April 11, 2010
Background Scripture: 1 John 2:7-17
Devotional Reading: John 13:31-35

Recently, while teaching an adult class in our church, I mentioned the theme of “Love” is common across the world’s religions. I was quickly challenged: “Are you saying that Christian teachings about love are not unique?”

My reply was that what makes our Christian faith unique is the overwhelming centrality of love in our faith.

Unfortunately, it seems that many Christians fail to realize the supreme emphasis on love. Some think of it as impractical in the world in which we live. Many regard it as one of a host of attributes of the Christian life.

But love is what distinguishes Jesus Christ from virtually all other major religious leaders. The word “love” appears in the Old Testament of my RSV Bible 320 times, and in the New Testament 139. (The exact count will depend upon the translation that you use.)

I’m not suggesting that the meaning of the word in all of those appearances is quite the same, just as there is a wide variety of meanings to this word used in our daily language. We know that “loving pizza” isn’t the same as “loving our neighbor.” Even when we tell someone “I love you,” it may mean something less than agape, self-giving commitment.

The epitome of Christian love is to be found in both the Gospel According to John and the First Epistle of John, 2:7-17. (See also 1 John 4:7-21.)

Old and new

John’s opening statement on love in 2:7-17 may seem confusing: “Beloved, I am  writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment which you had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard. Yet, I am writing you a new commandment…” (2:7).

What he’s saying is that the commandment to love one another is both old and new. It is “old” in that it has been part of their Jewish heritage and it has been basic to the Christian movement from the beginning. But it is “new” in that, contrary to all other concepts of love, Christian love is based upon the love incarnate in Jesus Christ and manifested in his life and death.

The writer of this epistle makes in crystal clear that Christian love is not the love of the philosophers. Thomas Masaryk warns us that “love of humanity tends readily to become abstract, to exist in fancy rather than in reality.”

Christian love is the difference between walking in the dark and walking in the light. He who loves is walking in the light. Period. He who hates is walking in the darkness. Period. And darkness is separation from God. If we hate, we alienate ourselves from God.
Sadly, Christians may not realize that there have been periods of our history during which we have walked in utter darkness. I am currently reading Inquisition: The Reign of Fear by Toby Green (St Martin’s Press, 2007). It is the incredible story of three or more centuries of terror and unbelievable, sadistic cruelty practiced in the name of Jesus Christ by the Christian Church, principally in Spain and Portugal and their colonies.

Dirty laundry

“Why would you read something like that?” my wife Valere wanted to know.

I replied, “Because we need from time to time to be reminded that Christians have had their own eras of barbaric genocide, the vestiges of which have not entirely disappeared today.” We must never forget that tens of thousands of Christians, Jews and Moslems were burned by priests and officials of the Church.
In verses 15-17, we are dealing with a different kind of love, one that is obsessive and destructive. So, “Do not love the world or the things of the world.”

Here John speaks not of the majesty and beauty of planet Earth, but of the human society that stands for goals and values that oppose God’s will – such as hate, violence and revenge. That world “passes away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.”

L.P. Jacks said, “Nobody will know what you mean by saying that ‘God is love’ unless you act it as well. That makes all the difference.”

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Rev. Althouse may write to him in care of this publication.