Without Love We have Nothing

Without love we have nothing. We often get caught up in the details of faith and pass over the most basic teachings of scripture.

Any discussion of Christian ethics or Christian living must be concerned with love. If we have right teaching but lack love we have nothing.

If we truly love God and love others all else will fall into place.

Speaking the Truth

The task of a servant of God is to speak the truth. Having love and compassion when speaking the truth is important, but we must remember the truth is often unpopular.

Living out our faith and speaking the truth in love is not always easy. We are not divisive when we speak truth in love in the church.

The divisive theologian wishes to keep the peace at all times. To steer away from any conflict at all costs. Often the most divisive people in the church are mistaken as peacemakers.

A true Christian peacemaker cares for the truth. To seek peace at all times regardless of truth is not Christian.

The Top 10 Articles of 2015

As 2015 will soon come to a close, it's time to look back at the articles that sparked the most interest in 2015. The list below starts with the most popular article and is based on unique page views:

1. "Why I am Post-Reformed" by Danny Dowell
2. "Grace which Moves" by Danny
3. "Why Christianity" by Danny
4. "God's Consistent Nearness to the Christian" by Michelle Dowell
5. "Numbers and Names" by Danny
6. "Love as Debt" by Danny
7. "Unpredictability of Life" by Michelle
8. "6 Articles on Grace" by Michelle
9. "Trusting the Goodness of God" by Danny
10. "Keeping Focus in Christianity" by Danny

Thanks for visiting the blog this year!

Living Out Our Faith

As Christians we are called to live out our faith. It is easy to become overly interested what living our our faith entail. It as as if living our our faith is a complicated formula we must figure out before we begin to live out our faith.

The reality is that if we are seeking to love God we often are best suited by simply acting on opportunities which exist around us. It is not that thinking about living out of faith is of no use. Thinking about living out our faith is often of use, but often we spend so much time thinking about living out our faith that we fail to act.

If we truly seek to live out our faith we should not hesitate to grasp the opportunities which present themselves around us. Questions of if the opportunities are the best fit for us are often of little use.

God uses those of willing hearts. It is ultimately not us, but God who brings success to us as we work out our faith in the world.

The Spirit of the Law

The spirit of the law always trumps the letter of the law. When Jesus entered the world he experienced difficulty at every turn for following the true intent of God's law.

Our sinful nature likes simple answers. We want everything to be yes or no.

We do not want a call to wisdom. A call to judge rightly. A call to place others before ourselves.

That is why legalism delights in simple answers. Simple answers avoid responsibility because they allow for infinite outs.

This is the persons own fault so I have no need to intervene is the response of the sinful heart. Maybe it is true that something is a persons fault. And maybe we should not intervene, but maybe we should.

You see the bible does not allow us to so easily shirk our responsibility as legalism does. It calls us to view all things in light of the love for God and love for our neighbor.

What is ethical is placed in the higher light of true real love. In the face of real true love cliche easy answers are no longer possible.

That is why the biblical path of wisdom often falls out of fashion. Thinking and using discernment do not allow the easy shirking of the will of God that legalism provides.

As St. Augustine said: Love God and do what you please. If we truly love God we cannot go much wrong.

Philosophical Excuses

I recently read an argument from a very wealthy person on how they had no more responsibility to help the poor than anyone else. Many interesting arguments have been written against responsibility of this or that type in recent days.

Christianity cuts to the core of the issue. The human heart is bad. Many arguments crafted by great intellectuals fail at this point. The motive is bad.

If we are not required to help others than we don't want to. You see this is the complete opposite of the intent of God.

God calls mankind into faith with himself and then asks that they seek to bless the world. God does not intend for mankind to sit and ask if inaction is permissible.

Christian love seeks what is right, loving, and true. It does not sit and ask is it ethically permissible to do nothing?

God cuts to the bottom of our human condition. We are to like Jesus who actively sought to help those in need at each moment. The question for the Christian is how we express love actively in the world, not whether it is ethical to do nothing.

