"Love is the most liberating freedom-loss of all. One of the principles of love - either love for a friend or romantic love - is that you have to lose independence to attain greater intimacy. If you want the "freedoms" of love - the fulfillment, security, sense of worth that is brings - you must limit your freedom in many ways. You cannot enter a deep relationship and still make unilateral decisions or allow your friend or lover no say in how you live your life. To experience the joy and freedom of love, you must give up your personal autonomy." (Theologian Tim Keller)
Love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;
does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;
does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth.
Love is not envious.
1. Love
does not envy: Envy is one of the
least productive and most damaging of all sins. It accomplishes nothing, except
to hurt. Love keeps its distance from envy, and does not resent it when someone
else is promoted or blessed. Clarke describes the heart which does not envy: “They are ever willing that others should be preferred before them.”
a. "There are two kinds of envy. The one covets the possessions of other people; and such envy is very difficult to avoid because it is a very human thing. The other is worse--it grudges the very fact that others should have what it has not; it does not so much want things for itself as wish that others had not got them. Meanness of soul can sink no further than that." (the late professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism William Barclay)
b. Is envy a small sin? Envy murdered Abel (Genesis 4:3-8). Envy enslaved Joseph (Genesis 37:11, 28). Envy put Jesus on the cross: For he knew that they had handed Him over because of envy (Matthew 27:18).
c. “Many persons cover a spirit of envy and uncharitableness with the name of godly zeal and tender concern for the salvation of others; they find fault with all; their spirit is a spirit of universal censoriousness; none can please them; and every one suffers by them. These destroy more souls by tithing mint and cummin, than others do by neglecting the weightier matters of the law. Such persons have what is termed, and very properly too, sour godliness.” (Clarke)
d. “I don't desire those good things that you have. Because I love you, I rejoice that good things have happened to you. I rejoice that your number was picked instead of mine, because I love you. I rejoice that you receive the promotion. You see, the love is so great that you rejoice in the blessings of the other. It isn't envious of what you have received. It isn't jealous of that which you have gained. But love envies not…” (Smith)
Love is not boastful.
b. Love
does not parade itself:
Love in action can work anonymously. It does not have to have the limelight or
the attention to do a good job, or to be satisfied with the result. Love gives
because it loves to give, not out of the sense of praise it can have from
showing itself off.
a. "We are living in a world of hype. They are promoting everything in this world today. It seems that everything is a big promotion for this, a big promotion for that, and unfortunately, this worldly hype of promotion has crept into the church. Thus, we see too much hype within the church as man is trying to promote a program, or worse yet, trying to promote himself. True love doesn't vaunt itself..." (Smith)
b. Sometimes the people who seem to work the hardest at love are the ones the furthest from it. They do things many would perceive as loving, yet they do them in a manner that would parade itself. This isn’t love; it is pride looking for glory by the appearance of love."True love will always be far more impressed with its own unworthiness than its own merit. In Barrie's story Sentimental Tommy used to come home to his mother after some success at school and say, "Mother, am I no' a wonder?" Some people confer their love with the idea that they are conferring a favour. But the real lover cannot ever get over the wonder that he is loved. Love is kept humble by the consciousness that it can never offer its loved one a gift which is good enough." (the late professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism William Barclay)c. "So what becomes of this whole side of us that suffers short — has a short fuse — and that is easily provoked and easily complains and easily grumbles and easily gets angry and easily criticizes? The answer is: It must die. To love like this is to die. If I am to be like this, something in me must die. My strong craving for a trouble-free life must die. My need for an uninterrupted schedule must die. My demandingness that frustrations and interference get out of my way must die. We simply cannot love the way Paul describes until we die." (Piper)
Love is not conceited.
1. Love
. . . is not puffed up:
To be puffed up is to be arrogant and self-focused. It
speaks of someone who has a “big head.” Love doesn’t get its head swelled; it
focuses on the needs of others.
a. Both to parade itself and to be puffed up are simply rooted in pride. Among Christians, the worst pride is spiritual pride. Pride of face is obnoxious, pride of race is vulgar, but the worst pride is pride of grace!"Napoleon always advocated the sanctity of the home and the obligation of public worship--for others. Of himself he said, "I am not a man like other men. The laws of morality do not apply to me." The really great man never thinks of his own importance." (the late professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism William Barclay)b. William Carey is thought by many to be the founder of the modern missionary movement. Today, Christians all over the world know who he was and honor him. He came from a humble place; he was a shoe repairman when God called him to reach the world. "He translated at least parts of the Bible into no fewer than thirty-four Indian languages. When he came to India, he was regarded with dislike and contempt." Once when Carey was at a dinner party, a snobbish lord tried to insult him by saying very loudly, “Mr. Carey, I hear you once were a shoemaker!” Carey replied, “No, your lordship, not a shoemaker, only a cobbler!” Today, the name of William Carey is remembered, but nobody remembers who that snobbish lord was. His love showed itself in not having a big head about himself.
c. "Love is other-directed, not self-consumed. Which means that a massive craving in our hearts must die, if we are going to love. We’re not puffed up because we decide to be. We are puffed up by fallen sinful human nature. This comes from deep within who we are as corrupt human beings. If love is humble and other-directed, love is death. The glory-loving, self-exalting, attention-seeking, whining, pouting, self-pitying me has to die. This is why Jesus said, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and die it remains alone” — alone in its self-absorbed, self-asserting, self-enhancing prison — “but if it dies, it bears much fruit” — the fruit of love and all the people that will see Christ in that love." (Piper)
Love does not act improperly.
