Let Love Be Genuine - Romans 12:9

            In our families, in our churches, in the world, each of us has a job to do, which is unique to us. To do that job God has given each of us a supply of time, talents, gifts, and energy. There are many jobs. Paul wrote that there are varieties of gifts, varieties of service and varieties of activities. Each has been given “for the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:4-7). All should be practiced as each is able. None of us will be exactly like another in what we do. But there is One Thing, one most important thing, which everyone must practice, which everyone must do. That One Thing is Love.

            In my last post I showed that Love is the most important thing for the Christian, for every Christian. Jesus said that love for God and love for others was the sum of all the commandments (Matthew 22:36-40). He also said that the One Thing that shows that a person is his disciple is that he loves others (John 13:34-35). Paul wrote that without love we are nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). And, when Paul went from theology to practical application for Christian living he began, characteristically, with love (Romans 12:9). In this post I begin to explore how that kind of love ought to work out in our relationships with others.

As many have pointed out, love may be the most over used word in language. We love our favorite food, love our music, and love the weather, sometimes. Used like this love connotes “things that appeal to my personal tastes.”

            But, we also love our family, love our friends and love our country. Used this way love means something different. This is the kind of love that, while it certainly involves our preferences, also moves us to work, even sacrifice, for the good of others.

            What is it that Paul means when he says that followers of Jesus must love one another?

            Surprisingly, he never defines love. Rather, he describes it. He lists things that love is and in that way gives a picture of what love in action looks like. The first thing that Paul says about love in Romans 12:9 is that it must be genuine.

The Greek word that is translated here as genuine comes from the same word that gives us the English word hypocritical. It’s a word that comes from the theater. In Paul’s time actors used masks to show their character’s emotional state. If the script called for a character to be happy, the actor put on a happy mask. If the character was supposed to be sad the actor put on a sad mask. To be hypocritical was to wear a mask and play a part.

Love, according to Paul, must not wear a mask. Love must not be a part we play. Love must not be hypocritical. Love must be real. He is saying, “Christian, do not act as though you love one another. Do not pretend to love one another. Really love!”

            Some translators use the word sincere here rather than genuine. Love must be sincere. Sincere comes from a Latin phrase, sine cera, which means without wax. In ancient times a common trick by less than scrupulous merchants to hide cracks in pottery was to fill the cracks with wax. They would next paint over the now disguised crack and then sell the piece as if it was whole and unbroken. But, it was a fake. To counter this practice, honest merchants often stamped their good pots sine cera – without wax, not a fake. It was the genuine article.

            Our love for one another must be sine cera, not fake. It must be the real deal.

So, what is genuine love? What does it look like? Perhaps the best place to go to understand genuine love is 1 Corinthians 13, the famous love chapter. In that chapter Paul makes 15 statements about love. James Montgomery Boice, the former pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, in one his commentaries, helpfully listed and explained each one.

1.     Love is patient. People are not easy to love. Boice wrote that “people are difficult, exasperating and slow.” Love waits, love endures, love seeks to understand.

2.     Love is kind. Scottish theologian Ian Maclaren said, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” Boice wrote “The world is filled with hurting, suffering people. Love knows this and does what it can to help.”

3.     Love does not envy. Following the first two positives there are eight negatives. The first of the things that love is not, or does not, is envy. Love is happy for others when they get good things. “This is because love knows God and is content with the life God has given. Only a believer can be truly happy when others are preferred before himself.”

4.     Love does not boast. Boice wrote, “The world is filled with boasters, people who in one way or another are calling attention to who they are, how important they are, and how much they have achieved. Love does not do this.” He quotes Ronald Reagan who said, “There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.”

5.     Love is not proud. Humility is the contrary of pride. “Love does not have inflated ideas of itself. Love is gracious.” Love puts others first.

6.     Love is not rude. Boice wrote, “The opposite of rudeness is courtesy, and love has good manners.” Good manners show that we are thoughtful of and care about others. A lack of manners reveals self-centeredness. Love treats others well, because …

7.     Love is not self-seeking. “The world looks at somethings and asks, ‘What’s in it for me?’” Love doesn’t do that because “love thinks [first] of the one it loves.” Boice remarked, “Jesus did not seek his own advantage when he came to earth to save us. Rather, he ‘made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant…he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross’ (Philippians 2:7-8).”

8.     Love is not easily angered. Nothing is as damaging to relationships, homes, communities and churches as anger. Boice wrote, “Love does not have a short fuse. It is not irritable, not easily provoked. It is not touchy. Love is patient and kind.”

9.     Love keeps no record of wrongs. “Some people have a knack for bringing up mistakes we have made and wounds we have inflicted even decades afterwards.” Not so love. “Love forgets these wrongs….It is not resentful. It is not vindictive.”

10.  Love does not delight in evil.  God is good and God loves what is good. So should his disciples. In Romans 12:9 the next thing that Paul said about love, after saying that it must be genuine, is that it “hates what is evil but clings to what is good.” Boice wrote, “love does not find trash intriguing….dishonest schemes do not please it. Love hates wickedness.”

11.  Love rejoices in the truth. This statement is connected to the previous one about love not delighting in evil. It shows that the evil Paul was thinking of is mainly the evil that lies and deceives. “Love loves truth, above all the truth that is God’s.”

12.  Love always protects. Now Paul comes to four things that love always does. First, it always protects other people, especially those that need protecting the most. “It sides with the weak. It rallies around the one who has been oppressed, attacked, abused, hurt, slandered or otherwise made a victim.”

