Love Is…

Studies in 1 Corinthians 13

Peter J Blackburn

© Peter J Blackburn, 1979, 2013

Except where otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the New International Version, © International Bible Society, 1984.

Preface

These studies were first given as a series of weekly devotional meditations with the Stanthorpe Blue Nursing Sisters in 1974. As the series proceeded, it was suggested that it would be helpful and appreciated if they could be brought together and printed in booklet form. I readily agreed to make these studies more widely available, since it is my deep conviction that we need to rediscover the meaning of Christian love - and especially in today’s intensely materialistic age.

The response to that first duplicated booklet was far greater than anticipated and it soon had to go to a second printing.

Since that time, the Good News Bible has been completed and has come into much wider use than it had when only the New Testament was available. It speaks to us with a much-needed clarity and directness. These studies have now been completely revised with the text of the Good News Bible in mind.

In inviting you to share in these studies, I offer you a word of caution. In the first study I have noted that “we need love – not just more talk about it, but the real thing”. I accept those words as being also true of what I have written here. We need, not just words, but reality!

The prayers and poetic meditations were added to the original studies in the hope and with the prayer that we may encounter the God of Love and be led into a deeper experience and expression of true love.

If someone, through these words, is led to a true and deeper knowledge of God and of his Love, then I am thankful to him!

Peter J. Blackburn, Stanthorpe, March 1979.

In 2000, these studies were shared with the staff of Burdekin BlueCare. They were rewritten with the New International Version in mind. It is in this form that they are presented here in eBook format.

Peter J Blackburn, 2013.

More than Fine Talk

Reading: 1 Corinthians 13

When the song-writer tells us that

“What the world needs now is love, sweet love,

It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of”,

we can all agree. But we need to ask, what is love?

By French law, only the cheese actually produced within the town of Roquefort can be sold under the name of Roquefort cheese. There may be cheeses very much like it, but if they don't come from Roquefort, France, they aren’t official Roquefort at all. There's no substitute - anything else is just cheese.

Of course everyone believes that “love” is very important. Psychologists have been telling us how vital love is for our human lives, and the serious consequences in later life if love is missing from one’s childhood. In the 60s at the height of the anti-war protests over Viet Nam, the slogan, “Make love, not war”, was popularised. Perhaps it was also a protest for some who wanted a change in community attitudes to sexual morality.

Part of our problem is that love means so many different things to different people. Someone says, “I love ice cream”; another, “I love Beethoven”; and some one else, “I love Henry”. What do they mean by “love”? Sometimes it is just the barest level of what I call “ice-cream love”, a sense of pleasure that “I” receive, an experience (an emotion, if you will) that is essentially focussed on “me”. My “love” for that food, that music, that person, may simply be a measure of the satisfaction they give to me.

We can’t change the English language – that’s “love”! But we can question whether it is real love, the genuine product that the Maker in his wisdom made so basic for our human life and well-being. It is a twisted distortion of real love which is meant to be a caring concern which seeks and delights in the highest well-being of the other person. The focus of love is meant to be on giving but we have centred it on receiving.

In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul points us to real love.

The Christians at Corinth seemed to think they had everything spiritually. They prided themselves in their many spiritual gifts. Yet they quarrelled among one another – they lacked this basic Christian quality of love. They were too wrapped up in their own spiritual experience, and that was of little value without love.

A young woman went to the editor of a magazine. “I want to become a writer”, she said. “What sort of things would you write about?” the editor inquired. “I want to write about love”, she replied. “Well, what is love?”, she was asked. At this, she got a far-away look in her eyes. “Love”, she said, “it’s soft light and sweet music. It’s the shimmering reflections of the moon upon the lake. It’s…” “Wait”, interrupted the editor, “don’t write about love until you know what it is all about. Love is giving yourself for the sake of another. Love is getting up in the middle of the night to a waking child before your spouse wakes up. Love is giving and serving.”

Paul writes, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13.1).

Love is more than fine talk. Without love the most eloquent words are pointless.

Yes, we need love – not just more talk about it, but the real thing. People in the world, in our community, need it.

But we need God’s help, not just to understand this kind of love, but to become the sort of people through whom it can reach out to others.

PRAYER: Dear Father, my life is so small and selfish, my love so weak, my best efforts so spoilt by wrong motives. Help me to receive your love and to be a channel for your love to reach others. For the sake of Jesus, Amen.

I Looked for Love

I looked for love –

I needed love.

I said to life,

Give me love

to feed and nourish me,

to satisfy my deepest need.

The paper headlines told of crisis –

my musings stopped.

I looked for love

to wash away life’s dreariness,

to set my every nerve atingling...

But as I turned the TV on,

I saw a starving child.

I looked for love

in the soothings of sweet music.

Yet the love-songs seemed an empty wail,

while others sang of protest.

I looked for love

I saw a Cross,

and there a Face

of beauty-in-agony.

There I found it!

Love for me,

for everyone –

self-giving Love,

rich and free.

More than Knowledge and Faith

Reading: Luke 10.25-37

There is something very cold and hard about our modern society. In some ways we know so much; in other more important ways we seem to be dunces. The famous US General, Omar Bradley once observed, “We are nuclear giants, but ethical infants”.

