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.
Showing posts with label others. Show all posts
Showing posts with label others. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Friday, May 30, 2014
Loving Others in Practical Things
One of the most essential elements of loving others is caring about what they care about. We cannot really love someone if we do not care about the things which are important to them.
Conversely it is also avoiding things which upset them. If we have a friend where something of little or no importance upsets them we cannot love them if we bring it up.
You see this is what it means to love others as we love ourselves. We care about the things we care about very deeply. Love to others entails caring about what those people care about.
We cannot always get deeply excited about what others enjoy. If a friend loves to fish and I do not then I may not be able to connect on that topic well. But it is the spirit of love to care about what others care about within reason.
At the very least we should not act as if the interests of others are inferior or pointless. You see there are many things which interest others that do not interest us simply because we are different.
Some people like this piece of music and some people do not. Some people prefer certain types of food and some do not. In the realm of preference love should at a minimum accept that certain interests of others that we see no point in are simply a difference in preference.
Often we see people make absolute statements about preference and actually think they are saying something absolutely true. This is against the spirit of love. It is also somewhat irrational to think our preferences toward non ethical issues in some way are absolute or more valid than others' preferences to the same non ethical things.
Conversely it is also avoiding things which upset them. If we have a friend where something of little or no importance upsets them we cannot love them if we bring it up.
You see this is what it means to love others as we love ourselves. We care about the things we care about very deeply. Love to others entails caring about what those people care about.
We cannot always get deeply excited about what others enjoy. If a friend loves to fish and I do not then I may not be able to connect on that topic well. But it is the spirit of love to care about what others care about within reason.
At the very least we should not act as if the interests of others are inferior or pointless. You see there are many things which interest others that do not interest us simply because we are different.
Some people like this piece of music and some people do not. Some people prefer certain types of food and some do not. In the realm of preference love should at a minimum accept that certain interests of others that we see no point in are simply a difference in preference.
Often we see people make absolute statements about preference and actually think they are saying something absolutely true. This is against the spirit of love. It is also somewhat irrational to think our preferences toward non ethical issues in some way are absolute or more valid than others' preferences to the same non ethical things.
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Charity in Communication
Charity in communication is an essential element of love. We must first understand what we disagree with before we can critique their position.
You see it is easy to misunderstand others and nothing is so quick to kill fellowship than getting someone's views wrong.
You often see prolonged discussions or arguments that could be avoided by simply explaining what we mean by a term. Other times people cause arguments by demanding that certain positions are incoherent.
You see a position can be coherent and wrong. We need not claim that people we disagree with have incoherent positions.
We certainly do not need to view those we disagree with as lacking intelligence. You see charity in communication is an essential element of love.
Getting others views right is a part of love. Disagreeing in the proper spirit is Christian.
Disagreeing in the improper spirit is not Christian even if we are correct. You see truth and love must go together. Truth without love is not Christian.
You see it is easy to misunderstand others and nothing is so quick to kill fellowship than getting someone's views wrong.
You often see prolonged discussions or arguments that could be avoided by simply explaining what we mean by a term. Other times people cause arguments by demanding that certain positions are incoherent.
You see a position can be coherent and wrong. We need not claim that people we disagree with have incoherent positions.
We certainly do not need to view those we disagree with as lacking intelligence. You see charity in communication is an essential element of love.
Getting others views right is a part of love. Disagreeing in the proper spirit is Christian.
Disagreeing in the improper spirit is not Christian even if we are correct. You see truth and love must go together. Truth without love is not Christian.
Sunday, February 2, 2014
The Church as a Body
"The church is only the church when it exists for others." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The quotation by Bonhoeffer is true by definition. This fact does not take away from the meaningfulness of the statement since it also clarifies the implicit.
The church is a body. Each person is a part in the body. You see that each person is not an island or on their own. There is a unity and cohesion.
When the church functions well each person is concerned for the other. Always we must have concern for ourselves as well, but we must also have concern for the other.
The concern for others flows from this that God had concern for us while we were his enemies. You see the radical nature that God wished to open up a relationship with estranged man and make him co-heirs with his son Jesus to the entire universe.
Often it is hard to want to give. I am tired, we think. Often we are tired because we are unfulfilled and have done nothing we consider of value. It is very surprising that sometimes our issues are much better after we have had concern for others.
Kierkegaard speaks of an inward orientation to fallen man. Man is ill in one sense because he cares to much about himself. In caring too much about himself he often harms himself emotionally.
It is never purposeful but always man on his own is miserable. You see man was meant for community. God who created man willed for man to be communal. In fellowship with God and other men.
But man on his own often would like to isolate from the world. The tendency is easy to understand. Many difficult things happen in community. Even small bad words or awkward situations are draining.
But man often responds worse by secluding himself. In seclusion he is often far worse than he was previously. You see that it is not good to be alone.
Man was alone in the garden with only God and it was not good. So man created woman. We often in life compound our problems by how we try to solve our problems.
The difficulty is that God has a lot of solutions which on the surface don't sound very good. We simply know that God is wrong or so we think. It is often with God the longer we think about his "wrong" solutions the more we see they are plausible.
