord, injure personal influence, give occasion for doubt and distrust as unreliable, and become a stumbling block to others. The required straightforward course is paying back every farthing borrowed, refusing to borrow further, and walking humbly with God, and victory over debt removes a great temptation from the minds of brethren.
Being in debt does not excuse anyone from giving to God and does not mean withholding every offering until all debts are paid. Those who refuse to give until free from debt deceive themselves and withhold what belongs to God. The debtor should subtract the amount of debts from what is possessed and bring a suitable proportion of the remainder as an offering to the Lord while still meeting obligations to others.
God's work must not be continually embarrassed with debt, and institutions must not go beyond means in adding buildings or other facilities. Improvements are to be deferred until Providence opens the way to make them without contracting heavy debts and paying interest, for voluntary debt entangles in a snare, is to be shunned as disease, and drains resources needed for missionary work. Churches everywhere are to make debt-free operation their education and conduct church schools on a basis of financial success without the blot of debt. When a school such as at Battle Creek has large sums invested with too little wisdom in practical methods and its debt increases year after year instead of diminishing, managers must call a halt and refuse to run it longer unless some sure paying system is devised, even closing until a plan to carry it on without debt is found, which requires judgment, strict economy in table provisions, gathering fragments that nothing be lost, ending waste of food that could support families, letting teachers take less wages and raising students' fees.
To owe no one anything means to stay off forbidden ground by refusing to enter debt or to move ahead without means already in hand, rather than depending on hopeful expectations of money to come. The only debt to remain ever owing is love, for love does no harm to a neighbor and therefore fulfills God's law of love, which guards every person's rights and gives stability and happiness in this world and the next. That love is shown in paying every just claim including interest, refusing to defraud or oppress the poor, and relieving the needy without usury or rigor. In practice this calls for industrious labor, simple living within means, stringent self-denial and economy until every debt is paid in full, and solemn resolve never to incur another, while still giving God His due from what remains. The weight of teaching holds that God's work and schools must likewise defer expansion rather than go forward under heavy debt, though those who held otherwise taught that borrowing at interest to build chapels and carry on school work was permitted when repayment was trusted to follow.
Meaning of Owing Nothing
Owing no one anything means never entering into debt and never moving one step in financial uncertainty. No enterprise that absorbs means is to be engaged in until the means are already in possession, and no dependence is to be placed on flattering hopes of money to come from any source at present or in the future. Debt is forbidden ground, a snare and a curse, a yoke of dependence and slavery to tyrant debt. It puts one under Satan's power of temptation, destroys peace and influence, brings discomfiture and unrest, and leads to unjustly accusing others of neglect of duty. Keeping the command to the exact letter gives peace for one's own soul and for fellow workers and keeps in the straight line of duty so that God is honored.
Neglecting it brings shame, reproach, sorrow and inconvenience. It involves others by bringing unnecessary burdens upon them and opens the door to temptations that hurt their souls and one's own soul. Such disregard of light in warnings and instruction creates moral inability that disqualifies God's army to possess the goodly land, and it dishonors His name by diverting means greatly needed in His cause and work in these last days of peril. The same command requires earning an honest living by hard physical labor even when it brings weariness, sustaining oneself instead of looking for an easy place agreeable to feeling, appropriating nothing that belongs to another, and spending no money before it is earned, so that to have no horror of debt is disobedience. It means to make no unwise investments and to carry no debt, refusing to bind up borrowed money on overconfident future calculations of repayment.
Every debt is to be paid as God opens the way, leaving no human claim outstanding so as to stand in God-given liberty as a free man. This requires learning wisdom from the past, staying at the God-given work of holding forth the Word of life, walking cautiously and softly and humbly with God, binding about the imagination, keeping under ambitious business projects and speculations devised by finite judgment, and not trusting deceiving men nor following own wisdom and imagination. Avoiding such indebtedness corrects a persistent weakness toward financial overextension and belongs to safety in walking softly before God while holding forth the word of life, receiving the precious light God gives, and serving as a chosen bearer of light. On the holding behind , the verse does not forbid borrowing money and paying interest to establish the truth by building chapels and carrying on school work, where a large loan for that kind of working is taken in faith and trusted to be repaid after a few months' notice when the lender calls for it.
Love Fulfills the Law
Owing no one anything except love fulfills the law because love does no harm to a neighbor, and therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. Such love does no harm by refusing to give the sick what made them sick and by refusing to indulge perverted appetite. It calls for coming into line in faith and love to bring the fullness of Christ into life, standing on the elevated platform of health reform, and knowing the time that now it is high time to awake out of sleep because salvation is nearer than when first believed. It means casting off the works of darkness, putting on the armor of light, walking honestly as in the day and not in rioting and drunkenness, chambering and wantonness, strife and envying, putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, and making no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. God's law is a law of love, an expression of Divine Goodness swept clear of encumbering exactions.
Far from arbitrary, the law is given as a hedge and a shield, and whoever accepts its principles is preserved from evil. Obedience to its principles brings the happiness of mankind and gives stability as the very foundation and framework of human society. Fidelity to God involves fidelity to man, so the law guards the rights and individuality of every human being by restraining the superior from oppression and the subordinate from disobedience. It insures well-being both for this world and for the world to come, and to the obedient it is the pledge of eternal life because it expresses principles that endure forever.