13.  Love always trusts. Boice wrote that while love is not stupid or gullible, it does “always think the best.” Love does not default to being suspicious of others, questioning their motives and assuming the worst. Rather, love encourages and says “I believe in you.”

14.  Love always hopes. “Love does not stop loving because it is not loved in return.” Love keeps on looking for the best, love keeps on forgiving. “Love forgives not once or even seven times, but seventy times seven. Love is not even counting.”

15.  Love always perseveres. Boice wrote, “Love never gives up. It is unconquerable, indomitable. Love can outlast hate and evil and indifference. Love can outlast anything.” Boice quoted his predecessor at Tenth Presbyterian, Donald Grey Barnhouse: “It is…the one thing that stands after all else has fallen.”

That’s what sincere, genuine love is. That’s what is to mark our relations with one another. How do you feel after reading that list? Energized and excited to go out there and show the world your commitment to Jesus by the way you love others? Or, do you feel overwhelmed and discouraged because it seems daunting to even think about putting that kind of love into practice? I usually feel more like the latter than the former.

“I can’t do that,” I think. “I can’t love others like that.” And the truth is, I can’t. And neither can you. Which, of course, is part of Paul’s point. If we are a disciple of Jesus, we must do these things, but we can’t do these things. Which is why he began this chapter, “In view of God’s mercies…”

In my next post I’ll consider how God’s mercies make us able to love others in ways we otherwise would never be able to do.

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The Christian's Most Important Thing

               Most successful people and organizations have a laser-like focus on accomplishing their most important thing. Stephen Covey has famously said, “The main thing is to keep the main the main thing.” In his book The One Thing, Gary Keller wrote, “Big success comes when we do a few things well.”

                For Christians to be “successful,” is there One Thing that ought to be our object of a laser-like focus? Out of all the things we could do, is there One Thing that we must do? Is there One Thing that if we fail to do it, the rest doesn’t really matter? I think there is One Thing and that One Thing is love.

                I’ve never counted for myself, but I’ve read many times that there are 613 commandments in the Old Testament. When Jesus was asked which one of these 613 was the greatest, the most important, commandment, he replied: “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 the first commandment.” But he didn’t stop there. He continued, “And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love God. Love others. Then Jesus said something really profound. He said, “On these two commandments depend all the Law and Prophets.” (Matthew 22:36-40).

                Do you see what makes that statement so profound? If all the Law and the Prophets, in other words, all the other 611 Old Testament commandments depend on love for God and love for others then that means that all the other commandments must be built on a foundation of love. Obedience to the other commandments must be shaped by love. Every thought, every action, done out of obedience to God’s commandments must first of all manifest love. Or to put it another way, without love, obedience falls short of God’s purposes, every time. That sounds a lot like what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13. He said that obedience without love gains nothing and is nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).

                Henry Drummond, a 19^th Century evangelist from Scotland, wrote an essay called “The Greatest Thing in the World” in which he considered the Ten Commandments informed by love:

Take any of the commandments. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” If a man love God, you will not have to tell him that. Love is the fulfilling of that law. “Take not his name in vain.” Would he ever dream of taking his name in vain if he loved him? “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” Would he not be too glad to have one day in seven to dedicate more exclusively to the object of his affection? Love would fulfill all these laws regarding God. And so, if he loved man, you would never think of telling him to honor his father and mother. He could not do anything else. It would be preposterous to tell him not to kill. You could only insult him if you suggested that he should not steal—how could he steal from those he loved? It would be superfluous to beg him not to bear false witness against his neighbor. If he loved him, it would be the last thing he would do. And you would never dream of urging him not to covet what his neighbor had. He would rather they possessed it than himself. In this way, “Love is the fulfilling of the law.” It is the rule for fulfilling all rules, the new commandment for keeping all the old commandments, Christ’s one secret to the Christian life.” (Henry Drummond, The Greatest Thing in the World, and other selected essays, ed. William R. Webb, Kansas City, MO.; Halmark Editions, 1967, pp 10 – 11.)

                It is also striking that Jesus elevates love as the One Thing that marks people as disciples. How will others know that we are his disciple? It is not great preaching. It is not correct doctrine. It is not building large congregations. It is not dynamic evangelism. It is not doing good and helping others. It is not even, what I would have guessed, right worship. All these things are good and even necessary, but the One Thing that shows that a person is a disciple, that he or she belongs to Jesus, is love. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).

                It is no surprise then that when Paul came in his letter to the Romans to write about the characteristics of an authentic Christian life he started with love.

                The first 11 chapters of Romans are about doctrine. Paul carefully lays out what the Christian ought to believe. God exists, things in the world are very wrong and people are under his wrath (Chapters 1 – 2). All have sinned and are separated from God (Chapter 3). Being made right with God is a matter of faith (Chapter 4). While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Chapter 5). Though being born dead in Adam, we have been made alive in Christ (Chapters 6 – 7). There is now, therefore, no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus (Chapter 8). God calls all kinds of people to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, and is making one body of them all (Chapters 9 – 11).

Beginning with Chapter 12 Paul writes about the “so what?” If all that doctrine is true, then, so what? What every-day, where-life-really-happens, difference should it make in our lives? Verses 9 – 21 in Chapter 12 deal with very practical characteristics in our relations with others that must mark the life of a believer. You can probably guess which characteristic heads the list. Love!

 Love must be genuine. Abhor what is evil, cling to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor (Rom. 12:9-10).

Genuine love, informed by turning from evil and holding onto good, shown in family-like affection, that honors others above yourself – this is the first characteristic. When it comes to our relationships with others, it’s our One Thing. It’s the Christian’s most important thing.

In my next post I’ll explore love put into action in the Christian community.