Opus 2026-095: Love Mirage

I am currently coming off a day spent with my wife, daughter and grandchildren.  The word to describe it is euphoria.  Being in the presence of a wonderful bunch of people and doing things that are building memories such as visiting museums, eating smashed burgers in an out-of-the-way hole-in-the-wall, visiting an ice cream factory and sampling the wares and having a grandchild repeatedly crawl onto your lap and lean back against you is not described by any simple word.  If you’ve been there, you know what I mean.  If you haven’t been there, you have my sympathy.

Then, today, as I was reading in, of all things a diet book, I came across this thought about the love of God.

“We have talked to continually of the need for you to love the father, but does He really care about you?  Yes, powerfully so!  He does not allow your idols to save you, and He is waiting patiently to save you with his power when you finally call on him.” p. 119

It got me thinking about the different types of love and how it is described in I Corinthians 13:4-6.  I think I’ve written other places how an insight into what it means to say “God is love” could be gained by studying the section of I Corinthians 13 that starts, “love is patient….”  It gives us real insight into what it means that God loves us.

We tend to forget that.  If we don’t forget it, we tend to misinterpret it.  We tend to confuse what God means by agape with what Hollywood and Hallmark mean by love.  This is not a romantic love.  This is the kind of love that will do anything to make your life what it should be.  What we overlook is that that often involves discipline and allowing hardship.  In the book, the author is talking about how the children of Israel went through the desert and how God was trying to mold them into a godly people in that process.

We go through a similar phases.  If God just wanted a bunch of fruit salad, you could’ve thrown it together very quickly and its value would be very questionable.  If He wants a banquet of nutrition, it takes a little bit more planning and expects us taking of that which is offered in the right methods and measurements.

God loves us.  That means that He disciplines.  It means that He denies.  It means that He does a lot of things that we don’t like, but it’s for our own good.  When we love others, we should have this in mind.  Our purpose and loving others is not to meet their momentary desires but to mold their lifelong character.

Shamblin, Gwen.  The Weigh Down Diet.  New York:  Doubleday, 1997.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-513: Covenant Languages

There are differences between the old covenant, or Old Testament, and the new covenant, or New Testament.  There are differences in teaching.  There’s a fuller understanding of God’s plan.  There’s a clear explanation of the place of grace and a highlighting of the need for faith.

I’m wondering if one of the reasons that we needed a new covenant also had to do with the fact that it came in a new language with different nuances.  I came to this in a roundabout way.  I was thinking about the differences between animals and human beings.  I don’t think animals experience like we do.  I think that they exist at different levels.  My first thought was with a bear ambling through the woods.  He was looking for grubs to eat, berries to munch on and possibly some honey for dessert.  He was getting ready for his long winters nap.  Did he think deep philosophical questions?  Did he ask the other bears about the meaning of life?  I doubt it.  At the same time he was somewhat aware.  If he was a small bear and a grizzly snuck up on him, he would know fear.

Go down to the other end of creation to the insect world.  Are they aware of fear?  I don’t think so, not in the way that we think of fear.  They may scramble or dodged to preserve their life, but that’s just a reaction.  I doubt if they have the cerebral cortex to allow them to be aware of what’s really going on.

Hugh Ross in his writings about creation, talks about a word that is used for the higher levels of animals.  That is in Hebrew I believe, nephesh.  In his theory, certain animals were created with this level of awareness.  These were the animals that are able to relate to human beings, such as dogs and horses.  You wouldn’t find it in the lower animals.

The ultimate of creation, of course, was humanity.  We were created in the image of God.  I’m wondering if one of the reasons we have the New Testament written in Greek rather than Hebrew is so that we could have a new word for what it is to have this life source.  It might be the word that we use for spirit in Holy Spirit, pneuma.

New Testament words, such as agape would have all of the nuance of the Old Testament, chesed but with added depth and understanding.  That tells us the concept of love that we get from God in the Greek is higher than the awesome thought of loving kindness in the Hebrew.

We serve a loving God.  In one sense He never changes.  But in another sense, He is constantly finding new ways to reach out and develop us in His presence.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-469: Is Not Jealous...

One of the insights I had a while back was that if God is love, and that is one of His attributes, then looking at Paul’s definition of love in I Corinthians 13 would be a good way to get insights into God’s character.  I’ve already talked about that first quality of patience or long suffering.  God is definitely patient with us.  He was patient with Israel.

