Tag Eternity

All You Need is Love, But What is Love?

Todd R 2 Comments

A recent survey said that only 9% of American adults have a “biblical worldview.”  I’m generally skeptical of polls unless I know how they were done.  After looking into this one, I wonder if I fall in to the 91% of American adults who don’t have a “biblical worldview.”  Why?  In their definition of “biblical worldview” the word “love” was nowhere to be found.  Maybe they thought “love” was too hard to define to base a survey on.  If so, I can understand because love is a complicated thing.

In this survey, “love” was not in the definition, but “absolute moral truth” is, which bothered me not because truth is a bad thing, but because moral law is what condemns us.  Moral law would still exist if Christ had not died for us.  The Gospel, or Good News, of Christianity is that we can be saved despite failing to follow the law. Truth without love is like describing Easter and leaving out the Resurrection.  If we have not love, we have nothing but condemnation.  Love is essential.

But what is love?  Love means many things to different people and is a word people like to leave undefined or use to mean whatever sounds good.  Often people agree that “we should all love each other” without knowing what exactly they’re agreeing on.

Photo by Christopher Beloch on Unsplash

Confusion about what love is has been around for a long, long time.  The Bible itself talks about several different kinds of love, making a “biblical worldview” definition harder.  In English translations of the New Testament, the word “love” shows up over and over again, but the Bible wasn’t written in English.  I’m no Greek scholar, but what follows is how I personally understand “love,” and I hope it clarifies rather than confuses.

In Greek, there are at least 4 words for love, including these three:

  • Eros – sexual or passionate love
  • Phileo – this is a root of “Philadelphia”, literally the city of brotherly love.  Loosely, phileo means an affection for people who are “brothers,” who we like because we admire something about them, or because they are like us.
  • Stergo – This is a love toward kindred or family, typically between parents and children.  This love is like a loyalty to those we are related to by blood.

These words and ideas were part of the culture in which Jesus lived, died and rose again over 2,000 years ago.  However, the writers of the New Testament Bible couldn’t line the meaning of these words up with what they wanted to say about Jesus.  Therefore, they took a little-used word – agape – and poured new meaning into it.

A Better Love
Agape is epitomized by the act of Jesus dying on the cross, but also by His selfless love for others repeatedly demonstrated in the gospel records of His life.  Agape is putting the interests of others above the interests of yourself, even if there is no benefit to yourself, or even if there is a significant cost to yourself.  Even if those others don’t love you.  Agape motivates acts of benevolence or charity.

Why is love so important to a Christian worldview?  Not only because if God didn’t love the world, He wouldn’t have sent His only son, but also because if individual Christians leave love out of their worldview, they use “absolute truth” as a reason to judge.  Love that requires sacrifice may be less popular than love that doesn’t, but without it there is no cross.

As I see a Christian worldview, this kind of love is absolutely essential.  From it comes a framework of the entire history of God’s relations with man in three phases: love rejected, love redeemed, and love restored.

Love Rejected
While vague “love” is popular, true agape love is not.  When I took a college class on Interpersonal Psychology, one of the topics was the multiple meanings of love. The professor explained the multiple Greek words used for “love”, but when he got to “agape” he asked if anyone in the class could explain because he didn’t “understand” it (or so he said).  I raised my hand, answered by describing the self-sacrificial love of Jesus, and was snickered at by much of the class.  The professor smiled at me and moved on to the next topic.  He probably set up the same situation every semester.  So, yes, not only does the world often not know what “love” means in a Christian sense, but they actively ridicule it when it’s explained to them.

From Adam and Eve right to the modern day, agape love is the bonds that mankind seeks to break and find their own way.  In an earlier post, I wrote that the “bonds” and “cords” that the world tries to break free from in Psalm 2 are the laws of love for God and for our fellow man.  Jesus summarized all the commandments of the Bible as: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”, and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”[1]

I recently wrote that “the problem with every person individually is that they are unable, no matter how much external pressure is put on them, to treat other individuals the way they should be treated.”  People like to ask or demand that others practice agape love, but usually for the benefit of themselves.  It is not in our nature to demand it of ourselves first whether or not anyone else reciprocates.

Love Redeemed
People also usually like the idea that every person gets what they deserve – but we are less likely to talk about that for ourselves than for others.  The justice of God demands that anyone who refuses – at any time – to love Him and to love their neighbor should get what they deserve.  He does not miss anything but is perfect in His justice.  Jesus had to live the perfect life of agape love, under the loving guidance of Our Father, not so we won’t have to, but because we can’t.  Without Christianity and without love, the world would never be able to overcome the “Love Rejected” stage.