Theological Discussion Is a Dialogue

Theological discussion requires dialogue.  This sentence in some sense seems not worth stating or writing about.  Discussion is dialogue by definition.

Too often, however, our sinful condition turns theological discussion [or discussion of any kind] into multiple monologues which alternate.

Any discussion of theology requires listening.  If we cannot listen we cannot discuss.  We can of course state our own views without listening.  Even if our views are entirely right we have not really discussed anything if we have not listened.

Really good discussion takes time.  Too often we find it expedient to not spend time to actually listen and understand.  Of course any time saved in this way tends to be wasted time  because it leads to unnecessary misunderstanding and later issues.

At times I believe that theological discussions are rushed for lack of time.  They would be better served to be tabled until there is actually time to discuss the matters at hand.

Dialogue always involves speaking to others, not at others.  Christian dialogue should be characterized by love.  Love  requires special concern about others and we cannot dialogue in love without listening and understanding.

A Selective Biblicism

Often we see a selective use of the bible in churches or Christian's lives. I had experiences with a Christian which caused me to end our relationship.

His response to me was that we should follow the teaching of God and work things out and reconcile. He went on to tell me how I was completely in the wrong on all points and that I needed to accept that everything between us was my fault.

The spirit of the response was in fact the entire reason the relationship had ended. There was no working through things between us. He was always right and I was always wrong (in his view).

The issue aside there is a spirit of biblical principle which is being selectively used. We can of course work things out in the spirit of God seeking understanding and dialogue but we cannot work things out if the person "seeking dialogue" and "reconciliation" is really simply looking to get our way.

It is often like this in life that we find people adopt or reject parts of scripture as it suits them. Scripture is often inconvenient. Living in love and seeking dialogue takes time. True biblical living requires us at times to question ourselves and our motives. It takes time to live out our faith.

God knows that we have failed and will fail and loves us anyway. It is Jesus' perfect life that God counts as our holiness.

Being Winsomely Correct

Often in theology we can be correct without being winsomely correct. Our theology should not only seek to be correct, but our theology should seek to benefit others.

Often theologians can be at fault for being too concerned with technical details than the spirit of theology. As scripture tells if we lack love we have nothing.

Theology must always be done in a spirit of love and with a loving concern for others. Theology which aims to be correct, but does not aim to be winsome, or have concern for others, is not Christian theology.

Easter is about the Other

Easter is about others. It is easy to think that that means family, but that is not what I mean.

Of course we should have great concern about family. If all is not right with family that is the first priority we should have.

Family is an extension of ourselves. Loving our families of absolutely critical, but it falls short of loving others, since it can easily be an expression of self love.

Easter is about loving others. Loving the unsaved. Loving our enemies.

Easter is about eternity and judging everything through the vantage point of eternity. And remembering that we cannot truly love those if we do not care about them in the broad picture of life.

Love in Friendship

Friendship is more than certain activities or gifts. Card giving, calls, and remembering things about a friend's life are often what people think of as actions that create or maintain friendships.

It's true that these can help a friendship, but they are not what makes up the friendship. If these are done without love, they are empty, and not really helping the friendship. If a friend senses they're only done out of a to-do list, it'll feel empty.

1 Corinthians 13 says if there is no love behind or motivating these actions, these actions are really nothing of worth. Every person desires to be known and truly accepted, and these actions don't necessarily mean that is happening in the friend's heart.

All of those actions I mentioned are good, but only when they are honest actions, produced or motivated out of love.

This also applies to how we approach God. We should aim to get past only focusing on a list of actions to do, and aim to do things more out of a sense of wanting to truly know God and accept his Word.

The Strength of Love

A woman mentioned her top goal was to be a good friend, wife, and mother. She could have picked from a number of things to pursue, but the one she's choosing to focus on is doing good for those closest to her. To be a good friend, wife, and mother is to love them. Love produces action.

I liked this woman's top goal, because she could have chose anything but she chose this. Her goal could have been her career growth or learning or vacationing or fame or awards. Or she could've not had one top goal but tried to gain all of these at once, which seems to be most people's way. But what mattered most to her was showing love to those closest to her.