This morning, as I was basking in the presence of the living God, and reaching out to receive His blessing, it occurred to me that the Holy Spirit already lives within me.  Why would I be reaching out to receive something when God is already here?  That got me to wondering if God the Father would get a little upset if I prayed to God the Spirit?  That made me think of a professor who once shared that we are to pray to the Father, in the name of the Son and in the power of the Spirit but if we got them mixed up God would understand.  

One of the things I’ve heard expressed by different writers and speakers is that the Trinity demonstrates this concept of love and also shows us that God does not need fellowship with human beings because He already has fellowship within Himself.  I don’t know how biblical that is, but it’s an interesting way of looking at it.  As I was thinking about that the phase from I Corinthians 13 came to my mind, “and is not jealous....”  Beautiful.

It’s hard for us to understand in our competitive world what it means to be not jealous.  We always have this attitude of getting ahead of the other guy.  Why is it when someone passes you on the interstate that you feel like you have to get ahead of them again?  Why is it when I stop because someone in the car has to go to the bathroom I look at all those people I’ve already passed and it occurs to me that I’m now going to have to get ahead of them again?  I know I am not the only one.  Competition rears its head everywhere.

A spirit of competitiveness is one of the blocks in our lives when we seek to not be jealous.  I should use God‘s Trinity as an example of what it means to not be jealous, to not worry about who gets first credit on the billing.  Someone once said it’s amazing what you can get done if you don’t worry about who gets the credit.  I think that’s kind of where God is.

A friend wants made a big deal about who we were praying to when we prayed to the capitalized LORD (Yahweh) in the OT.  I told him it didn’t really matter.  Yahweh is the name that God gave us to call Him, and I tend to think of it as the Father, but if it includes all three, so much the better.  He wasn’t happy with that because he was trying to convince me of some eschatological point.  I wasn’t buying and I stood by my position.  I’m not sure what my position was but I still stand by it.

So God is not jealous.  He doesn’t mind when Jesus gets top billing and He doesn’t mind when the Holy Spirit moves to the front of the pack.  They may be three persons, but they are one God and They are united in purpose and love.

Always something to rejoice about.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-319: Mommy, Kiss It

One of my recurrent areas of contemplation and meditation is based on the principle that I Corinthians 13 gives us an idea of what it means that God is love.  Today I was thinking about, what we call forgiveness and my mind went to that last phrase in verse five.

1 Corinthians 13:5 (KJV) Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

1 Corinthians 13:5 (NASB95) does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,

1 Corinthians 13:5 (NLT) It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.

Notice the different understanding that the modern translation and paraphrase give that last phrase.  If my theory is correct, then that last statement tells us that God does not keep a record of our sins.  Now when we think about forgiveness we have no trouble with that but I’m thinking that it also reflects that God does not keep a record of our outstanding sins.

It isn’t a matter of ignoring them, or forgetting them.  It’s a matter of not needing to keep a list.  God knows that we are born in original sin and He knows that we have all sinned as Paul says,

Romans 3:23 (KJV) For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

For God to keep a tally of our sins would be like us going down to the ocean and continually checking to see how wet it was.

This is where the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross comes in.  We are forgiven by the free choice of God, call it grace or mercy, we are not forgiven because we have gotten enough merit to deserve it.  He makes that decision based on our believing that the sacrifice of Jesus was enough to pay for our sins.  It’s hard for us to comprehend this because we want to believe that bigger sinners are harder to forgive, and that we are just a little sinners so we are more deserving.  Not so.  We all fall short, and only God’s free, active forgiveness, enabled by the blood of Jesus, is enough for us to have salvation.

If the suffering Jesus went through and His passion were not so extreme we could almost think of it as something simple like how Mommy’s kiss heals our booboos.  He offers us the free gift of salvation and is waiting to heal us not because of how big the list is but because it’s the only chance we have.

That gives me a reason to rejoice this morning.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-242: God So Loved

Think about what that means, and how is expressed.

Go back to creation.  God didn’t just make us and walk away. Think of that phrase that was repeated time and time again, “It was good”.  And then when you get down to the creation of man, He says “It was very good”.  And He tells us that He made man in His own image and put His stamp upon us.

And when He got mad at the world and destroyed in the flood, He looked down and His compassion got the better of Him.  He saw that there was at least one human being that wanted to be on His side, and that was Noah.  So he spared Noah.  He started over again . And then we have what is called the covenant of Noah, and as I was looking at it the other day, researching the idea of covenant, I noticed that it wasn’t just a covenant with Noah.