1. Love
. . . does not behave rudely: Where there is love, there will be kindness and good manners.
Perhaps not in the stuffy, “look at how cultured I am” way of showing manners,
but in the simply way people do not behave rudely.
a. "It is a significant fact that in Greek the words for grace and for charm are the same. There is a kind of Christianity which takes a delight in being blunt and almost brutal. There is strength in it but there is no winsomeness. Lightfoot of Durham said of Arthur F. Sim, one of his students, "Let him go where he will, his face will be a sermon in itself." There is a graciousness in Christian love which never forgets that courtesy and tact and politeness are lovely things." (the late professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism William Barclay)
Love isn't self-centered.
1. Love
. . . does not seek its own:
Paul communicates the same idea in Romans 12:10: in honor giving preference to one another.
Also, Philippians 2:4 carries the same thought: Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also
for the interests of others. This is being like Jesus in a most basic
way, being an others-centered person instead
of a self-centered person.
a. "...there are in this world only two kinds of people--those who always insist upon their privileges and those who always remember their responsibilities; those who are always thinking of what life owes them and those who never forget what they owe to life. It would be the key to almost all the problems which surround us today if [people] would think less of their rights and more of their duties. Whenever we start thinking about "our place", we are drifting away from Christian love." (the late professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism William Barclay)"What [Paul is] saying is that love does not seek its own personal, private preference without reference to what may be good for other people. Love seeks its joy and its profit in the good of others, not just in private gratification. When Paul says, “Love seeks not its own,” he is not saying that you shouldn’t stand up for your own convictions — he died for his convictions. He is saying that you must be sure that the strength of your conviction is in proportion to the conviction being God’s not just yours. To the degree that your preference is yours and not compellingly found in God’s word, to that degree should you be slow to seek it, and slow to get angry when others don’t share it. “Love seeks not its own.” It seeks the good of the many, not just the comfort of self. So if we are going to love, we are going to have to die to “our own.” Love seeks not its own. What does it do? It dies to its own. “Unless a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die it remains alone, but if it dies [to its own] it bears much fruit.” (Piper)c. “Love is never satisfied but in the welfare, comfort, and salvation of all. That man is no Christian who is solicitous for his own happiness alone; and cares not how the world goes, so that himself be comfortable.” (Clarke)
Love is not irritable.
1. Love
. . . is not provoked: We all find it easy
to be provoked or to become irritated with those who
are just plain annoying. But it is a sin to be provoked, and it isn’t love. Moses was kept from the Promised Land (until the transfiguration) because he became provoked at the people of Israel (Numbers 20:2-11).
a. "The real meaning of this is that Christian love never becomes exasperated with people. Exasperation is always a sign of defeat. When we lose our tempers, we lose everything. Kipling said that it was the test of a man if he could keep his head when everyone else was losing his and blaming it on him, and if when he was hated he did not give way to hating. The man who is master of his temper can be master of anything." (the late professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism William Barclay)
Love does not keep a record of being wronged.
1. Love
. . . thinks no evil: Literally this means
“love does not store up the memory of any wrong it has received.” Love will put
away the hurts of the past instead of clinging to them.
a. "The word translated store up (logizesthai, Greek #3049) is an accountant's word. It is the word used for entering up an item in a ledger so that it will not be forgotten. That is precisely what so many people do. One of the great arts in life is to learn what to forget. A writer tells how "in Polynesia, where the natives spend much of their time in fighting and feasting, it is customary for each man to keep some reminders of his hatred. Articles are suspended from the roofs of their huts to keep alive the memory of their wrongs--real or imaginary." [Most of us do the same thing]. In the same way many people nurse their wrath to keep it warm; they brood over their wrongs until it is impossible to forget them. Christian love has learned the great lesson of forgetting." (the late professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism William Barclay)
b. Real love “never supposes that a good action may have a bad motive . . . The original implies that he does not invent or devise any evil.” (Clarke)
Love does take pleasure in evil, but rejoices in truth.
1. Love
. . . does not rejoice in iniquity: It is willing to want the best for others, and refuses to
color things against others. "It is
not so much delight in doing the wrong thing that is meant, as the malicious
pleasure which comes to most of us when we hear something derogatory about
someone else. It is one of the [strange] traits of human nature that very often we
prefer to hear of the misfortune of others rather than of their good fortune.