On 21st July 1969, Armstrong made his “one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind” onto the surface of the Moon. At that time, back in USA there were racial riots. What will following generations remember of our age? Will it be the brilliant scientific and technological achievements, or the failures in the area of personal and group relationships and the breakdown of morality?

Paul wrote, “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13.2).

He was writing to people who believed themselves to be more than intellectually clever. They understood everything about God and his ways (so they thought). And they were full of self-confident assurance about their wonderful faith. Yet they lacked love, and, without love, their other claims meant nothing.

The story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10.25-37) was told by Jesus to a man well-versed in all the teachings and requirements of the Jewish law. This man knew that God required his love – that he should love God with all he had and that he should also love his neighbour as himself. But “who is my neighbour?”

The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was dangerous – a descent of 1040 metres in about 27 kilometres through desert country, no villages, an abundance of caves and rocky ledges. Right up to recent times robbers have made travel in this region hazardous. So it happened that yet another unfortunate victim was left half-dead by the roadside.

The first two to come upon the ugly scene, a priest and a Levite, kept going, fearing for their own safety. The third, a Samaritan, member of a race with whom the Jews would have no dealings (John 4.9), at risk of his own safety and at his own personal expense, stopped and cared for him.

So Jesus returned the question to the questioner, yet he changed it significantly – “Which of these three do you think was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” (v. 36). Jesus had been asked, in effect, “Define neighbour for me so that I may better understand whom God expects me to love”, but Jesus changed the question to “Who needs my love?”

Not only did the questioner know so much – so did the priest and the Levite! But to know so much and yet not to have love is to be nothing!

The tragedy of our world is that we have knowledge and insight into so many fields – yet without love.

We cannot see beyond our own needs. Prices and wages continue to spiral. We pollute the very environment in which we live. We wrench from the earth for selfish ends the precious resources entrusted to us by our Maker. Many people are feeling that they aren't people any more, that they just don’t count any more There is an accelerating call for psychiatric help, Life Line counselling, drug clinics and the like, because we have so much – without love.

Of course, God wants us to be about our particular tasks with the best available knowledge and skills – but with love. We need this essential ingredient, both for our own wholeness, and for the healing of others and our world.

PRAYER: Creator God, you have made this world and said that it is good. Thank you for every true advance of human knowledge. Forgive us, O Lord, our failure to see that, with all this knowledge, we need you no less. Help me to be your person so that the things I know may by used in love. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

Thoughts on Apollo 11, 21st July 1969

(dedicated to the Rangeville Space Pilots' Club)

From Earth to Moon! How wonderful!

Dear God, your laws are true!

And yet, we try to live on earth

As if we don't need you!

We know the laws of motion,

Of gravity and the like,

And forget the Ten Commandments

And all the laws on life!

We thank you, God, that Jesus came

To bring us back to you

That we may know in everything,

Dear God, your laws are true!

More than Self-Denial and Self-Sacrifice

Reading: Matthew 6.1-4

In days when there was no government-provided social security system, it was an important and sacred duty to give to the poor.

Jesus talked about some who gave without real thought or care for the welfare of the person receiving the gift. They gave in order to build up their own image and reputation.

Jesus was quite emphatic that, while such giving may well make a fine impression on people, it had no final worth in the eyes of our Father God.

Jesus didn’t mean that we had better stop helping the poor if our motives are wrong! What he was saying is that we need to consider our motives and give in the true spirit of our Father.

A taper lay in a drawer. Then one day its owner took it and climbed a winding stair in a tower. “Where are you taking me?” the taper complained. “I am going to show the big ships their way over the sea,” answered the owner. “Why, no ship could see me or my little light,” said the taper. “Leave that to me,” added the owner as he lit the big lantern and then blew the taper out.

There is something in us that has failed to see that the joy and meaning of life are found in giving, that wants to be the centre of attention all the time, that gives in order to receive… This is a contradiction of love. It spoils the act of kindness.

In 1 Corinthians 13, the old King James Version used the word “charity”. Based on the Latin word charitas used in the Vulgate (late 4th century), it was a good translation in 1611, speaking of warm compassionate outgoing love. It is no longer a suitable translation in today’s world. For us “charity” has unfortunately come to suggest an act that is devoid of compassion – it is “as cold as charity”, we say.

In spite of our mixed concepts of “love”, this word still expresses best what Paul is saying. He writes, “If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Corinthians 13.3).

Even the ultimate in self-denial and self-sacrifice count for nothing – without love. But with love, no act of service is too great – all is done for the other person, not for self-glory.

As an example of oriental humour, the story is told of a little Chinese girl who was carrying her brother on her back. “Is he heavy?” she was asked. “No,” she replied, “he is my brother.”

Love is the key factor that makes all the difference between cold charity and genuine caring help.

So Paul has reminded us that love is more than fine talk, that without love the most eloquent words are pointless. He has emphasised the tragedy of knowledge and insight without love. He has stressed that even acts of charity without love are of no final worth.