(Gen 9:9 KJV)  And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you;
(Gen 9:10 KJV)  And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.

And as I read at different times the stories of creation, in other religions and other gods, it is fascinating where people came from.  Sometimes human beings are the sweat that falls off the face of the god.  Sometimes their god is killed and split in two and the two sides become man and woman.  There are all kinds of creative ways to explain where people came from.  But none of them have a God in love consciously creating us in His image.

For God, so loved the world.  His love has endured so much hostility, and rejection.

The world He destroyed
The tower of Babel
The constant rebellion of Israel
All of the problems that Paul had to deal with in his letters
The rage in Revelation

And yet God keeps coming back for us.  

Have a blessed day based on knowledge not clever sayings.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-203: Congregation of the Do

God was out and about in my front yard this morning.  Well, He may have been up above the trees, but He was there.  He met with me in His unique way.  One of my thoughts was just focusing on the awesome reality of this flawed, limited, physical human being, being able to have fellowship with the Creator of the universe.  I can’t understand.  I can’t comprehend.  I can, however know.

In searching for ways to express this, my focus centered on being a grandfather.  I remembered the day my first grandchild was born, and I was able to sit down in that maternity ward and they brought her and put her in my arms.  Did she have any comprehension who I was, or what I was feeling, or how much I loved her?  Definitely not.  Was she aware that she was warm and secure and it all was well in the world?  Definitely not. She didn’t even know she had fingers and toes.  Did anyone else in the hospital even have a glimmer of the radiating joy from that chair?  I doubt it.  My daughter and my son-in-law had a glimmer,  but they’re only parents.  they’re not grandparents yet.

None of that takes away from the bonding that was taking place of those moments.  None of that takes away from the fact that she was secure, and that she was loved.  She didn’t have to understand it.  It was still real.

So when God meets me out on the front porch, I have no illusions about Him needing me as much as Him showing His love towards me.  Some of you will understand.  Some of you don’t.  May you join the congregation of the do.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-385: The Wrath of Kind

One of the rabbit trails I follow in my thinking is that if God is love then I Corinthians 13 and its definition of love should give us some insights into God and His actions.  It starts off well then you get down to the verse, that says that love is patient.

(1Co 13:4 NAS77) Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,

Patient is literally defined as long suffering, which is how the KJV puts it.  It’s not just the idea that you have a one in three chance of hitting something you throw a baseball at, so you keep throwing until you hit it.  It is not waiting for the water to boil.  Those are superficial examples.  No, long-suffering means that you put up with things far beyond what they deserve and what anybody could expect.  God is long-suffering.  He sets the example for us.  Think of how He was going to destroy Israel.  He was that angry with them.  Think about the flood.  God is capable of wrath.  Instead, he usually extends mercy, grace, long-suffering, and the second word in this list, “kindness”.

We take words like “kind” and put some kind of warm, fuzzy bubble-gum-wrapper emotion around it, and somehow it works out as something you extend towards wiggly puppies or new babies.  That’s true perhaps but that is not what Corinthians is talking about.  As I was contemplating this, it occurred to me that the opposite of kindness, when we’re talking about God would be expressed in His wrath.  We know that God has the potential to destroy, to obliterate, to sweep away that which is in His way which you had expressed often in the prophets.  We see what He did to Pharaoh’s army as they were trying to sneak across the Red Sea.  We see what He did to the Korah and the ones that were swallowed up.  God is capable of some pretty nasty actions.

But they’re only nasty in our eyes.  God has His side where He allows his wrath to be exercised, but it’s not wrath in the sense of losing your temper.  It is a controlled expression of the holy fire of His character against evil, disobedience, rebellion, spit-in-your-face behavior.  God does not extend his wrath lightly.  He does not sweep people away as often as they deserve.  His patience, long-suffering, is incredible.  But when He does respond, He does respond.  And to be honest, if God‘s wrath touches you, you have one of two results.  Either you are destroyed, or you were invigorated.

Let me give you an illustration.  When I was working in the Sequoias one summer I listen to a park ranger talk about the bark of the redwood tree.  I don’t remember exactly what he said, or claim to be totally accurate but the point he was making was that the bark of the redwood does not burn.  He said when you see the big scars on the side of a redwood tree, it’s not because the bark burned away, but because the wood behind the bark was turned into carbon by the heat.  The bark peeled away later.  It does not burn.