Christianity is not judgement, but the only way of escape from it: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16). If man had not rejected love, Christianity wouldn’t be necessary; but also, if Christianity does not restore mankind to agape love, it’s pointless.  Jesus, by willingly giving the ultimate sacrifice of Himself, satisfied God’s perfect justice and perfect love simultaneously.

By rising from the grave, He is able to share with us the power of agape love, which governs and redeems the other loves:

  • Eros – So many of the personal and societal problems in the world are driven by unconstrained eros.  In agape, God provides boundaries within which eros benefits, rather than harms, humanity.  See an earlier post on Godly Offspring for how God prevails over unconstrained eros even when we fail.
  • Phileo – Unconstrained phileo, which can become what we call tribalism, is behind a lot of the racism, sexism, xenophobia, and other group conflicts in the world.  This also is nothing new – God through His Son will redeem us.  I wrote about agape overcoming tribalism in an old post about Jesus reaching out to Zacchaeus the tax collector.
  • Stergo – Families might be expected to be the easiest places to love each other, but they are often where passions run hottest.  James 4:1 says “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?”  Only agape provides what is needed to bridge the divide, a love to govern stergo.

A Christian in our world has a restored relationship with God but is only able to practice agape love imperfectly while awaiting a new body in a new heaven and a new earth.

Love Restored
The Bible does not contain a lot of specifics about the eternal life that Christians inherit and it is often misunderstood.  For example, those who think of Christianity as a set of rules that make us “perfect” think they are right to ignore the hope of heaven.  C.S. Lewis says sometimes “our notion of Heaven involves perpetual negations: no food, no drink, no sex, no movement, no mirth, no events, no time, no art.”[2]

But thinking of heaven as love restored helps understand it better.  Elsewhere Lewis reframes heaven as: “When human souls have become as perfect in voluntary obedience as the inanimate creation is in its lifeless obedience, then they will put on its glory, or rather that greater glory of which Nature is only the first sketch.”[3]  By obedience he means obedience to loving God and man, and in heaven every person’s ability to love will be as the laws of nature, as reliable and predictable as the rising of the sun every morning or the return of leaves to the trees in the spring.

Also, we will not become something entirely other than what we are now, like an angel, but will be transformed and perfected, while retaining our individuality.  Pastor Tim Keller explains that “Our future, glorified selves will be continuous with who we are now, but the growth into wisdom, goodness, and power will be infinitely greater.”[4]

This is a future worth having.

How to Have This Love
For those who agree that the agape love we lost is the love we need back, Jesus alone is the Way, the Truth and the Life.  He offers a world where every individual person uses their individual talents, gifts and creativity in the best interests of others.  All you have to do is agree to do the same, redeemed by His sacrifice and empowered by His Spirit to do the will of the Father.

How do we accept this offer?
“…if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” – Romans 10:9-10

If you haven’t already, ask Him to be your Lord and Savior.

Nobody is more or less Christian than Jesus makes them.  No doctrine or experience can replace a loving, personal relationship with our Maker and Lord, who guides and empowers us to love as He does.  If we have not love, we have nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).  Fortunately, in Christianity we have His agape love if we will accept it above all other, lesser loves.  Christianity is not Christianity, and we are not fully ourselves, without it.

[1] From Matthew 22:37 and 39
[2] Lewis, C.S.  The Weight of Glory (1941).  P. 107
[3] Ibid.  P. 43
[4] Keller, Timothy.  Making Sense of God (2016).  P. 170

Does Your Church Have an Unclean Spirit?

Todd R 2 Comments

Jesus and the apostles spent a lot of their time preaching and ministering to Jews in synagogues.  Some of us might think of the synagogue as similar to a modern church, just a place where believers meet, but in the Bible’s synagogues it’s amazing the type of people you’d find among the “believers.”  Mark 1:23-24 gives us such an example:

“And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.””

Here, Mark points out that there are unclean spirits even in the synagogue, perhaps in hiding.  There are probably unclean spirits even in our churches!  Like in our times, Jewish people who did not go to synagogue probably rationalized that by saying the synagogue isn’t perfect, but terribly flawed.  Why associate with those people?  Mark’s gospel was targeted at Gentile readers, who were probably more likely to criticize those in the synagogue than the Jews.  But, Mark then tells us in verses 25 and 26:

“But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice, came out of him.”