The reason that this seems so powerful is stated in 1 Corinthians 13. Love is so powerful, and without it, actions and knowledge are meaningless.

If love is so strong and powerful, and if the two greatest commands include them, then this should always be part of our goals in life.

The first two words after 1 Corinthians 13 are "Pursue love" (ESV). When we plan for goals for next year or even what to do for today, let's remember those two words.

Christian Debate

Debate is only useful when both parties in the debate seek truth. Too often in debate the involved parties are not in dialogue but rather just jabbing at each other.

True debate requires understanding the position of the person you are debating with. I often have found myself among like minded people telling them they are not fair in their criticisms of other positions.

It is often that we will not agree with a position, but most frequently most of the criticisms of positions we hear are unfair and frankly untrue. In the current day we cut corners in debate. It is easier to throw mud than to do the hard work of explaining why an opposing position is wrong. Why this is important is that we are called to be people of love.

If we wish to live out our faith we need to enter debates in a spirit of love. Sometimes it may mean respectfully leaving a debate where people are more interested in mudslinging than truth.

Always as Christians we should be mindful that how we debate is as important as what we say when we debate. I believe a respectful tone of debate is not only Christian but also enhances our message.

Love often Fails

It is often that love fails. It fails in the sense that it is driven back and there is no hope of success. Often you see an optimism that love always prevails, but the reality of scripture is that love does not always succeed.

Many of the prophets of God where driven back and failed in a sense as they taught love. They did not fail in their righteous living but love is often driven back by evil. God does not always allow love to prevail over evil in this life.

At times love may need a strategical retreat. You find a number of instances in the bible where the bible teaches that we should remove ourselves from situations rather than continue.

Love is an active power for good in the world, but we need to have wisdom. Love will not always prevail and at times love should retreat to a safe distance. There are hopeless battles and while we should not presuppose any battle is hopeless it can quickly become apparent that some battles cannot be won.

In the Christian life we often need to use wisdom or seek wisdom in prayer. At times attempted "love" that ignores the facts of situations can be more harmful than completely ignoring the situations present.

Relationship and The Tally

Most relationships in which a tally is kept to see who owes who this or that are doomed to failure. True relationships while mutual are good because they are mutually desired and not a transaction of a favor for a favor.

It is often that the modern scheme of networking for advancement has the affect of creating a massive number of relationships of no meaning. The relationships mean something only in so far as their utility or perceived potential utility.

True relationships are not based upon utility but rather love. Love is of course a Christian virtue while relationships based on utility is a virtue of the world in every age.

Love does not keep a tally. If love did keep a tally it would not care that there are those who one cares about who will surely default in a sense of equal utility.

You see this act of kindness which is done with an expectation of a return act of kindness is a worldly virtue and not a Christian one. In Christian virtue kindness is often given with no expectation of return.

Introverts

Christians should be accepting and respectful of traits of introverts. Christianity is one where love for others is very important, and loving others includes allowing others to pursue what they enjoy.

Often people in their excitement to get a group at church going expect everyone to come to large groups and enjoy it. An introvert might not. Being in a big group is usually not fun to introverts. It's often exhausting: It's too much information all at once—an introvert loves to think about each idea, and often feels exhausted after large group meetings and parties where hundreds of ideas are thrown out there.

Even worse is if a person looks down on someone, or if a person is hard on themself, for not constantly going to events and parties, when really it's very often a matter of indifference. There is more than one way to get to know people, and being in a large group doesn't have to be the only option.

A person might look down on an introvert assuming that introverts don't care about people. But that's not true. When introverts are not with people they still like to think deeply about people and life and things. Talking with close friends is something they love.

If a person doesn't go to your event, the reason most likely is not that they don't like you or people. They just might not prefer being in a large group setting at that time. You might love the topic of the event or love being around lots of people at once. And that is good and fine, but you can't expect others to have the same preferences as you. Introverts at times do want to venture into large groups—it's a great way to meet people who might become close friends, something introverts love—so it's worth inviting them. But expecting them always to come isn't good.