OK.  Now supposing you were to go into a redwood forest with a torch and you were to come across a pile of leaves that were supposed to been raked and removed.  Someone had not done their job.  And it’s your job to clear out the forest.  You take your torch, apply it to the pile of leaves, and they immediately burst into flame.  They are consumed.  You take that same flame over to the redwood tree and apply to the bark and nothing happens.  When I personify things, I tend to think that the redwood bark kind of stretches his arms and says “Oh, that feels good.”  If you move on all is good.  If for some reason you hold that fire to the redwood bark, the bark itself is not affected.  For that which is behind it though it’s another story.  My point?

I’ll keep in mind that this could be total heresy, it’s my opinion, but I think that God’s wrath is quite capable of striking down the rebellious elements of society and letting His people stand unaffected.  I was watching a video on volcanoes, and although it had a lot of nonsense in it, at one point it showed how in the middle of a lava flow there would be a little islands of green life.  That’s because when the lava flowed down the mountain there was an elevated spot where it just flowed around it, and it consumed everything in its path but let that little island survive and do quite well.  I think that’s the way it will be with God’s wrath.

Just a few thoughts on how first Corinthians 13 and love reflects the character and actions of God.  I’m sure there will be more some other time.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-326: Creator Love

Love is a lot like infinity.  I’ve written about infinity a number of times in reference to other things.  Infinity is a peculiar concept in math and possibly physics.  Infinity times two is still infinity.  Infinity times infinity is still infinity.  To me it’s a useless concept in my daily life but the scholars seem to find a place for it.

I was thinking about my brothers and how they have twice as many children as I have, at least, and each of their children has had multiple children, which means that they have many more grandchildren than I do.  That’s the one area in which I envy them.  At the same time I can’t conceive of what it’s like to have more than two grand children and have enough love to cover them.  Of course when I just had one I probably couldn’t picture what it would be like having two.  But the love expands, stretches, blossoms and becomes adequate.

So love times two is still love.  Love times love is still love.  It is much more useful and meaningful than thinking about infinity but it has a lot of the same qualities.  If you have time, pull out your Bible and read I Corinthians 13.  It has some awesome concepts about agape love.

And don’t forget that agape love is what you find in John 3:16,

John 3:16 (KJV) For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-093: Divine Arrogance

As I was contemplating the miraculous and mysterious, my mind bounced over the definition of love given in the Bible.

(1Co 13:4-8 KJV)  Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.  Charity never faileth:...

One of the thoughts I think I have already shared is that this definition of love helps us understand what the Bible means when it says “God is love”.  It demonstrates what it means when we read “For God so loved the world...”  But I had trouble relating not vauntething itself and not being puffed up.  The NASB translates those as “arrogant” and “not bragging”.

In thinking about love, being non-arrogant, and non-bragging I realize that perhaps this was talking about the relationship within the trinity.  The ideas involve some kind of puffing up that is all hot air and no substance.  How could the source of all things think too highly of Himself?  Some of the chapter talks about us as humans but others relate better to God.  Or maybe it’s better to say that while all of it relates to us as humans some of it relates very well to God.

The Trinity postulates three persons.  It would take a God-sized love to exist as one for eternity.

homo unius libri

Opus 2023-132: The Pool of Love

I was thinking about love, stimulated by an evening with my grandchildren.

I started thinking about how much I can love them, thought about my children, then went on a tangent:  Do I love my son-in-law as much as I love my daughter?  It was not hard to come to a clear “no” and I asked myself why that was true.

I started thinking about how love is not just a current experience but it also has a history.  It is not stagnant but dynamic, thus it is like a faucet pulsing out of your heart and mind.  You can have equal amounts going out at any one time but the faucet that has been on longer will have a larger pool beneath it.  It will have irrigated and carved a much more dynamic landscape because it has had longer to work.  In time, both pools may get big enough that you can’t tell the difference but that can only develop over time.

There is also a sense in which genuine, agape love, cannot be measured like a quantitative thing.  You don’t have five scoops of love as opposed to four.  You love or you don’t.  You are either all in or you are not.

There is also a sense in which it is measured.  The love of God is beyond anything we can reach within ourselves by ourselves.

(Rom 5:5 KJV)  And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

It is possible to love because the Holy Spirit lives in us and Jesus modeled it for us.