There is so much practical need all around us, so much to be done. We cannot live in isolation or expect the world to come to our beck and call. We are meant to notice this need and to play our part. May God help us to answer the call of need – with love.

PRAYER: You made this world good, Lord, but we humans have chosen those ways that are not good. We see in your world sadness, suffering and need. Something has to be done, Lord. Give me ears to hear, eyes to see, a heart to love and understand, a mouth to speak and hands to do. For Jesus' sake, Amen.

The Cup of Water

The cup of water

in the name of Christ

revives the body

and the soul.

Without the cup

the water

cannot be given.

Without the water

the cup

is empty mockery.

Without Christ

the body’s thirst alone

is quenched.

In Christ’s name

the sharing is of love.

Just as the water

needs the cup,

so the giving needs to be

contained and borne

in Christian love.

Just as the cup

needs the water,

so there is

unreality and emptiness

to our loving –

it cannot reach the soul –

unless it sees

the body’s need.

Lord, help me

to give the cup of water

in your name.

Patient and Kind

Reading: Luke 15.11-24

What is love?

We cannot define it as some abstract idea – love is recognised by what it does.

So Paul tells us, “Love is patient and kind” (1 Corinthians 13.4).

The Greeks thought of patience as “having a long spirit”. To us, that is a curious, yet helpful, phrase.

Some people we know seem to have a rather short fuse. Their impatience flares up in anger whenever their own plans or ideas are delayed or frustrated.

The “instant world” in which we live breeds its own forms of impatience. We can have instant milk, instant coffee and tea, instant meals, instant finance… instant everything! We live for now. It is little wonder that, in the area of sexual morality, many growing up in today's world have been saying, “Why wait? If there is any good in this, we must have it now!”

But that is not love! Love is patient.

It is when we focus life on ourselves, on achieving our own goals and ambitions, that we are short on the fuse and impatient. But when we have the love that really cares for others, we will seek to understand their needs and be patient. Sometimes it will not even be possible to help a person at some point of need that is just so obvious to us. Sometimes help cannot be given until someone is ready to receive it. But what are we about – seeking our own personal satisfaction from giving help? or caring enough to wait?

Love is also kind.

Not only does it refrain from reacting angrily or impatiently, but it positively expresses itself in kindness. It seeks the highest good of others. So it reacts with goodness towards those who ill-treat it and gives itself in the service of others.

Love is patient and kind.

Jesus’ story of the lost son in Luke 15 is a picture of the love of our Father God for us even when we wander away from him. It is also a graphic picture of the love that is patient and kind.

How that father loved his boy! When he first came and requested his share of the inheritance, the father must have realised what was going on in the lad’s mind. But he was growing up. He couldn’t keep on treating him as a child, making his decisions for him. His love for the boy meant that he wanted him to grow into a man.

Shortly the boy took all he had and went to a far country where many friends soon helped him to waste his money and left him destitute. Reduced to feeding pigs (the lowest occupation, in Jewish estimation), he came to see the folly of his ways. He had no claim on his father’s love or sympathy – not only had he wasted his portion of the inheritance, but he had disgraced the family name as well – but perhaps his father would be willing to receive him back as a hired servant.

He had known his father’s love, but had scarcely measured love’s patience and kindness. How that father must have waited for his boy's return! Perhaps as time went by he wondered his wisdom in dividing his property. Perhaps he should have pressed harder for him to stay at home. Perhaps he should have sent a servant to keep check on his needs…

But love was watching and waiting, and saw him “while he was still a long way off”. Love was ready to receive him and restore him.

Love is patient and kind.

This is not only God’s love for us – it is also the kind of love he means us to have for others.

PRAYER: Eternal God, you are love. How you have been patient and kind toward me. You know what is best for me, yet you treat me and respect me as a person. Thank you for your patient Love that has sought me and brought me back home to you. Give me some of your strong true love, full of patience and kindness. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

God's Patient Love

Our life upon this earth

forever presses on –

we hurry across life's stage

and then pass on.

Yet God who made us sees

each moment’s worth,

and charts the progress

of our life on earth.

In patient love God calls

to us to see

in patient loving service

life is free.

With costly giving love

Christ died to live,

and now God’s caring seeking love

awaits to give.

So great the cost of love poured out

upon that tree!

The risen, living, loving Christ

embraces me!

Not Jealous or Boastful

Reading: Luke 15.25-32

We see love in what it does.

“Love is patient and kind,” Paul wrote. In Jesus’ story of the lost boy, we have seen so graphically the patience and kindness of our Father God for us, even when we wander away from him. But it is not only his love for us – it is the kind of love he means us to have for others.

True love is also seen in sharp contrast to so many of the attitudes that prevail in our society and world. Paul goes on to write, “Love is not jealous or boastful” (1 Corinthians 13.4).

This attitude, too, is clearly depicted in the story of the lost boy.

The boy had come home, making no claim to his father’s love and sympathy, just a place as a hired servant. But love was watching and waiting, ready to receive and restore him.

The party was in full progress when the elder brother came in from the field. “What’s all this about?” he asked. “Your brother has come,” he was told, “and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound” But he was angry and refused to go in.

Why was he angry? After all, this was his brother. Shouldn’t he, too, have been glad to welcome him back?

