Love Does No Harm

Earlier this week I stood in the street with the wife of a man who a short time before had taken his own life. We were forming a strategy for how to notify their daughter, a student in a nearby elementary school, concerning the things that happened after she left for school that morning. The grieving woman was struggling with how her husband could have done what he did, and she suddenly turned to me and said, "Love does no harm." I am certain she was not intentionally quoting the Bible, but there it was. She had a common sense/common grace understanding that if you love someone, you don't do things that you know will hurt them. In the context of Romans 13, Paul had just said (v 7) to discharge all of your responsibilities to others, but understand (v 8) that there is one debt you can never pay in full. You have a coninuing debt that you need to pay every day...