After a while these plausibilities often become realized to be correct. The bible is always right even when we think it is wrong. Often we judge so quickly and move on.
You see there are better ways for man to live than he often does. Man has a tendency to trade short term pleasure for long term happiness. Man is very shortsighted at times.
God is more concerned about man’s real happiness. God sees the bigger picture and accordingly does not offer advice and commands which are only for the moment.
That an eternal God outside of time knows better than man is not surprising. Men often make strange objections to God's will as if the church has made up the idea of God being outside of time to explain things.
The reality is that they simply need to turn to Genesis. All of the universe was created out of nothing. You see God existed and then he created the universe out of scratch.
It is not the way people create a pie out of "scratch" using some base ingredients. It is a little scratch where first the ingredients were created.
God create man as well. It isn't surprising that God knows man so well having created him. It would be surprising if God did not know the nature and needs of his creation well.
God created man in his image. Man is created to be a being filled with love. A love of God and fellow man. Man is at his best in community, that is why the church is a community called to serve not to be served.
A Post on Bonhoeffer on Preaching
The quotation by Bonhoeffer is true by definition. This fact does not take away from the meaningfulness of the statement since it also clarifies the implicit.
The church is a body. Each person is a part in the body. You see that each person is not an island or on their own. There is a unity and cohesion.
When the church functions well each person is concerned for the other. Always we must have concern for ourselves as well, but we must also have concern for the other.
The concern for others flows from this that God had concern for us while we were his enemies. You see the radical nature that God wished to open up a relationship with estranged man and make him co-heirs with his son Jesus to the entire universe.
Often it is hard to want to give. I am tired, we think. Often we are tired because we are unfulfilled and have done nothing we consider of value. It is very surprising that sometimes our issues are much better after we have had concern for others.
Kierkegaard speaks of an inward orientation to fallen man. Man is ill in one sense because he cares to much about himself. In caring too much about himself he often harms himself emotionally.
It is never purposeful but always man on his own is miserable. You see man was meant for community. God who created man willed for man to be communal. In fellowship with God and other men.
But man on his own often would like to isolate from the world. The tendency is easy to understand. Many difficult things happen in community. Even small bad words or awkward situations are draining.
But man often responds worse by secluding himself. In seclusion he is often far worse than he was previously. You see that it is not good to be alone.
Man was alone in the garden with only God and it was not good. So man created woman. We often in life compound our problems by how we try to solve our problems.
The difficulty is that God has a lot of solutions which on the surface don't sound very good. We simply know that God is wrong or so we think. It is often with God the longer we think about his "wrong" solutions the more we see they are plausible.
After a while these plausibilities often become realized to be correct. The bible is always right even when we think it is wrong. Often we judge so quickly and move on.
You see there are better ways for man to live than he often does. Man has a tendency to trade short term pleasure for long term happiness. Man is very shortsighted at times.
God is more concerned about man’s real happiness. God sees the bigger picture and accordingly does not offer advice and commands which are only for the moment.
That an eternal God outside of time knows better than man is not surprising. Men often make strange objections to God's will as if the church has made up the idea of God being outside of time to explain things.
The reality is that they simply need to turn to Genesis. All of the universe was created out of nothing. You see God existed and then he created the universe out of scratch.
It is not the way people create a pie out of "scratch" using some base ingredients. It is a little scratch where first the ingredients were created.
God create man as well. It isn't surprising that God knows man so well having created him. It would be surprising if God did not know the nature and needs of his creation well.
God created man in his image. Man is created to be a being filled with love. A love of God and fellow man. Man is at his best in community, that is why the church is a community called to serve not to be served.
A Post on Bonhoeffer on Preaching
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Joy In Life Tied to Other's Joy
A lot of times I have found that my joy in life is tied to the joy of others. There is a great satisfaction that you find from helping others.
It is interesting that many people find volunteering and working with animals who have no homes to be an uplifting experience. I believe that this is part of the process of Joy that God intended for the world.
Joy is and never was something that was meant to be found in isolation. Joy is often found through service to others.
It is interesting that the law of God on the surface seems like a bunch of joyless commands. In reality when you dig into the law you begin to find that through grace the law actually protects and promotes our joy.
Sin is a force which destroys joy. It offers short term pleasures and long term darkness. Joy was really meant to always be found through living a godly life.
Acts of service and helping others are really part of God's plan for the world. God's plan is superior to our plan for the world and often surprisingly to the human mind God's plan is more full of happiness then the plans of the world.
It is interesting that many people find volunteering and working with animals who have no homes to be an uplifting experience. I believe that this is part of the process of Joy that God intended for the world.
Joy is and never was something that was meant to be found in isolation. Joy is often found through service to others.
It is interesting that the law of God on the surface seems like a bunch of joyless commands. In reality when you dig into the law you begin to find that through grace the law actually protects and promotes our joy.
Sin is a force which destroys joy. It offers short term pleasures and long term darkness. Joy was really meant to always be found through living a godly life.
Acts of service and helping others are really part of God's plan for the world. God's plan is superior to our plan for the world and often surprisingly to the human mind God's plan is more full of happiness then the plans of the world.
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