I guess he had never really got on with that younger brother. Their personalities, their outlooks, their ambitions, their likes and dislikes – all were so different. That younger brother had never liked farm work – perhaps never liked work of any sort! It was good riddance that he had wanted to split and go his own way. Now the farm would be a better proposition all round. And if rumours brought news of his brother's foolishness and destitution – only what he deserves, teach him a good lesson!

But – welcome him back? “Why should I? We owe him nothing! The farm owes him nothing!”

The father came out to reason with him – “But he’s your brother!” And we can hear him snap back, “Don’t call that son of yours my brother!”

“Love,” Paul wrote, “is not jealous or boastful.” But note this elder son’s profession of “love” for his father –

“Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!”

Did he really love his father? Did he know his father loved him?

True love cannot be bought or sold, though some people seem to think so. The false idea of love – “ice-cream love” if you like – focusses on me and my needs, and assumes this sort of response on the part of others too – a kind of you’ve-got-to-love-me-after-all-I’ve-done-for-you attitude, where “I love you” means “I want you to think I’m great.” This false kind of love gets very irritated with the love that is patient and kind. It has little place for forgiveness.

Yet the father loves this son, too. “My love for your younger brother is not greater than my love for you because he has gone away and come back again. My love for you is not any less because you have been a faithful and good son to me. Come, let your love receive him gladly, too!”

“Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or boastful.”

Two groups of people were listening when Jesus told this parable – “tax collectors and sinners” and “the Pharisees and teachers of the Law” (Luke 15.1,2). The parable had something for all of them.

And for us too. For if we have truly tasted of the Lord’s patience and kindness, we will seek his grace for a love that is not jealous or boastful.

PRAYER: There are times, good Lord, when I have not viewed the misfortunes of another with compassion, nor joined in the happiness of someone else's success with free and open joy. Too often I seem to jump quickly to my own defence and too readily to another’s condemnation. Good Lord, forgive. Help me to see your patient and kind love to me. Make me clean and new in Jesus. Amen.

Jealousy

Somewhere deep within,

self-satisfied,

secure,

I feel uneasy.

I do not say in words,

and yet I think

that what you mean to me

is such

that I resent

what you may mean

to yourself

or to others.

I have an unnamed fear

that the life of the world

might cease to centre

on me.

Not Arrogant or Rude

Reading: Luke 7.36-50

I guess we were all taught as children to “mind our manners” – one wonders just how much “manners” are taught to today’s children!

“Manners” are very useful. They help us to behave acceptably without offence to anybody. Yet sometimes they seem very artificial. There may be no offence, but little real care or communication either. They sometimes mean something quite different from what they seem to. I recall hearing once on a Parliamentary broadcast this un-Parliamentary remark (later withdrawn), “I think the honourable Member for so-and-so is a lying pig!”

Paul wrote that love “is not arrogant or rude” (1 Corinthians 13.5).

The person who is jealous of others will be boastful of his own assumed superiority and arrogant towards his inferiors. This leads to rudeness in speech and conduct.

Love isn’t like this. But it isn’t just the veneer of good breeding, either.

Unlike many of the Pharisees, Simon was open enough to invite Jesus to a meal. This woman, of known bad reputation, came in, wet the feet of Jesus with her tears, dried them with her hair, kissed his feet and anointed them with precious perfume.

Simon was polite – he said nothing. But still he thought to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is – that she is a sinner.” He kept his counsels to himself, but Jesus know what he was thinking.

Jesus told him a parable about a creditor with two debtors, one owing 500 denarii (a denarius was a day’s wages), and the other fifty. He cancelled the debts of both when they couldn’t pay. “Now which of them,” asked Jesus, “will love him more?”

Simon supposed that it would be the one who had the bigger debt cancelled.

Jesus then drew a comparison between this woman and Simon himself. Simon had been courteous – though, in his concern for his courtesy rather than care for his guest, even this had not been complete. This woman’s overflowing love was the sign of her deep awareness of forgiveness.

“Love is not arrogant or rude.”

But Simon has been all prim and proper. His feelings of arrogance and rudeness are very carefully kept under. His sense of dignity and propriety have kept them well hidden. Yet they are there. His sense of superiority to this woman is clear. She is the sort of woman no respectable person would have anything to do with – just to be sent away in disgrace.

But love isn’t like that – and here we see the pure example of true love in Jesus himself. He doesn’t condone this woman’s immoral life, or lower himself to her standard. Yet he has a deep outgoing care for her – it is only because he is that sort of person that she has come in the first place. He doesn’t react to her presence with revulsion, or with holy condemnation. He reacts with love and with the warmth of God’s forgiveness.

How do we react to people, especially to those who may not be so naturally likeable? Are we always polite? Do we have the caring love which is able to channel the redeeming love of God to people who need it?

Simon has no time for this kind of love – he is too busy thinking about himself. And isn’t this the problem of all of us too often? Only God can make us the kind of people who really reach out to others.

PRAYER: Eternal Father, you love me, but I cannot claim exclusive rights to your love. Yet sometimes, because I think myself to be somebody, I object to some whom you include in your love and care. I haven't seen that, in other ways perhaps, I too am poor and mean. I need to marvel that even I am included. Thank you, Father. Amen.