Who knows how many unclean spirits there were in the synagogue, how long they had been there, and how powerless the Jewish leaders were to do anything about them!  But, if Mark’s Gentile audience knew the synagogue wasn’t perfect, Jesus was saying He has authority and power to make it perfect in ways nobody else could.  Jesus wasn’t trying to draw people to the synagogue, but to Himself!

Photo by Cullan Smith on Unsplash

Coming back to the idea that our churches in some ways are the modern equivalent of synagogues, the world knows there are a lot of bad people going to church, from hypocrites pretending to follow Christ, to people who are just obviously bad.  Jesus, however, knows perfectly who His people are and who are not, but regardless He isn’t trying to draw people to an imperfect church, but to His perfect self!

Every group of people has a mix of good and bad, and possibly even people with “an unclean spirit.”

Therefore, no institution can accurately reflect who Christ is, not even the visible global church, which is made up of a mix of people that can’t be neatly divided into “good” and “bad.”  Everyone there is a sinner in need of forgiveness and salvation.  But Jesus, who cast out the “unclean spirit” in Mark’s gospel, can also cast out all the evil in His people’s hearts to build the one institution that will last forever in eternity.

Jesus, “the Holy One of God,” has come to build a church full of holy people, and He will not fail.  From within and without synagogues and churches with unclean spirits, God will find His people.

We Will Not Live in Tents Forever

Todd R 1 Comment

The apostle Paul was likely one of the finest Old Testament scholars of his day, and sometimes draws on existing imagery to make a point.  One example might be Proverbs 14:11-12, where the second verse is more widely known than the first, but not unrelated:

“The house of the wicked will be destroyed,
            but the tent of the upright will flourish.
There is a way that seems right to a man,
            but its end is the way to death.”

Physically, it seems obvious that a house is far more durable than a tent, but both of these Proverbs tell us not to judge by appearances.  Looks and reputation may suggest otherwise, but it is righteousness that determines eternal destiny, specifically acceptance of Jesus’ righteousness.

In 2 Corinthians 5:1-3, Paul gives an example of why we should focus not on what “seems right”, but instead focus on the unseen things that matter for eternity, drawing on the tent image:

“For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.  For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked.”

Photo by Hendrik Morkel on Unsplash

Paul, defending his apostleship to the Corinthians amidst his suffering while other false apostles lived in ease, knew that an upright tent was better than a wicked house in God’s eyes, and therefore being less comfortable was entirely worth it, since there was an eternal reward waiting in heaven.

Commenting on 2 Corinthians 5, Warren Wiersbe notes that “Heaven was not simply a destination for Paul: it was a motivation.  Like the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11, he looked for the heavenly city and governed his life by eternal values.”[1]

When frustrated by your earthly limitations, or frustrated by discomfort in this world, know that we will not live in these tents forever.  For His faithful, God is preparing an eternal dwelling for us.  While it “seems right to a man” to think a house is better than a tent, every tent and house in this world is temporary.  Hebrews 1:12 says of all creation, the earth and all the heavens, that:

“like a robe you will roll them up,
            like a garment they will be changed.
But you are the same,
            and your years will have no end.”

Do we long for our new, eternal heavenly dwelling?  Does this longing motivate us to live for God?  Let us keep Driving Toward Morning today!

[1] Wiersbe, Warren.  Be Encouraged (2 Corinthians) (1994).  P. 69.

The Eternal Work of Eden, Heaven, and Earth

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Do you love your job?  Is your work meaningful?  After the Covid-19 pandemic, many found that the work they did before the pandemic doesn’t seem as important or meaningful to them now.  People were quitting their jobs or retiring early so often, a new catchphrase was created: “Great Resignation.”  Frustration over work coincided with demand by many workers to find meaning in their job beyond the actual job, for example looking for a workplace that shares their political or social goals.  The work itself had become less meaningful.

As a partial response to this frustration, today’s post will make three points about work before the Fall, in the Garden of Eden, and what that means for our future in heaven and the place of work in our lives now.  We start with an idea from Genesis that is sometimes missed:

#1 – “Not all the world was Eden”
As noted by Michael Heiser in his book The Unseen Realm[2], Eden’s geography is limited and defined in Genesis 2:8-14.  Also, when God expels Adam and Eve from the garden in Genesis 3:23-24 we know that they are still on earth, but no longer in the garden.  God didn’t create a new place for them to go but removed them from the part of the earth that was Eden.  While Eden was a paradise, it was not the entire world.  Which leads to the second point:

#2 – “The original task of humanity was to make the entire Earth like Eden”
In Genesis 1:28 we read: “And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”  Heiser notes on this verse that “the earth needed filling” and that “it makes no sense to subdue the garden of God.”

