Love
is important, right? I think that’s one
of the very very few things that most
people can all agree on. Everyone wants
(or maybe needs is a better word
there) to feel loved. Everyone loves
something or someone. We make important
decisions based on love, and we wouldn’t want to live in a world void of
love. But what is love? What is this driving force, this idea, this
instinct that we all know and recognize as love? And why is it so important?
Anyone
who knows me personally knows that I’m going to look at this through a wonderful
lens that I like to call the Word of God, also commonly known as the
Bible. We know that love is important
from a Biblical perspective for many reasons.
I could list them all, but I think that I can sum them up pretty well by citing Yeshua’s
(Jesus’) answer to the Pharisees when they were testing Him and asked what the
greatest commandment in the Torah was. “And
he said to him ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with
all your soul and with all your mind.
This is the great and first commandment.
And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor and
yourself. On these two commandments depend
all the Law and the Prophets,’” (Matthew 22:37-40). Yeshua himself said that the entire Law, or
Torah, and every God-given word uttered from the prophets depends on love, so
obviously, love is pretty important from a Biblical perspective. But why?
In
1 Corinthians 13, the apostle Paul says that we are essentially useless and
that we’re doing whatever it is that we are doing in vain if we are without
love. He says “If I give away all I
have, if I give up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing,” (1
Cor. 13:3). We can do all the “nice” and
“good” things that we want. We can help
those around us, we can sacrifice ourselves for our cause, and we can do any
number of things, but if we are not doing them out of love, then there is
ultimately no point.
If
we look back at the previous verse, we learn that this concept does not only
apply to what we do, but also to what
we know. He says “If I have prophetic powers, and
understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to
remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing,” (1 Cor. 13:2). We can have all the Bible knowledge in the
world, go through seminary, have read the Bible however many times, have all
the street smarts in the world, and literally know more than any other human being
on the planet about life, God, and all things in between, but if we do not have
love, we are nothing. Nothing.
And just because you believe in God doesn’t mean anything either,
because Paul said that even if you have enough faith to remove mountains and are without love, you’re still nothing.
But
why? Why is love so important? Just one little word, and if we don’t have
it, then what’s the point? Well,
unfortunately, in the English language, we only have one word for “love,” and
that’s kind of ruining it for us.
Because we love peanut butter, and vacations, and our moms and dads,
brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, tacos, art, water, scenic views, animals,
good books, and God. We bring God down to the same level as peanut
butter. Great.
I
want you to take a look with me for a minute at the Biblical definition of
love. We can find this in 1 Corinthians
13:4-8. You know, the part they always
read at weddings. I had read this many
times before and definitely gained some perspective on what love was, but I
still felt like something was missing, as I often do when I look at the Bible
in only English, seeing as how it was written in Hebrew and/or Greek. So I pulled out my interlinear Bible and my
Strong’s Concordance, along with several versions of the Bible in English, and
I had myself a good old-fashioned word study, and what I discovered greatly
enhanced what I know to be “love.” Allow
me to break it down for you a bit. In
this blog post, we’re only going to look at the very first few words in this
passage.
“Love is patient and kind…” (1Cor.
13:4).
Other
versions say that love is “long suffering” instead of patient. The word used in Greek, makrothumeo, means to be long-spirited or patiently endure. This made me think about the Israelites in
the wilderness and their constant complaining and how God had to be quite
long-spirited with them to eventually lead them to the Promised Land. It also made me think of myself and how I
know that I make the same mistakes time and time again, but God still loves
me. Because He is patient. But what I really liked from this part was
the word for “kind.” The Greek word, chresteunomai, means to show oneself
useful or act benevolently. Many people
see this word and think about being “kind” or “nice” to someone, like being
polite or maybe even just tolerating them.
In reality, it means to be useful and help them, not for your own gain,
but for theirs. So if you find yourself
being “nice” and dismissively “tolerant” to someone, you are not loving
them. The question you need to ask
yourself is, is what you are doing useful?
Or is it useless?
Now
I think you have to be careful when applying this specific principal to your
interactions with others, especially in today’s world where we all have
differing viewpoints on big issues and we all think we’re right. Many people think that they are being useful,
helpful, and kind to someone that they find to be in the wrong, but often that
is just not the case. There are
basically two fields of thought among believers as to how we approach someone
with a different opinion than ours on what we consider to be a “big issue,”
such as gay marriage, the confederate flag, keeping Torah, etc. etc. etc.
(yeah, I went there!).
The
first one is where they kind of just “live and let live,” for lack of a better
term. A believer knows that someone
believes differently than them, but they’re not going to talk about it. They think that they will not be able to
convince the other person of the error of their ways, so why bother? Let’s just keep the peace and be
friends. If it ever comes up, then I’ll
let them know where I stand…unless it’s not a convenient time…and if I can
think of a good way to say it…but pretty much I just want to make sure we’re
still friends because I think I can be a good influence in their life. Right?
The
second one is where they will absolutely let everyone know what they believe
and why everyone else is wrong if they don’t agree. And they will make sure they touch all bases
and cover every subject. Look, I just
want you to know! Because I care about
you! So just listen to me, read your
Bible, and WHY DON’T YOU AGREE WITH ME YET?!
You are living in SIN, my friend!
Now
I’m not saying that all believers fall into one of those two categories, but
many of them do. In my opinion, neither
of them are very good examples of “love is patient and kind.” While it is necessary to maintain friendships
and not make people uncomfortable all the time, it is also important that your
friends know who you are and what you stand for. You may be the only representation of God
that a lot of people ever see, so be a good representation. If you just sit back and pretend like your
differing viewpoints are not at all important, you are not being kind. You are being selfish. You are watching your friends go down in
flames while keeping any knowledge that you have of God to yourself. That is not making yourself useful or acting
benevolently. It is not kind, and it is
not love.
At
the same time, if you are constantly nagging people and pushing your beliefs on
them, that is not love either. We need
to “speak the truth in love,” (Ephesians 4:15).
Mostly, we need to make sure people know where we stand (without being
obnoxious!) and love them regardless of whether or not we agree with them. Remember, love is patient. And you are not always going to be using words to get your point across. People are supposed to be able to know us by
our fruit. If they can’t see Who we
serve in the way we conduct ourselves in everyday life, then we are doing it
wrong. There are definitely times to
take a stand, and I think we all pretty much know them when we see them, but
those times will mean nothing to those around us if we have not created a
foundation of love with them.
If
we do not have love, we are nothing.