Frank

I saw him

there in Roma Street –

but was it him?

Ten years before

an alcoholic

between freedom

and bottled comfort.

For six months dry,

then just before

the anniversary

of his son’s death

someone pinched his shirt –

clean and pressed for church.

He’d had a bottle and a half

of metho

by the time we saw him then –

so back to square one.

But then I saw him,

or was it him?

Not too far from a pub,

with that old look.

As I questioned myself,

the fleeting glimpse was past.

I had not spoken –

perhaps he had not seen!

Perhaps!

Not Self-Seeking

Reading: Ephesians 5.21-33

There is such a striking contrast between Paul’s description of love in 1 Corinthians 13 and so much that goes by that name. So much of what is called love is self-centred. It is so wrapped up in personal satisfaction and fulfilment.

Paul writes that love “is not self-seeking” (1 Corinthians 13.5).

In a couple of old Greek manuscripts it is put a little differently – “love does not seek what is not its own.” Was this a mere slip of the pen? or did some scribe have difficulty accepting the full revelation of Christian love?

As one writer has put it, “Love not merely does not seek that which does not belong to it; it is prepared to give up for the sake of others even what it is entitled to.”

There is no more important place to learn this, and no more necessary place to learn it – and yet no harder place to learn it – than within marriage.

There has been a tendency to despise what the apostle Paul says about marriage, and he has certainly been one of the targets of the feminist movement. Unfortunately, today’s sloganism has merely picked up a few phrases out of what Paul has written – phrases which, by themselves, become half-truths and distortions of what he is really saying. Our reading from Ephesians 5 tells us about love in marriage, and says a lot about love in general, too.

So much has been said about what Paul writes in v. 22 of our reading – “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord” – that we have scarcely noticed that he prefaces all these remarks with – “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (v. 21). Is any less expected of husbands than of wives here?

The roles of men and women in marriage are not identical, but this does not imply that one is inferior to the other. In fact, a marriage is meant to be two people who have committed themselves to serve one another. The Christian motivation for this is our relationship to Christ.

Freedom? Liberation? Marriage is a mutual bond. A problem creeps into a marriage when one partner (in our society, this has often been the man) ceases to take this commitment seriously. But that is no reason to overthrow the institution of marriage itself. With such so-called “freedom” everyone suffers – parents and children alike (especially the children), and society as a whole is weakened.

A wife had waited for many weeks for the mirror to be put up in the kitchen. At last, she took hammer and nails and hung it on a cupboard door. The inevitable happened – one day as the door was opened, the mirror fell and was broken. The husband – who should have done the job long ago! – gently chided her. “Darling,” he said, “it’s no use there! It has to be fixed to something fixed!”

How nice of him to say so! But isn’t this the problem with so much of our life today? We refuse to acknowledge any fixed point of reference outside ourselves.

We have our own standards, our own ideas, our own plans… And marriage, a husband, a wife, children – these must all fit into our plan. But people are people with a will of their own – even little people are like that! Because it all involves people, our own little “plan” gets a bit ruffled. Strange, isn’t it? It’s people who are the problem – and we’re one of them ourselves!

When life is “me”-centred, the result will be friction and a greater or lesser degree of unhappiness. True freedom doesn’t go hand in hand with selfishness – though we strangely seem to think so.

When Paul calls us to submit to one another, it is “out of reverence for Christ.” Christ is our “point of reference.” He himself is the supreme example of this sort of love. As home and family life centre on him we learn to relate to one another with the kind of love that “is not self-seeking.”

PRAYER: Loving God, I love to be right and hate to be found wrong. I live so much for myself, yet I know I need other people and I need to be accepted. Forgive me, Lord. Turn the focus of my thinking and my living from my way to your way, so that, together with others, your way may become our way. For the sake of Jesus, Amen.

To Live to Give

The flower cannot keep its petals shut

and live.

Its hidden fragrant beauty opens

to give.

Nor can I find life within myself

alone,

or else life’s joy and peace will soon

be gone.

Not Irritable or Resentful

Reading: 1 Peter 2.19-25

An irritation – perhaps a grain of sand – enters the shell of an oyster. Over a period of time, it is coated with successive layers of mother-of pearl, until it is transformed into a pearl.

The oyster, of course, doesn’t have to think about doing this – it’s just a natural process.

An irritation, perhaps an unkind word spoken hastily by another, perhaps a crossing of purposes with some fellow human-being, enters the human mind. The mind mulls over it, turns it over and over, becomes more agitated, more irritated. The little irritation becomes a big irritation, perhaps a grudge. The result is not a pearl, but an ugly condition which can poison a person’s whole outlook – and their physical well-being as well.

The person who lives to himself will find plenty of irritations in life - and will pay the price for it!

Love is not like this. Paul writes, love “is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs” (1 Corinthians 13.5 NIV) – or “is not irritable or resentful” (NRSV).

What irritates us most? What makes us touchy? Isn’t it when our own plans are frustrated? when someone says or does something against us? Sometimes people are mean and intend to irritate us. At other times we have quite misread the other person’s intentions.