(Rom 5:8 KJV)  But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

I am convinced that this love works itself out in practical ways.  I believe the Christian parents love their children more than pagans do.  There is a level of willingness to sacrifice for others that is there at the root.

I pray that more people will seek the love that God has to offer so they can offer it to those around them and transform the world we see falling apart.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-281: The Priority of Love

What does it mean to love God?  I claim it all the time.  Today I am wondering what it means.

The Greek agape doesn’t do it.  

The Hebrew chesed does not express it.

God’s love for us fits both those words.  Our love for each other also works.  Those are the expressions of mercy, lovingkindness, patience, etc, toward people on our level and below but it doesn’t work going up.  There is no way I can have mercy on God.  I might express them toward a parent when I am a child but as Paul said, “When I became a man I did away with childish things.”

Yet we are told to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength.

This has to be more than the “love” a dog expresses toward almost anything that moves.

I am remembering some teacher at one point in my mind saying that agape love means expressing preference for the other person.  Here I go to the second chapter of Philippians.  After including agape in the opening verses, he comes to verse 3,

(Php 2:3-4 KJV)  Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.  Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.  Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

So loving God means putting Him and His desires before myself.  He has priority.  We exist for Him and His glory.  To accept that and live that means I am loving God.  

And remember that Biblical love is always a choice, not an emotion.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-236: Lover or Lovee?

The Bible has chapters that have earned titles.  One of them is the Love Chapter, I Corinthians 13.  It has a line in verse 8, “Love never fails.”  It is something that is repeated in many situations without being thought out.  It seems clear, but what does it mean?

Is that way of translating different than saying “loving never fails”?  Is that acceptable in the translation?  

Does love never fail the lover or the lovee.

As you read further in the chapter you may get an indication of what it means.  Keep in mind the context is very important in the Bible.  If you keep reading it lists some things that will fail:  Prophecy, tongues, knowledge.  We will evidently grow out of the need for those, but we will never outgrow the need for love.

I trust that the agape love of the Bible is real to you.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-086: Pick Your Adjectives and Nouns

Most real Americans both guffawed and gnashed their teeth when Hillary called us “deplorables”.  Obama got the same reaction when he talked about how real Americans cling to guns and religion.  King David had a better line in Psalms, which I read this morning.

(Psa 35:15 KJV)  But in mine adversity they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together: yea, the abjects gathered themselves together against me, and I knew it not; they did tear me, and ceased not:

Notice that he called those he had contempt for “abjects”.  I like that.  

In Psalms the Abjects were the people who did not cling to religion and swords.  They were the ones who mocked David while he was sick.

While I am here notice that David had been praying for them when they were sick.

(Psa 35:13-4 KJV)  But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth: I humbled my soul with fasting; and my prayer returned into mine own bosom.  I behaved myself as though he had been my friend or brother: I bowed down heavily, as one that mourneth for his mother.

People who hate America don’t seem to understand why we are different.  One of the key Christian concepts in of our culture, or maybe I should say “was in our culture”, is to love our enemies.  What many don’t realize is that the basic concept is rooted in the Old Testament.  All Jesus did was preach what the Jews already knew.

So all you Abjects out there, get to praying for the President and our political leaders.  Just because they seem to hate God doesn’t meant that you can’t link their name to “Thy will be done.”  There may be a few pastors that you can add to the list.

Get with it you deplorable Abjects, or is it abject Deplorables?

homo unius libri

Opus 2021-337: The Original Hate Criminal

I recently listened to someone sharing an experience one of their friends had gone through.  I don’t know the friend so I can only go so far in my observation.

This friend had God speak to him.

Evidently he was cruising down the freeway at 70 MPH when God spoke.  No, it wasn’t about his speed.  Evidently God said to this man, “I love Ahmadinejad as much as I love you.”  This was supposed to have brought the man to an awareness of his need to love the evil people of the world.  I can accept in a general sense that but I draw the line at Proregressives*.  

I have heard things like this before.  The man was described as a devout believer so I assume he was not high on drugs.  He believed it was the voice of God speaking to him.  I cannot argue with what he heard or what he believes but I do have some concerns about voices saying things like that.

The assumption is that because the Bible describes God as love (I John 4:8) then we are to assume that such love loses any sense of discernment or priority.  The common belief is that because God so loved the world (John 3:16) everyone is equal in His sight.  You may have sung “Jesus love the little children...” as a child.  We know we are to love our enemies.  The problem is that we don’t seem to understand that love doesn’t mean what Hollywood and our liberal seminaries tell us it means.