The law is fulfilled when people love God supremely with all heart, mind, soul and strength and love their neighbor as themselves. This love is the living principle of brotherhood imparted to human hearts by the Holy Spirit. It is purity and charity that suffers long and is kind, the sanctified knowledge most prized in Christ's representatives. Where this love is exercised toward one another as Christ loved, His love is perfected in believers and God dwells in them and they in God, while coldness and lack of sympathy come from the wicked one. When expressed it brings glory to God in the highest and peace and goodwill on earth toward men.
Love to one another requires paying what is due and paying just and honest debts including interest rather than refusing payment because it is inconvenient. Failing to settle a debt one can pay is injustice and robbery, and failing to pay damages Christian witness so that Christians are regarded as unreliable. It requires not defrauding a neighbor, refusing to accumulate debts one cannot honestly repay, and acting with integrity and economy. It includes relieving the poor, the stranger, the fatherless and the widow, taking no usury or increase, and ruling without rigor or fraud, with the requirements of the Old Testament agreeing perfectly with the New. Oppression of the poor is nothing less than actual robbery, marked as an abhorred practice God will in no case tolerate though punishable by human courts only in very extreme cases, and wherever schemes withhold money from those to whom it is due or deprive any man of his right His disapprobation rests and He condemns injustice by whoever and in whatever business it is manifested. The command to love one another does not excuse unpaid obligations but makes faithful treatment of a neighbor part of the duty of love, so Christians must not leave honest debts unpaid even if unknown to others, and neglected vows and unpaid pledges are also violations for which people must answer to God.
Loving without doing harm requires intelligent, practical health reform and temperance as individual accountability. It educates the intellect and arouses the moral sensibility to take hold of health reform in an intelligent manner with moral understanding. Particular foods and articles of diet are not to be made a test question or a test of faith.
Debt-Free Life in Practice
To owe no one anything requires those who are able to work to correct indolent habits and live so that the truth is honored rather than reproached by inconsiderate conduct. It means laboring industriously for small wages as well as large, living simply, economically and within means, and using physical strength faithfully to keep the family above want rather than depending on others. Help from fellow believers is limited to temporary assistance such as a start when relocating, while ongoing support as a duty of charity belongs only to the infirm who are unable to labor. Speculative spending and unreasonable business ventures are forbidden because they create burdensome debt and destroy the freedom of owing nothing.
Becoming free means paying all existing debts and determining never to incur another, by solemn covenant with God. It requires diligent, unselfish work as handling sacred things, faithfulness to duty with diligence and close application to business, putting the mind into work without faltering, discouragement or turning back. It requires a humble spirit willing to be led, a heart made right and sanctified by the Spirit of God, putting away pride, suspicion, jealousy and malice, digging deep to lay the foundation sure, fighting the continual fight of faith with Jesus as helper, and living for God rather than self with firm undeviating principle. It demands denying self a thousand things rather than running into debt, even living on porridge and bread, refusing extras and indulgence of taste and appetite, guarding small spending and saving pence because pennies and mites soon run to dollars, until one stands forth as a free man, which is a great victory for Christian character attainable by God-given opportunities used in God's strength.
Until free, the rule is close self-denial and most stringent economy, spending only for food to sustain life and simple clothing for respectable appearance. Every cent above that is to be treated as creditors' money belonging to other men, not to be spent on handy conveniences, inventions, schemes, or needless indulgence, with one's own judgment and independence about spending laid aside for a modest humble position that lets others plan outlay. One must live very plain, remain almost niggardly in spending, earn and save every possible dollar to lessen what is owed, be content with modest apparel rather than the most expensive articles because they are nicest, and even suffer lack of food and clothing rather than withhold payment. Buying dress or house furnishings that can possibly be done without while still in debt is sin and virtual dishonesty, especially when driven by pride and desire to keep up appearances, bringing reproach, withholding prosperity and blessing, and making one accountable for bad influence until an honest honorable course in business is kept.
Every outstanding debt must be settled in full before other investments or new work, taking time in counsel with God and with brethren and counting the cost as before building a tower to see whether one is able to finish. Hasty movements involving borrowing make the way hard, dishonor the Lord, injure personal influence, give occasion for doubt and distrust as unreliable, and become a stumbling block to others. The required straightforward course is paying back every farthing borrowed, refusing to borrow further, and walking humbly with God, and victory over debt removes a great temptation from the minds of brethren.
Being in debt does not excuse anyone from giving to God and does not mean withholding every offering until all debts are paid. Those who refuse to give until free from debt deceive themselves and withhold what belongs to God. The debtor should subtract the amount of debts from what is possessed and bring a suitable proportion of the remainder as an offering to the Lord while still meeting obligations to others.
God's work must not be continually embarrassed with debt, and institutions must not go beyond means in adding buildings or other facilities. Improvements are to be deferred until Providence opens the way to make them without contracting heavy debts and paying interest, for voluntary debt entangles in a snare, is to be shunned as disease, and drains resources needed for missionary work. Churches everywhere are to make debt-free operation their education and conduct church schools on a basis of financial success without the blot of debt. When a school such as at Battle Creek has large sums invested with too little wisdom in practical methods and its debt increases year after year instead of diminishing, managers must call a halt and refuse to run it longer unless some sure paying system is devised, even closing until a plan to carry it on without debt is found, which requires judgment, strict economy in table provisions, gathering fragments that nothing be lost, ending waste of food that could support families, letting teachers take less wages and raising students' fees.