6 Posts on Loving Others

Post by
Michelle Dowell, Contributor

The topic of loving others includes some of the most important things in life: family, friends, and evangelism. Here are six posts describing what loving others looks like:

1. Love Is Active. Love compels us to act.

2. Love for Others. "Love for others includes caring about what they care about."

3. How To Help a Friend in Need. I write about the best way to show love to others when they are in a time of need.

4. Love as the Apologetic. "One of the few truly interesting apologetics Christians have is love. Love in the Christian sense is interesting because it is so counter cultural to the world."

5. True Love is Unconditional. "True love is unconditional. Often we find in the world and church love which has a condition."

6. Liberty in the Christian Life. "... Love also does not insist on its own way. We might prefer certain things in the the church be this way or that way, but we cannot insist on preference or infringe upon the liberty of others because certain things displease us."

Watch for more posts on this topic in the future.

An Essential Part of Love - The Need for Boundaries

Post by
Michelle Dowell, Co-Contributor

When Jesus tells us to love everyone, that means and includes respect, and one important part of respect is relational boundaries.

Some Christians believe that everyone should share every detail of their life with other Christians. A person who is okay with sharing everything about their life sometimes will pry into another person's life, possibly not realizing that each person has preferences on that and that should be respected.

It could be the over-realized eschatology that has seeped into some popular Christian thinking. If people think that everyone is perfect here and now, then if someone shares some sad part of their life or past that the other people won't judge or be weird about it. But that's the thing. Christians still judge, gossip, and aren't nice about things at times. We are all sinners the Bible says. And it's not until we are in heaven that we aren't sinners.

So it's wise for people to be careful about what they share and who they share it with, even if the person they are considering sharing details with is a Christian. It helps protect from unhelpful and sometimes relationally damaging judgement and gossip from happening.

I've heard someone say that sharing every detail with others helps others and the community realize that life and people are not perfect. They hear not perfect things in other people's life and therefore know that they are okay--bad things happen to everyone. However, there are many other ways to see and know that the world is not perfect. It doesn't have to come through "over-sharing."

We can still trust people and other Christians--it's just that trust should grow over time. Just like trusting people with job responsibilities. You trust them with little, and how they take care of little determines if you can trust them with more. And the nature of time is that we only have time to invest deeply in a small amount of relationships, so we don't have the time to develop deep relationships with everyone. Just because two people are Christians doesn't mean they automatically or will eventually be best friends. Each person is created with unique likes and a unique personality.

Good Theology Includes People

Post by
Michelle Dowell, Contributor

A theology so focused on the knowledge of God that it disregards people, including self, is missing a great deal. Throughout the Bible God interacts with people, he cares about them, and wishes for their true happiness. God's desire is for people to thrive.

It's important that we don't forget about people in need locally and throughout the world. We don't need to focus on it but if we have time or some money to help, our heart should aim for that. If we don't have that, we can pray to have that heart, a heart like Christ's.

Some people focus so much on doing what they view as the right thing for people ("I must be involved with this church group or do this church activity") they mostly just go through the motions of interacting with people. They don't have a true, genuine love for people, where they start to truly know the person, they just have a feeling of obligation to be with people because that's what is expected. At times we should go to or do things we need to go to or do when we aren't feeling it, but we should truly aim to have our hearts in what we choose to do, and pray and work on over time loving more.

Truly caring about someone means taking time to get to know them and remember, and wish for their best. Getting to know someone doesn't mean asking 10 questions in a row. It's over time just being with the person and noticing things about them.

The mark of a Christian is love. Many people may nod in agreement with this but think love is simply following a set of expectations or rules. Genuine, true love involves the heart and really cares. If a person always just follows rules, then he or she cares about following the rule and not loving the person (maybe for the pride of doing it or only being concerned about obeying one rule instead of God's commands to obey and love people).

Omission (Poem)

Righteousness is lacking all around.

It is not what is done.

But what is not done.

In many places the cross is not preached.

In many places the poor are cared for no more.

Maybe we have been careful to do no harm.

Careful to break no law or be seen doing no wrong.

But have we lived out love?

Or has love gone undone?