ὀφείλω

G3784 is a verb for owing, being obligated, being bound to act, or stating what ought to occur. Its thirty-five forms cover actual debts, obligations created by oaths or relationships, reasoned expectations, ethical duties, and necessities located within a passage's argument. Matthew 18, Luke 7 and 16, and Philemon use ordinary debt language. Other contexts concern forgiveness, service, washing feet, marital conduct, apostolic responsibilities, gratitude, support, Christ's priestly solidarity, and love. The verb does not make every obligation identical or tell readers who validly imposed it.

Romans 13:8 commands readers not to remain indebted except in mutual love, but it neither prohibits all loans nor cancels lawful commitments. First John grounds walking and self-giving love in Christ, yet love must not be recast as compliance with abuse, secrecy, exploitation, or self-destruction. Ephesians 5:28 places a husband's obligation inside Christ-shaped love for his wife; it supplies no entitlement to her body, labor, money, silence, or continued proximity. First Corinthians 7 and 11 address disputed embodied and gendered practices that require close literary, historical, and pastoral work rather than a bare ought used to control people.

Romans 1:14 and 8:12 use the related debtor noun G3781, not G3784, so they are excluded from this verb's direct evidence. Hebrews 2:17 describes what was fitting or necessary for Christ's merciful high-priestly mission; it does not place God under an outside creditor. John 19:7 reports the accusers' legal claim that Jesus ought to die without endorsing it. Across the corpus, an obligation must be tested by speaker, relationship, object, grounds, and context. Religious language cannot validate coerced sex, forced labor, financial exploitation, unsafe reconciliation, concealed abuse, discriminatory demands, or a leader's unreviewable authority.

Thirty-five governed forms in thirty-four verses span financial debt, claimed legal and oath obligation, situational expectation, ethical duty, reciprocal care, ministerial responsibility, and redemptive necessity.