The Love Thing

In this recent string of Saturday entries we've been talking about love, one way or another. There's no grand plan to all this (it's only blogging, after all), but love has been the item, the fruit of the Spirit, that I've been focused on lately.

We were sitting in a cirle in the basement of the church talking about the second chapter of Peter's first letter, about eight of us. I asked the group for their thoughts on Peter's phrase, “Spiritual sacrifice.” What is a spiritual sacrifice?

A couple of people spoke up, drawing on Romans 12. I don't remember what they said, but I do remember what a third person said. She's a new believer and trying hard to understand things. She's a little unsure of herself and seems afraid sometimes that her words will not be quite right, not have the proper ring or nuance, and often apologizes for what she has said after she says it. This time she said, “I think spiritual sacrifice refers to love. It's loving people, that's all.”

Yup, that rings true. It's a deceptively simple answer, but it's the Gospel truth. Love is the fundamental quality of Kingdom living. Even as the Kingdom has not yet fully come into its own, we are not yet fully lovers. Not, as anyone can see, by a longshot. We have not even begun to fathom the depths of this challenge to love, and more often than not we're distracting ourselves with lesser things.

We have a prayer and share time in our church. People share prayer needs, or praise God for what He has been doing in their lives during the past week. I really like the prayer and share time. I look forward to it. This week someone shared something that was a little different than the usual. He was with his wife, only making his second visit (I think) to our church. The husband raised his hand and said, “I'd like to ask that we pray that the Church as a whole would repent of associating itself with a particular political alignment in here in America.”

Whoa, wait a minute! That the church should repent! That's not what we normally here in our prayer and share time, and most of us in this particular church are fairly comfortable with the political alignment of the Evangelical church at large.

After the service I walked over to thank him for what he'd shared. We talked a little about the Christian culture's attitude toward homosexuals, and also its ringing silence on the subject of war-making. Somewhere along the way he said, “Love is really the main thing, isn't it? I mean, should we be trying to figure out this love thing? What kind of testimony is it that we seem to be more about a political agenda than about loving people?”

Yup, that also rings true.

It often seems to me that Christians fall into two basic categories: you have the Love Christians, and the Obedience Christians. It's a matter of where they focus, I guess. Obedience Christians quote all the relevant Scriptures and in the end focus on not sinning. Love Christians, citing just as much Scripture, focus on walking out the love of Christ. Obedience Christians talk about striving and doing. Love Christians talk about abiding. Obedience Christians, in my opinion, always seem to have all their ducks in a row. They make sound and orderly arguments from Scripture and they often rail against emotionalism. Love Christians seem more humble, more prone to repent of their hard-heartedness and to ask for soft-hearts. Obedience Christians speak much of the Law and of righteousness, and the doctrine of justification is never far from their lips. Love Christians speak much of the Kingdom, and of the Spirit of Holiness, and of being filled with the Spirit.

I guess you can tell which one I'm trying to be. The Christian struggle is the struggle to fully love. In the end the Obedience Christians and the Love Christians get to the same place of course, because obedience to God, when you see it walked out, looks exactly like love. The reason is right there in Romans: love fulfills the Law.

Paul said it, but Jesus showed it to us. The command is, walk in love. We have not so mastered this that we should move on now to other things.

The Love Problem

So I'm certainly not much of a blogger these days, despite occasional rash determinations that I will do so on some sort of regular basis. Here, how 'bout this one: I will post something at A Stranger Here every Saturday. Yessir, every dang Saturday. Something. 


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A conversation at church this week got me thinking about the Biblical use of the word "obedience." I've noticed that people who like that word, who are drawn to it and feel inclined to turn all faith-talk around to this word, this word obedience, tend to be rule-oriented people with stern attitudes about those who fall short of their notions of the right and proper and God-honoring.

Me, I'm not particularly drawn to this word. It daunts me. I see its use in 1 Peter, for example, and I cringe a little. Because by any standard, I'm not one of the obedient ones. Anyway, here's the passage in 1 Peter (first chapter, beginning at verse 13) that provoked these ruminations:

Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” 17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. 20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you 21 who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and agave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, clove one another earnestly from a pure heart,23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God... 

When I think of obedience, I think of specific ways that I'm not. We won't go into details here. No need. But immediately my mind goes to a daunting checklist of dos and don'ts. Still, I like to remember what Paul wrote to the Roman Christians (13:8f) about this very issue:

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,”[a] and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself. 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Really, the problem of obedience, looked at in this light, seems to be a problem about loving God. Loving anyone apart from ourselves is, we should admit right off, not something we normally do real well. This is the problem after all that is at the root of all problems. The problem of broken marriages, the problem of strife between generations, or races, or nations.The lack of peace in this world. The lack of patience. The lack of forgiving. It all comes down to not loving God and neighbor.

Okay, you may not agree with that, you may think it all comes down to not loving one another, period, with no loving God being necessary. Fine. But whichever way you look at it, it's a big problem, this problem of love. It is The Problem, which is what I'm going to call this post I guess. The Love Problem. All our talk, as Christians, about this matter of obedience just sounds like chatter to me, for it almost always misses the point that Paul will not let us miss. The issue at the root of all disobedience is all about love.