Romans 13:8
Romans 13:88Be indebted to no one, except to one another in love. For he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.
Watchtower commentary takes as describing the Christian obligation to love fellow believers and the fulfilment of the law through this love. The "his fellow man" rendering accommodates the JW associative-love framing — love is primarily directed within the congregation, with appropriate distance from the world. The verse is cited alongside meeting attendance and organisational unity as evidence of fulfilled love.
The verse closes Paul's transition from civic obligations (vv1-7) to the ethics of neighbour-love (vv8-10). "Owe no one anything except to love one another" is unqualified — Paul is not narrowing love to the church but expanding the Mosaic neighbour-command (Lev 19:18) to a universal Christian principle. Vv9-10 list the commandments love fulfils: do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not covet — every commandment that governs treatment of any human being. Love is the law's fulfilment because love refuses to harm the neighbour. The Watchtower's narrowing of "the other" to congregational fellow-Witnesses misses the verse's universal scope, which the surrounding context of civic obligations and shared neighbour-ethics makes plain.
The NWT renders ton heteron as "his fellow man" — consensus reads "the other" (ESV/NASB) or "his neighbor" (KJV/NIV). The Greek heteros means "another" or "the other" — unmarked for in-group versus out-group. The NWT's "fellow man" subtly imports an in-group connotation — fellow believer, fellow Witness — that the Greek does not require. Combined with the next verse's neighbour-love command from , the JW narrowing reads against Paul's universalising move.
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