It is much easier to weep with them that weep than to rejoice with those who
rejoice. Christian love has none of that human malice which finds pleasure in
ill reports." (the late professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism William Barclay)
a. Instead, love rejoices in the truth. Love can always stand with and on truth, because love is pure and good like truth. "That is not so easy as it sounds. There are times when we definitely do not want the truth to prevail; and still more times when it is the last thing we wish to hear. Christian love has no wish to veil the truth; it has nothing to conceal and so is glad when the truth prevails." (the late professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism William Barclay)
New Resources
I want you to glory in what it means to be a Christian. You do not become a Christian by working away at all the things you must die to. You become a Christian by a decisive work of God in you and by a decisive surrender to Jesus Christ through which, by faith in him, he becomes your substitute and your Lord. Then comes a lifelong experience of becoming in practice what you are by your position. And that becoming — called sanctification — strengthens your assurance that you are real.
...there is a golden opportunity to show the world how we love each other. Differences are not the end of love, they are the occasion for love. Which means an occasion for death. One of the reasons it’s so easy to walk away from a difference instead of working it out is that you don’t have to die...before there will be revival, there will be a dying in each of us; and before we see a great resurgence of love we will have to die.
Podcast:
Under The Skin with Russell Brand
Author, professor, priest and former atheist Alister McGrath and I discuss the rationality of religious belief, the war between science and religion, and whether faith is still destined to play a central role in the 21st century.
What is the struggle for the soul of civilization you speak of in your new book, Impossible People? How can western Christians move from simply being inspired by our brothers and sisters facing persecution in other parts of the world to living courageously like they do? How do we operate in the power of the Holy Spirit on a daily basis?
Summer blockbuster season may not seem like a natural fit for two war movies in the theater at the same time, but that’s what is on the docket this week at Seeing & Believing. First up is Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan’s lean, harrowing treatment of the WWII-era evacuation at Dunkirk. The word “masterpiece” has been used to describe the film; does the film merit such praise? Then the guys turn their attention to War for the Planet of the Apes, a film that’s farther removed from reality than Dunkirk is, yet is no less serious about its central conflict.
A case can be made for society’s decline in religious faith as the cause of many mental pathologies in the young.
Researchers in Portland, Oregon have used a powerful gene editing tool called CRISPR to create genetically modified human embryos, MIT Technology Review reported on Wednesday in an exclusive. This is the first confirmed case of the gene editing of human embryos in the US, and gets scientists closer to the ability to create genetically engineered humans.
Jackson Mukasa, a 19-year-old transgender woman, and Kim Mukisa, a 24-year-old gay man, are currently standing trial in Uganda for having consensual sex. Uganda’s maximum sentence for sodomy is life in prison. Here’s what you need to know and why you should care:
The Christian intellectual tradition began in second and third centuries A.D. among a small group of highly educated elites who dialogued with the varies pagan philosophies of the time.[1] Many of these thinkers were well educated in pagan philosophy before their conversion and worked to defend the core theology of the Christian message. In disciplines not specific to Christian theology, these intellectuals were methodologically men of their age.
Some of the biggest enemies we face as Christians are those who profess to be Christians, especially Christian teachers and clergy, but spend their time denying Christian teaching and the Bible. One such frequent correspondent in the press in Scotland is Rev. Dr John Cameron, a Church of Scotland minister. In one of his latest diatribes he played the usual atheist cards – the church used to support slavery (equating slavery with gay rights) and he cited the Free Church as an example – he also sought to undermine the Bible claiming that if you believe it is true it becomes a paper pope.
If the Apostles committed the crime of fraud on an unsuspecting world, they were motivated by one of these three intentions. Most people will agree that none of the Apostles gained anything financially or sexually from their testimony, but some skeptics have argued the Apostles may have been motivated by the pursuit of power. Didn’t these men become leaders in the Church on the basis of their claims? Couldn’t this pursuit of leadership status have motivated them to lie? Wasn’t it a goal of early martyrs to die for their faith anyway?
To Hippolytus’s credit, his theological pedigree was pretty stinkin’ impressive. He had studied under St. Irenaeus, who had studied under St. Polycarp of Smyrna, who had learned theology from—wait for it—St. John the Evangelist. In other words, the guy was only three or four degrees removed from Jesus. His immediate mentor, Irenaeus, was no slouch either, having penned the seminal anti-Gnostic work Against the Heresies; Hippolytus, not to be outdone, penned his own polemic, which he called Against ALL the Heresies. (Seriously.) If I had been his agent, I would have encouraged him to narrow his focus a little more; knowing him, he probably would have fired me for that.
On the anniversary of her accident, Joni Eareckson Tada reflects on God’s faithfulness.
0 Comments