4 Ministries--Love
John 13:34-35 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."Luke 10:25-37 And a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" And He said to him, " What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?" And he answered, "YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." And He said to him, " You have answered correctly; DO THIS AND YOU WILL LIVE." But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus replied and said, " A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went away leaving him half dead. And by chance a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion, and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn and took care of him. On the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I return I will repay you.’ Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?" And he said, "The one who showed mercy toward him." Then Jesus said to him, " Go and do the same."
1 Corinthians 13:4-8 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.
by Study-Leader @ 8:33 PM
1 Comments:
Lots of times it helps to know the Bible use and meaning of words we are a little more careless with. "Love" is one of those words. It's pretty obvious that we're missing something when we're prone to describe how we feel about ice cream with the same word that we use to describe God's perspective on His creation which motivated Him to sacrifice His only Son to rescue us from our sins.
Biblically, "agapao" or "agape" is a love in which one is totally given over to someone or something. It's a self-sacrificing and unconditional love described fully in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. This is the attitude we're challenged to have towards God, Deuteronomy 6:5/Matthew 22:37; towards other Christians, John 13:34-35, and our "neighbor" (see Luke 10:25-37), even our enemies in this self-sacrificing way.
Jesus is so clearly our example in this--especially when you look at Ephesians 5:25-33, where the Bible plainly says that the love and unity of a husband and wife are meant (that is, designed and created) to depict Jesus and His church. Unfortunately, our popular culture has almost completely obliterated this ideal, and lowers it to desire-love, represented by the word eros in the Greek (a word not found in the Bible).
To put it in the plainest terms, if a person's goal in a relationship is his or her own satisfaction, (the feeling of not being able to live without the other person)it's not agape but eros. And it's not sustainable. It may seem romantic, and "bigger than both of them." But it falls far short of 1 Corinthians 13. We are warned not to be caught up in the self-centered world in 1 John 2:15: "Stop loving the world and the things that are in the world. If anyone persists in loving the world, the love of the Father is not in him."
Which brings us back to the point of the love of the Father being in us. We let Him define love and be the source of love within us. After all, He is love, (1 John 4:8; 4:16). In fact, you could take 1 Corinthians 13, the chapter that so poetically and accurately describes love, and take out the word love and put "Jesus" in there and see how beautifully it fits.
The many commandments ("Thou shalt nots") of the Old Testament Law show us Jesus by contrast, especially with the narratives of how everyone failed to keep it. The New Testament, and this passage in particular, along with Philippians 2:5-11, show us Jesus in a more direct light...but both views show us Jesus. As He said, the entire book is written about Him; and in practice, legalism, trying to establish our righteousness by making and doing rules, is the opposite of love--it's a stumbling block for us and for those we would try to reach. Ironically, true love is the fulfillment of the Law!
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