But how should love react? You don’t have to be irritated or hurt, you know! Love will be saddened for the sake of the one who intended to be hurtful. But there is no need to be bitter on one's own account. If, humbly before God, I have truly accepted that I am not the be-all or end-all, then

Sticks and stones may break my bones,

But names will never hurt me.

I have heard people quote that old saying with a very real bitterness in their spirit. Whatever they may say, they have been deeply hurt and will bear a grudge – perhaps they will repay the person in kind!

The greatest example of love is Jesus. We see a beautiful description of his love in 1 Peter 2.19-25.

Peter has been writing of the Christian’s reaction to suffering which may come on us unjustly. It would be so easy to react with bitterness and resentment, and to feel justified for doing so.

For the Christian, the example of patient suffering is Jesus himself. What was the reaction of Jesus to his experience?

He was subjected to prejudice of the most extreme and petty kind. The judge at the trial acknowledged his innocence of crime (Luke 3.4,14,22). But Pilate weakly gave in to the crowd’s insistence that he be given the death penalty. He tried to declare himself innocent of Jesus’ blood (Mt. 27.24) – yet it had to be the Roman soldiers who put him to death. And in all the circumstances why did those soldiers have to tease and torment him as they did (vv. 27-31)?

How was Jesus in the midst of all this? Calm and serene. He didn’t get irritated or blow his top!

See him on the Cross! See him with the taunting crowds gathered to see the spectacle! “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing” (Luke 23.34). The remarkable and supreme example – “love is not irritable or resentful.”

See him there! Not only the victim of injustice but undergoing the most cruel form of capital punishment ever devised! Suffering intense pain, he says to the repentant criminal dying alongside him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise" (v. 43). He sees his mother near the Cross and the beloved John close by. “Dear woman, here is your son!” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother!" (John 19.26,27).

Have you got that extraordinary quality of love? Breathtaking, isn’t it? We haven’t the resources for that kind of love just in ourselves. Of course, most of us aren’t called on to undergo that degree of suffering, but this only highlights all the more our all-too-easy irritability and resentment.

Peter writes of Jesus’ suffering, “By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2.24). This is the key, for there is healing and a renewal of love for us in him.

PRAYER: Dear Father, I react with irritation and resentment so easily and so quickly. As I see the patient suffering of Jesus, his loving concern for others even in extreme circumstances, I am ashamed of myself. Forgive me, too, Lord, and heal me in Jesus. Amen.

Healing and Life

Bit by bit

we kill ourselves

as we allow

irritation

and resentment

to poison

mind and body.

But on the Cross

the Son of Love

allowed bitter resentment

to do its worst.

Here we are healed.

Does not Delight in Evil, but Rejoices with the Truth

Reading: Acts 9.26-30

As we think about today’s reading, we realise the extremely difficult position in which the new Christian convert, Saul of Tarsus, found himself. He could expect no friendly welcome from his old associates. Yet, on the other hand, trying to associate with the disciples of Jesus, he found them understandably cautious – was he genuine? or was this some new trick of the arch-persecutor of Christians?

I wonder if Paul remembered his own experience when he later wrote, “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth” (1 Corinthians 13.6), or, as another translation puts it, “Love does not gloat over other men's sins, but delights in the truth” (N.E.B.).

I’m not suggesting, of course, that the Christians were at all happy about Saul’s earlier violence. But this had become for them the truth about Saul. They knew how to react to him. If, as true Christians, they learnt to love their enemy, they apparently had no thought that his attitudes and life might change – partly through the quality of Christian living that he saw!

There aren’t really many people in the community who are pleased about evil. But there is a lot of gossip that goes around. This often aims at satisfying our own sense of goodness. And if we can see that someone else is wrong, it so easily boosts our own sense of being right. Because of this, we can secretly not really want someone else to change, or, if they do, we want it to be in a way that shows that we were right and they were wrong.

But here is Saul, having gone out with hate and bitterness toward followers of the Way, having discovered that Jesus is alive and been changed by the healing and renewing love of God! Here is Saul, coming back, not for an I-told-you-so, but for Christian love and fellowship!

“Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.”

What is the truth? That’s like the question Pilate asked Jesus (John 18.38). For Pilate, truth was the evidence that might ultimately prove the guilt or innocence of the accused. It was something to be sought by sifting through the evidence given, which may well be distorted or false. The truth might be kind, but it could also be cruel and unpalatable; it might be encouraging, but it could be crushing and depressing. But Pilate recognised that Jesus was talking about Truth in the absolute.

The Truth, finally and absolutely, is to be found in God, his character and purposes for this world, his saving acts and his Kingdom established in the hearts and lives of people. In one sense, God's Law, condemning human sin, gives us the solemn truth about our human condition, yet finally the Truth is only clearly and fully seen when we are saved, forgiven, renewed in Christ (note John 1.17).

Some people seem to delight in meting out “the bitter truth” about others – but this isn’t love.

I believe we need to be not only honestly realistic about people as we find them, but open to the truth of God’s potential for them. In the light of this awareness, we must always be lovingly prayerful and prayerfully loving towards them.