God hates.  Let me give you an example.

(Psa 11:5 NAS77) The LORD tests the righteous and the wicked, And the one who loves violence His soul hates.

That is not a mild statement of criticism.  God’s soul hates people like this.  Does Ahmadinejad meet the criteria of loving violence?  In my book he wrote the standards.  Thus it would make sense that God hates him.  You can add a lot of people to that list.

And the Bible even gets specific.  This is not just a general statement.  Look at this,

(Mal 1:2-3 KJV)  I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.

You need to be careful when you think God is talking to you.  You need to be careful when someone who considers themself a prophet shares a revelation.  You need to be on the alert when someone has a teaching you have never heard before.  God gave us the standard to compare.  It is called the Bible.  If someone shares something that disagrees with the Bible then it might be time to spend some time consulting the Book.

And you might want to lay off the pepperoni pizza.

*(Liberals, educators, the media, socialists, communists, crony capitalists, elites, Rinos, Democrats, leftists, Never Trumpers, Antifa, BLM, MSM, Deep State, etc.  Synonym for swamp dwellers)

homo unius libri

Opus 2021-059: The Long Suffer

As I was worshiping this morning my mind turned to people that are hard to love.  That brought me to the glorious Biblical explanation of love found in I Corinthians 13.  There is a reason it is called the Love Chapter.  There is also a reason why our culture ignores what it teaches.  One of the verses forced itself through my self deception to strike a blow for agape.

(1Co 13:4 KJV) Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

Charity does not mean donating to the Salvation Army at Christmas.  It is translated “love” in the modern translations and represents the Greek word agape.  That wasn’t my point, just a bit of background if you don’t get to church much.

I like the KJV translation in the sense that it uses the phrase “suffereth long”.  Modern translations translate this as “patient” which it is, but it doesn’t get the way in which love is involved.  The Greek word, if you need to know it or even if you don’t, is makrothumeo.  It has two parts.  The first is makro.   We are familiar with this in English where macro is contrasted to micro.  It means big or long.  Whatever it is that love does it doesn’t do it small.

The second part is thumeo which has the idea of passion.  This is where we get the idea of calling the suffering Jesus went through before and during the crucifixion His passion.  It has the idea of fierceness, indignation and wrath.  It is not easy or pleasant.

Put aside the idea that the patience of love is lounging at the coffee shop, sipping your favorite version of coffee and waiting for your wife to show up for dinner.  It is not sitting with a benign look on your face and being nice for a few moments.  Love being patient means that it endures through a lot of long hard times.  It is the reason why genuine love is so necessary for marriage and raising children.  It endures.

As Christians we are called to love our enemies.  That is totally incongruous with the popular ideas of love that you find in the card section of the store.  It has nothing to do with romance or warm fuzzies.  It involves the long haul where you want the best for the other person.  It doesn’t matter what they have done to you.  In our present case “long” means at least four years.

How does this relate to us today?  We are hearing the man installed as president call for unity and then turn around and condemn us to reeducation camps.  Our job is to love him and his supporters.  It will not be easy.  It will not be what we want to do.  At the same time that does not mean that we become door mats.  It does not mean that we line up for the box cars.  Love does what is best for them and for the country.  That is where the decisions get hard.  We cannot just sit back, smile and say, “Step on me again.”  

No one said it would be easy.

homo unius libri

Opus 2017-389: On the Street: Invisible Tragedies

Word came yesterday of the children of friends who have suffered the agony of a miscarriage.  It doesn’t help to know that miscarriage is more common than people think.  It does nothing for the pain to know that they are young and will be able to have more children.  It is a loss and my heart goes out to them.

It is just a reminder that people are often going through difficult times that we are not aware of.  It is why we are told,

(1 Corinthians 13:4 NAS77)  Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,

We do not know what struggle, loss or failure is dominating the thoughts and emotions of people we meet.  It could be that the clerk in the store is not really surly, they may have just heard they have cancer.  The guy cutting you off may actually be going to a fire. 

As a follower of Jesus it is my responsibility to give the other guy the benefit of the doubt.  It is why we are told to answer softly, go the extra mile, forgive and love our enemies. 

homo unius libri

Opus 2017-263: Headlines: Love in Inaction

The first characteristic that the Apostle Paul gives in trying to define love is patience. 

