Last words - almost Part 15

Last words – almost Part 15

Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love.   (2Pe 1:5-7)  ESV

Love:  ἀγάπη;  agápē; gen. agápēs, fem. noun from agapáō to, love.

Pre-Biblical Usage:

·                     Here is a love that makes distinctions, choosing its objects freely. Hence it is especially the love of a higher for a lower. It is active, not self-seeking love. Yet in the Greek writers the word is colorless.  KTDNT

Rabbinic Judaism.

• Here love is still primarily volitional and religious. It pinpoints the relation between God and humanity, especially Israel. God loves his people with fidelity and mercy. The gift of the law proves this. God's love imposes the obligation of reciprocal love and the related obedience and loyalty. Suffering in particular manifests the mutual love of God and his people. In it God is loved for his own sake. The main stress, however, falls on God's own love. Concealed during suffering, in which it is truly as strong as death, it will finally be gloriously manifest. No one can pluck Israel away from it.  KTDNT

Paul

• He makes three main points: (1) God sent his Son even to the cross in love; (2) God calls his elect in love; (3) God sheds his love abroad in their hearts. God's eternal love is indistinguishable from Christ's love ( Rom.  5:8 ; 8:37 ), in which it becomes a world-changing event. This love implies election, which includes both pretemporal ordination and temporal calling. The elect community is in fellowship with God, and he endows it with the active and compelling power of love ( Rom.  5:5 ) in fulfilment of his own primary purpose of love.  KTDNT

•  A new humanity (I'd say "redeemed")is the goal of God's loving action, and he uses acts of human love to attain this end. God is the source of these acts (cf. 1  Cor.  8:3 ). He awakens the faith which comes into action in love ( Gal.  5:6 ). He pours forth the Spirit who frees us for loving activity ( Gal.  5:22 ). For Paul this new love is supremely brotherly and sisterly love ( Gal.  6:10 ) in a fellowship that is based on Christ's mercy and Christ's death. Love builds up ( 1  Cor.  8:1 ); it builds the work of the future. In it the power of the new age breaks into the present form of the world. This is why it is always central when linked with faith and hope (cf. 1  Th.  1:3 ; Col.  1:4 - 5 ). Love is the greatest of the three because it alone stretches into the future aeon ( 1  Cor.  13:14 ).  KTDNT

Early Church

• In a world perishing through érōs, and vainly trying to transcend itself by sublimations of érōs, the church, being itself totally dependent on the merciful love of God, practices a love that does not desire but gives. [E. STAUFFER, I, 35-55]

Here is truly the bulls-eye for the believer.  Notice, although many scholars do not see Peter’s listing of qualities as being in any specific order, I would wonder how love is possible without the infusion and attention to the preceding.  It is all this “adding” that makes love possible.

Remember – Legos??  We mentioned them earlier.  Think of each quality as a different color Lego with which you – in dependence upon Him – are building the mosaic that is your life in Him.  The object, unlike Rubic’s Cube, is to build well, applying Legos when and where needed.  The object is not to get all the same color squares on the same side.

So, while adding knowledge you may find a “love” issue to attend to.  While struggling (perseverance) you may find a moral excellence issue to address.

I am reminded of the old pinball games.  I have to say that looking back over my walk I certainly have felt like a pinball at times.  Even though pinball may seem random, it can’t be.  God is sovereign.  He has His hand on the flicker and His hand on the ball.  We are guided by His power (the flicker) and His grace (hand on the ball) to the different qualities (the scoring posts) in order to acquire what we need.  It is only when the ball (ourselves) decides to direct itself (yeah right) or to not move (oh boy) that there is a problem.  Of course, if the machine isn’t “plugged in,” it really doesn’t matter.

We are all familiar with 1 Corinthians 13.  It’s unfortunate that it has been reduced to just a platitude to be read meaninglessly at weddings (my pet peeve).  It is critical that we understand what Paul is saying.  Nothing matters without love.  But it is NOT the poor excuse for love we see in the world and blethered about in the church.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (2Co 13:14)

May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.   (2Th 3:5)

May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.   (2Th 3:5)

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. (1Jn 3:1)

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.   (Rom 5:1-6)

Do not love (AGAPE) the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves (AGAPE) the world, the love (AGAPE) of the Father is not in him. (1Jn 2:15)

This love, given by God cannot exist in the life of a human being outside the grace of God.  Those who are NOT His can NOT know or understand or appreciate this love.  Actually, because it is a love from and of God the world hates it – utterly.

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide (live) in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide (live) in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide (live) in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. (Joh 15:9-12)

Love is a goal, a power and a motive.  However, it is first and foremost a gift.  It is not a gift, however, that we can simply put on a shelf and admire.  We are to use it, to exercise it at every opportunity.