PRAYER: Eternal Lord, forgive me the half-truths I believe and live with. Forgive me for the pleasure I have when someone else is wrong. Forgive me for my unwillingness to see my own mistakes. Forgive me that I fail to see that I myself and others too can only reach the truth that your love plans for us in Jesus, Amen.

The Love of God

The Love of God

creating

the world

with purposeful

loveliness

with order

and rhythm

with people

of intelligence

made capable

of responding

to the Presence

and Love of the Creator.

The Love of God

for the world of people

gone astray

in rejection and hate.

The Love of God

poured out

in a Person

in a Life

in a Death

engineered

by those who cared not

yet given for them.

The Love of God

and the risen Lord

reaching out

to the world

through the love

who have been found

and have found in him

their life.

Always Protects, Trusts, Hopes, Perseveres

Reading: 1 John 4.7-12

Life places great pressures on all of us. The quality of love is seen in these testings – whether it is really the quest for self-satisfaction or true self-giving love.

An English businessman visited a mission hospital for lepers in India. He was deeply impressed by the nurse’s loving care for the suffering and repulsive-looking patients.

“Your humanitarian sentiment and sacrificial service for these outcasts are praiseworthy indeed,” he said.

“I can assure you, sir, that if my continuance here was based only on humanitarian sentiments, I would not have the will to carry on. I would leave before nightfall. The constraining love of Christ enables me to carry on day by day.”

Paul wrote that love “always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” (1 Corinthians 13.7).

Love always protects – it throws a cloak of silence over what is displeasing in another person. We tend to be rather good at protecting ourselves in our own failures and disappointments. But what about the weaknesses and needs of someone else? In the previous study we noted, “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth” (v. 6). Love, remember, is not self-centred, but other-centred.

In other words, love is supportive of others where they are weak. Far from delighting in their weakness, love comes in at that very point to bring support and strength. Far from delighting in someone else’s failure or sin, love brings forgiveness, hope and healing.

Peter wrote to Christians facing persecution, “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4.8).

Peter no doubt remembered the occasion when he thought that to forgive his brother seven times was generous. But in this, as we note further in the next study, he had failed to measure the greatness of God’s love and forgiveness towards him – and what was now required of his love (Matthew 18.21-35).

Love always protects – but not in the passive sense of patient endurance or mild acquiescence, not covering up and pretending there is no problem, but positively bringing forgiveness, hope and healing.

Love always trusts. This doesn't mean that love is gullible, easily tricked, but that love never loses faith. It is for this reason that love is prepared to give the benefit of the doubt.

As noted previously, it is the truth of God's plan for a person that love must keep in focus. John tells us, “But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew everyone. He did not need anyone’s testimony about people, for he knew what was in them” (John 2.24-25).

Jesus was no fool. Yet he always trusted. He lived out his life with positive faith – not fear – even though what was in people took him to the Cross. In his love, he believed in us enough to die for us so that God’s good purpose could begin to come about in us.

This is surely why love always hopes and why love perseveres in loving no matter what hardship or rebuff it may be called on to endure.

One writer notes, “The thought is not that of an unreasoning optimism, which fails to take account of reality. It is rather a refusal to take failure as final.”

What is this love that always protects, trusts, hopes, perseveres? “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4.10). The love of God for us in Christ is both the inspiration and source of our love.

“Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (v. 11).

PRAYER: Dear Lord, you are Love. You have loved us in Jesus. True love comes from you. Give me true love, Lord - the love that does not tire, the love that renews and heals. For Jesus' sake, Amen.

Islands

The mountain top

and early morn.

The valley

filled with mist

a radiant sea of white.

The other mountain tops

were islands

rising

from the ocean floor

basking

in the morning.

But as I watched,

the sea of white

began to fade

so I could see

trees and rocks,

a house or two,

and green pasture.

The mist was gone,

the day began.

And are we islands,

or do we need

the radiant Sun of Love

to clear the mists

that hide

our common humanity?

Never Failing

Reading: Matthew 18.21-25

The person who says, “If you do that, I won’t love you any more,” hasn’t really grasped what love is all about. Their view of love is essentially selfish.

Paul wrote, “Love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13.8).

Peter came to Jesus one day with a question, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” (Matthew 18.21) Peter evidently thought his offer was generous!

No, Jesus said, “not seven, but seventy-seven times (or seventy times seven)”. He went on to tell a story about a servant who was forgiven a debt equivalent to millions of dollars. But he was then unwilling to forgive a fellow-servant who owed him only a few dollars!

Jesus deliberately makes the first debt a staggering one, because he is stressing the greatness of God’s love and patience and forgiveness towards us. To refuse to love others is to reject his love, too. The quality of true love keeps on loving.

A Christian couple were engaged to be married. When World War II came, the young man enlisted. Letters telling of their ardent love were written daily. Then weeks passed without the young woman hearing from her fiance. In distress, she wrote to the War Department in Washington. While waiting for a reply, she received a letter which said, “There has been another terrible battle, and I have lost both of my arms. My chaplain is writing this letter for me. Because of what has happened to me, I tearfully release you from our engagement.”