(1 Corinthians 13:4 NAS77)  Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,

There is a reason for that.  People of virtue need to be patient in order to see any progress in our culture of law suits and crony capitalism.

It is a characteristic of the battle between good and evil.  When we compare the battle against terrorism we note that we have to win every time, they only have to get lucky once.  When we look at the battle to reclaim our country we face the same obstacle.  A case in point is the recent article in the Washington Times.  Once again you get the impression that the state officials of Texas have suffered a big defeat in their quest to rein in sanctuary cities.  When you read the article it isn’t that bad but it is bad enough.

In an effort to curtail a long court case...

“Hours after Gov. Greg Abbott signed the anti-sanctuary law, SB 4, Attorney General Ken Paxton went to a court and asked for a preliminary ruling that it was constitutional.”

In a perfect world that would have ended the matter but we have a problem.  The judge they went to was appointed by H.W. Bush and probably has ethical issues that made him step aside.  It was similar to Jeff Sessions stepping aside in the issue of a special prosecutor.  It is probably the high ground but sets back the forces of law and order.

So what did the Bush appointed judge do?

“But U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks in Austin rejected that move, saying courts aren’t in the business of giving advisory opinions.”

And guess who appointed the judge that will hear the case?  Bill Clinton.  Do you think this new judge will have the same high standards for law as Judge Sparks?  Somehow I doubt it.

Will we win in the end?  We will if we persevere long enough.  There is a reason why the King James Bible translates “patience” as “long suffering”.  It is.  I am getting old and beginning to doubt I will see how this works out.

homo unius libri

Opus 2016-296: Thanks Thoughts: Turnabout Is Fair Play

I may have touched on this before but it came home to me again this morning.  Alistair Begg was talking about agape/love and forgiveness.  He was sharing how God will remember our sin no more.  I was reminded of how the definition of love in I Corinthians 13 is not just a lesson in how we should love but a reminder of how God loves.

My wife and I have been married 41 years.  It has not been easy.  The word “divorce” has been heard.  Yet here we are.  Much of it comes from the application of God-given agape, the ability to love.  I have been wronged.  I have been sinned against.  I have been victimized.  Yet I keep coming back for more.  I am sure that my wife could say the same.

God himself has modeled this behavior.  I am thankful for that.  It would have been so easy, and so deserved, for God to throw a few lightning bolts, generate a bit of leprosy, cause a building to fall on a few heads or not allow that car to miss me.  Yet He hasn’t.  He demonstrates love.

(1 Corinthians 13:4-5 NAS77)  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,

Thus I am called to forgive in marriage.  I trust I have done so.  I assume I will continue to do so.  Any time I start thinking I have reached the end of my rope I should be reminded of how often God has thrown up His hands at my behavior. 

But He keeps hanging on.  Thank you, Lord.

homo unius libri

Opus 2016-232: On the Street: Love at work

It was an interesting couple.  He was obviously severely mentally retarded.  At least fifty years of age with a bulging forehead and the facial features that told the story.  She was not young and was leading him by the hand.  She was wearing a bright shirt that said, “Love, love, love, love” on the back.

Sounds like a good definition to me.  Even those who are extremely handicapped are human beings and deserve to be cared for as well as possible.  It takes special people to do so.  I requires a deep understanding of love.  It is a chore to exercise it even if they are paid well.

I salute her as she leads him.  I would have honked and given her a thumbs up but I might have scared the love out of her.

homo unius libri

Opus 2016-103: Love and the Balance Sheet

Learning to love is a lifetime effort.  For the longest time I have been focusing on the beginning lessons.

(1 Corinthians 13:4 KJV)  Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

In modern language that deals with patience, kindness, jealousy, bragging and arrogance.  I still need a lot of growth in these areas.

I am finding that after 40 years of marriage the advanced studies are just as important.

(1 Corinthians 13:5 NAS77)  does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,

I can act patiently but it is hard not to keep a balance sheet of how many times I have been wronged.  It is such simple things as I noticed this morning.  When I leave a dish on the counter it is like I have held a Woodstock festival in the kitchen with all the trash involved.  When my wife leaves a growing pile of stuff in the sink it is because she is so busy and tired.  I have learned not to comment on things like that.  I am trying to learn not to keep a record in my soul.  Petty but real.

One reason this is so important is that we have a natural tendency to be super sensitive to our pain and callous to the pain we cause.  God knows this so He tells us to stop keeping a balance sheet.

Love does not act like an accountant. 

homo unius libri