Love One Another…

When it comes to the theme of Christians loving one another, I trust our readers know that this is one major emphasis in the Bible.  For a few reminders, consider these verses: love your neighbor as yourself (Lev. 19.18); by this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another (Jn. 13.35); if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing (1 Cor. 13.2).  The list goes on (and on!).  Here’s a paragraph from Eugene Peterson’s Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places that is a sort of commentary on Scripture’s call for Christians to love one another.  It’s pretty bold, but in light of Scriptures clear emphasis on love, I think it is accurate.

“No matter how right we are in what we believe about God, no matter how accurately we phrase our belief or how magnificently and persuasively we preach or write or declare it, if love does not shape the way we speak and act, we falsify the creed, we confess a lie.  Believing without loving is what gives religion a bad name.  Believing without loving destroys lives.  Believing without loving turns the best of creeds into a weapon of oppression.  A community that believes but does not love or marginalizes love, regardless of its belief system or doctrinal orthodoxy or ‘vision statement,’ soon, very soon, becomes a ‘synagogue of Satan’ (Rev. 2:9).”

This quote is found on page 261 of Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places.

shane lems

 

The Bond of Perfection (Col 3.14)

  I’ve appreciated this book on Christian love (based on John 13.35, 1 Cor 13, etc.) by Scottish Covenanter Hugh Binning (d. 1653).  It isn’t the easiest Puritan Paperback to read, but it is worth the effort.  The treatise is short (80 small pages) and there are a few of Binning’s sermons as an appendix (around 25 pages).  I’m amazed at how deep and solid this book is – Binning wrote it when he was between 23 and 26 years old.  Here are a few of my favorite quotes.

“Self-love is the greatest enemy to true Christian love, and pride is the fountain of self-love” (p. 14).

“Charity and Christian love should be the moderator of all our actions toward men; from thence they should proceed, and according to this rule be formed” (p. 17).

“Caritas non punit quia peccatum est, sed ne peccaretur” [Love does not punish because one has sinned, but so that one should not sin] (p. 23-4).

“He whose sins are covered by God’s free love cannot think it hard to spread the garment of his love over his brother’s sins” (p. 59).

“Humility makes a man compare himself with the best that he may find how bad he himself is, but pride measures by the worst, that it may hide a man from his own imperfections” (p. 74).

As you can see, this is a great little booklet.  Don’t forget one like it that I’ve mentioned before, Renihan’s True Love published by EP books.

shane lems

John 13.35 – Discipleship and Love

 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.

“The commandment is not new because it differs in content from what can be found in the Jewish scriptures (cf. Lev. 19.18), but because it forms part of the new revelation and the new order that has come with Jesus.  It is therefore grounded in his own love for his followers, which entails his death, and it is shaped by and participates in the relationship of love between Jesus and the Father.  In particular, Jesus’ love for his own (cf. 13.1) serves as the foundation and model for his disciples’ love for one another.  After Jesus departure, the carrying out of this command will be the sign of the continuation of his cause and his mission in the word: By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.  The identifying mark of the community Jesus leaves behind is to be the mutual love of its members.

This quote is taken from Andrew Lincoln’s excellent commentary on John’s Gospel (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2006), 388.  I used this commentary when I was working through John; I highly recommend it along with his other work on John’s Gospel called Truth on Trial.

shane lems

Dear Preacher, Love With Intensity

The other day I was reading a prayer by Augustine in which he asked the Lord to strengthen his love for other Christians.  Machen takes this theme and applies it to the preacher.  These are outstanding words, and all Christian leaders should take them to heart.

“I know some preachers who are very good men, and very devoted to Christ, who seem somehow to let their Christianity make them cold and dead to all the movings of friendship.  They do not outwardly lead the lives of hermits; on the contrary their greatest joy is to be serving Christ by preaching his word.  Yet somehow there is an impenetrable barrier between them and other men.  You always have the feeling that whenever they speak to you it is out of a stern sense of duty, in order that they may do you some good.”

“They have no spontaneous affection for individual men – all men are to them alike, for all alike simply form a field for preaching.  The consequence is their sermons sound as though they were coming out of a phonograph [that is, impersonal - SL].  In order to prevent your words from being sounding brass or tinkling cymbal, two kinds of love are necessary – love to God and love to your hearers.  It will not do to let your hearers say, Yes, the preacher loves Christ devotedly, but he cares not one cent for me.”

Taken from pages 424-425 of Machen’s Selected Shorter Writings.

shane lems

Luther on the Christian Sabbath

“Now, therefore, the sum and substance of this is that he [Jesus] confronts them [the Pharisees in Luke 14.1-11] straight to their faces, showing them that they don’t know what it means to keep or sanctify the Sabbath.  Your thinking, he says, is that the Sabbath means to do no work whatever and to be idle.  No, you must not construe the Sabbath in this manner.  Sanctifying the Sabbath means to hear God’s Word and to assist your neighbor however you can.  For God does not want the Sabbath to be kept holy in such a way that you allow your neighbor to languish and be in need.”

“Therefore, if I serve and help my neighbor, even though it requires physical labor, I still have kept the Sabbath very properly, because in doing so I have done a God-pleasing work.  This doctrine of the Sabbath, therefore, shows us how to understand what the third commandment is all about and what it demands of us, namely, not that we observe it in idleness, but that we hearken to God’s word, and act and live in harmony with it.”

“So what is its lesson?  It teaches us that, in accord with the second table, we are to love one another and do all manner of good works.  On the Sabbath, if I listen to and obey God’s word, it surely follows that I also should act in accord with it, for by doing good I am not breaking or desecrating the Sabbath, but acting in accord with his word.”

I love how Martin Luther explains the Sabbath using Jesus’ teaching of helping our needy neighbor on the Sabbath.  It reminds me of the Heidelberg Catechism’s great explanation of the 4th commandment.  I always forget that we should think of and help others every day of the week; we don’t have Sunday “off” from serving and loving others.  Basically, this is the summary of the ten commandments applied to the Christian Sabbath: Love God first and your neighbor second.  If you sweat on the Lord’s Day to help and love your neighbor, you are not disobeying God, but pleasing him.  More bluntly, it is probably better to help someone in need Sunday after church than go nap for 2 hours because Saturday totally wore you out!

The above Luther quote is taken from volume 7 of the Baker sermon series of Martin Luther, page 37 (his first sermon on the 16th Sunday after Trinity Sunday, 1532).

shane lems