The noble girl didn’t write an answer. She immediately flew to the distant hospital to see her fiancé. There was a touching scene at his bedside when she said, “I love you devotedly. I will never give you up. We will face life together and live for God and for each other.”

In the Song of Solomon it is written, “Love is strong as death… Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away” (8.6,7).

As Paul put it, “Love never fails.”

At the beginning of his hymn of love, Paul spoke of the utter futility of eloquent or ecstatic speech, of prophecy, of knowledge, of faith, of sacrificial works – without love.

Now he emphasises that it is love that outlasts prophecy, tongues and knowledge.

Prophecy is imperfect, incomplete. It looks forward to a fulfilment. When the promised event has happened, the prophetic work is complete. It only stands on as a continuing witness to the faithfulness and love of God.

This is how we view the prophecies that looked forward to Christ – our focus now is not on them but on him. And when all of God’s purposes for this world are finally complete and God sums up all things in his Son, there will be no further use for prophecy.

Tongues will be stilled. The Corinthians thought themselves to be especially spiritually-gifted – they saw the gift of tongues as proof of this. But human rhetoric and spiritual eloquence alike will be silenced in the direct presence of God.

Confronted with Reality, face-to-face with God himself, our human claims to knowledge will pass away.

The school boy of ten thought his father was very ignorant. But when he was twenty, it seemed to him that his father must have learnt a lot in the past ten years!

Yet as a race, we have become intellectually arrogant – we think we know it all. But what we know is but as a poor mirror reflection compared with the full realisation of the Truth in God’s presence.

“Love never fails.” It is the character of God himself. We see it in all his dealings with us. May he help us to begin to have that depth of love, too.

PRAYER: Father, your love never fails; my love is weak and small. I need your kind of love in all my relationships. I need you, Father, to live and love within me and through me. Be with me, I pray, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

The Way

To become

and to be

what,

inside me,

I ought to be

and was always

meant to be.

To achieve

and to know

happiness,

contentment

and peace.

To find

and to be found

by my Creator

and to know his plan,

and, knowing it,

know life

and joy.

To live,

to love,

to give,

to serve

the one

who gave his all

that I might live

and be

what I was always

meant to be.

Greater than Faith and Hope

Reading: Matthew 25.31-36

In our second study we thought of the bright young lawyer – “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 10.25). He knew that he should love God and neighbour – but what was involved in practice? was there some programme, some set of rules he could follow?

I guess this is so with many of us. It is easier to talk of doing this or that than to get down to actually loving people. And, as Paul reminded us at the beginning of his chapter on love, the things we do don’t finally count for so very much if we don’t have love.

This is why Jesus chose the illustration he did. As the Jews thought of loving, it would have been a very “anyone-other-than-this-Samaritan” attitude. Do you feel like that about anyone? Perhaps this might be your learning-ground for true love. But it will drive you to your knees, as you sense the inadequacy of your own love and your need of the One whose Love knows no bounds.

Paul sums up his chapter of love, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13.13).

In today’s reading, Jesus paints a picture of the last judgment. There is the Son of Man in glory to judge the peoples of the world. On what basis does he divide them, putting some on the left and some on the right?

Superficially, some might say it is to be on the basis of how good they have been. But, what a minute, what was the key to the question of the lawyer, “What must I do…?” And what was the answer of Jesus on another occasion to the questioner who asked which was the great commandment in the Law (Matthew 22.34-40)? Love. Would we not expect to find the requirement of love at the heart of this judgment?

So in fact it is. Those described as righteous are not conscious of having performed meritorious works, whereas those described as “cursed” appear to be quite convinced that they, at least, deserve a place!

The truer the expression of love, the less self-conscious it will be of the true greatness of its service. Such love can only come to us as we constantly come to the God who is the only source of true love – God who is Love.

Yes, Paul tells us, faith and hope have their place in the final realities of Heaven, the things that ultimately remain when all else has passed. There will be new objects of trust and desire within the widening experience of life eternal.

But Love, both in this life and beyond, is the greatest of the three. Love is the character of God himself. It is the fulfilment of all that faith may endeavour or hope anticipate. It is love alone that gives value to human effort and meaning to human life.

So then, “these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

A group of Christian folk were discussing different Bible translations. Some preferred the literary eloquence of the King James, others the clarity of the more recent translations. One member of the group, who had been listening silently, added, “I like my mother’s version best – she’s translated it into life!”

We can’t do without translations into our own language. But how we need, each of us, a life-translation of God’s Word! How especially is this true as we think of this grand chapter of love that we have been studying together!

Significantly, Paul begins his next chapter, “Follow the way of love…” (1 Corinthians 14.1). But remember - we can only do this through the God of Love!

PRAYER: God of Love, my Father, so little of true love is in me, your child. Make me new. Let your character of love be found in me. For the sake of your Son Jesus, in whom alone your love has been completely lived in this world, Amen.

Full but Empty

The world is full –

the tongues of men and angels,

prophets of doom and hope,

people of science and knowledge,

of integrity and cleverness,

materialists

and philanthropists.

This world is starved

for love.

The values of this age

will crumble

and decay.

Only Love –

the eternal Love of God

abides

forever.