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I use the word nuance in today’s Interruption, writing about differing aspects of the love described in the New Testament.
It’s estimated that over 100 million love songs have been recorded, and that around 60 percent of pop songs written today contain themes of love.
In the New Testament, depending on the translation, “love” is mentioned about 400 times, so it’s an important theme in the Bible as well. But is it the same love that’s sung about so often?
Let’s understand three nuances about the love found in Scripture. . .
God is Love
God is love (1 John 4:8b, ESV).
I can’t find a song that says Josh Groban is love or that Ed Sheeran is love, though they both sing about love.
God is love!
My belief (hopefully I’m not accused of heresy) is that Scripture teaches Jesus upholds the universe, and I believe love is His motive (Colossians 1:17). Getting a bit weirder (but that’s me), I think that the study of physics will eventually prove that a spiritual entity undergirds the physical nature of the universe.
I’m going out on a limb and say it should be named “Love” – not the “Law of Gravity” or the “Law of Thermodynamics,” but the “Law of Love.” This undergirding “Law of Love” kept humankind from destruction at the first sin in the Garden of Eden.
Love is Serving
In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another (1 John 4:9-11).
Others, not self, defines God’s love.
Love isn’t out of control emotions, passions run amok, or cupid with his arrow. Love elevates others at the expense of self, and with God as love and us made in His image, we thrive by serving others.
Many of the 100 million songs written about love change the theme from “God is Love” to “Love is god.” Love then becomes a cruel god, demeaning others to elevate self, too often serving lust (not God’s love) with self-indulgence.
Love is patient, kind, not envious, not rude, isn’t irritable or resentful, isn’t provoked, bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things. [Admittedly, I just copied and pasted verses from 1 Corinthians 13.]
Love Attracts
Okay, another opportunity for heresy, when I claim there’s something irresistible about love.
As a pastor for over 50 years, I’ve listened to many couples profess the irresistibility of their love with pronunciations of “I can’t help myself,” or “I must be with him,” or “I knew we would be married when I first saw her.”
Early in my ministry, I would think, “Well, just wait a few years until reality sets in.”
But now, after 50 years, I’ve run into couples who are more in love after decades of marriage than when they first pronounced their vows. Their love was permanent; it attracted and then lasted.
We have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us (1 John 4:16-17a).
Amen. Let’s remember the three nuances of love!