8 Be in debt for nothing, but to have love for one another: for he who has love for his neighbour has kept all the law.
Love does no wrong to his neighbour, so love makes the law complete.
All those things, then, which you would have men do to you, even so do you to them: because this is the law and the prophets.
And a second like it is this, Have love for your neighbour as for yourself. On these two rules all the law and the prophets are based.
But if you keep the greatest law of all, as it is given in the holy Writings, Have love for your neighbour as for yourself, you do well:
Give to all what is their right: taxes to him whose they are, payment to him whose right it is, fear to whom fear, honour to whom honour is to be given.
And more than all, have love; the only way in which you may be completely joined together.
Do not be hard on a servant who is poor and in need, if he is one of your countrymen or a man from another nation living with you in your land. Give him his payment day by day, not keeping it back over night; for he is poor and his living is dependent on it; and if his cry against you comes to the ears of the Lord, it will be judged as sin in you.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Romans 13
Commentary on Romans 13 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 13
There are three good lessons taught us in this chapter, where the apostle enlarges more upon his precepts than he had done in the foregoing chapter, finding them more needful to be fully pressed.
Rom 13:1-6
We are here taught how to conduct ourselves towards magistrates, and those that are in authority over us, called here the higher powers, intimating their authority (they are powers), and their dignity (they are higher powers), including not only the king as supreme, but all inferior magistrates under him: and yet it is expressed, not by the persons that are in that power, but the place of power itself, in which they are. However the persons themselves may be wicked, and of those vile persons whom the citizen of Zion contemneth (Ps. 15:4), yet the just power which they have must be submitted to and obeyed. The apostle had taught us, in the foregoing chapter, not to avenge ourselves, nor to recompense evil for evil; but, lest it should seem as if this did cancel the ordinance of a civil magistracy among Christians, he takes occasion to assert the necessity of it, and of the due infliction of punishment upon evil doers, however it may look like recompensing evil for evil. Observe,
Rom 13:7-10
We are here taught a lesson of justice and charity.
Rom 13:11-14
We are here taught a lesson of sobriety and godliness in ourselves. Our main care must be to look to ourselves. Four things we are here taught, as a Christian's directory for his day's work: when to awake, how to dress ourselves, how to walk, and what provision to make.