Eden was a perfect pattern which mankind was to learn from and apply to the rest of the world.  God’s creativity in Eden was a model for human creativity everywhere else.  The pre-Fall world was not a world where there was no work left to be done, which suggests that:

#3 – Work is Eternal
A popular view of heaven is that it is a leisurely place where we don’t have to work.  Images of angels playing harps and finally being able to kick back and relax come to mind.  Some hope in heaven partly for this reason – that they’re tired of working and can’t wait for it to be over.  However, in Genesis 2:15 “The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”  Adam had a job to do in Eden, and God’s people will have jobs to do in heaven.  Work is not only part of our current fallen world, but a part of our eternal destiny as well.  This may seem like bad news to some of my readers, but is the idea of doing nothing for eternity really appealing when you think about it?

We can be encouraged because the actual hope of heaven is always greater than we can imagine.  As Paul wrote in Romans 8:18, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”  While in heaven we will work, it will be thoroughly meaningful and fulfilling.  Every person will be perfectly suited for their tasks and doing exactly what they were designed to do.  No longer will work be cursed by “thorns and thistles,”[3] where labor means pain and you only benefit “by the sweat of your face.”[4]  Work will not be gone, but redeemed and perfected.  Heaven will not be what we expect, but God promises it will always be better than our expectations.

Work is Now
For now, this means that whether you’re working at a job, at home, retired, a student, a parent, or in any role in this world, as God’s creativity was to be reproduced by Adam and Eve, the character of Jesus is being developed in His people in this world, and will be fully reproduced in heaven.  In the Lord’s Prayer, part of the meaning of “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10) is that we should live as much as possible in this world in the same way we would in heaven.

Christians are God’s agents in this world to glorify Him and make Him known, in our jobs or in any other roles we find ourselves in.  Heiser cites many examples from the Bible which show that “God works through figures like Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, the prophets, and the apostles. But the pattern extends to us, to all believers. There is nothing we do that God could not accomplish himself. But he has not chosen that method. Rather, he tells us what his will is and commands his loyal children to get the job done.”

In heaven your job will not be what it is now, but for each of us, whatever role we have, whatever our circumstances, our job is to take the gifts of creativity and character God endowed us with and make this world a bit more like Eden.

Jesus was a perfect pattern which we are to learn from and apply to everything we do in this world.

[2] Heiser, Michael S. The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible.  (2015).  This post draws from pages 49-52.
[3] Genesis 3:18
[4] Genesis 3:19

Provision for Eternity

Todd R 2 Comments

The story of Joseph in the book of Genesis is full of drama, but more importantly, lessons.  After being sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, Joseph rises to the position of overseeing all of Egypt, under only Pharaoh.  God blessed Joseph with the ability to see and interpret others’ dreams, and he was able to interpret one of Pharaoh’s dreams, which foretold seven years of bountiful harvest that would be followed by seven years of famine.

Based on this glimpse of the future in a dream, Joseph recommended the following plan, which they put into action: “Let Pharaoh proceed to appoint overseers over the land and take one-fifth of the produce of the land of Egypt during the seven plentiful years.”[1]  This stored provision of food would help get Egypt through the years of famine.  But there’s also another lesson in Joseph’s plan.

Like Joseph, we have knowledge of the future that, in our case, we have learned through the Bible – that destruction is coming to this world.  Not just a regional famine, but worldwide, total judgement and destruction.  God’s word is like a dream that God has interpreted for His people through His Spirit so we may prepare for that future time.

How do we make provision for the world to come?

Photo by Diane Helentjaris on Unsplash

In Joseph’s case, he had Egypt use its current resources to invest in the future he knew was coming.  We can do the same, but how?  We can invest through our tithes and offerings.  By loving someone as Christ would.  By giving our time in service.  By supporting missionaries.  By being a strong witness in word and deed.  We do it when we do anything to advance God’s kingdom in this world, in His church and among our neighbors near and far.

These investments don’t save us – we are only justified by faith in what Christ has done for us – but that same Christ has told us to “lay up” these investments in Matthew 6:19-20, which says:

 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.”

Many of us save and invest diligently for goals like retirement, college, vacation, a house or a car, and we should.  But we should also save and invest diligently in eternity, “for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”[2]

How can we invest today?

[1] Genesis 41:34
[2] Matthew 6:21