Principle 6: By This All Men Will Know You Are My Disciples
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” - Jesus Christ 1
In this article…
- Our trademark
- Beyond fond feelings
- Love in the New Culture
- An example in the early church
- Essentials of the New Culture: justice, sharing, and love
Our trademark
I am writing this article at the end of the 2008 Summer Olympics. I’m an olympics fanatic and have enjoyed many hours of watching everything from badminton to basketball. However, my favorite broadcast over the last two weeks wasn’t a sporting event. It was a special ten minute segment on Eric Liddell, the famous Scottish runner who competed in the 1924 Olympics and then became a missionary in China (as seen in the movie Chariots of Fire). The NBC segment described how Eric Liddell, after winning his gold medal, headed to China to invest the remainder of his life in loving the Chinese people and his fellow missionaries. Many of his fellow missionaries described how Eric Liddell had impacted their lives through his self-sacrificing and giving spirit. Even while he was being held in a Japanese prison camp (where he eventually died), his Christ-like love shown through when he would wake up early to pray for his Japanese captors. It was so encouraging to see a Christian presented in such a positive light to the millions viewing the broadcast. How I wish that the world would see all Christians in this way!
Jesus said simply, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” (John 14:15)2 This leads to an obvious question, what did Jesus command? There is only one thing that the Bible records that Christ explicitly commanded his disciples to do: to love one another (John 13:34, John 15:12, John 15:17). Jesus told them that their love for one another would become their trademark. And, indeed it did. At the end of the 2nd century, the church father Tertullian described the reputation that the early church had earned: “What marks us in the eyes of our enemies is our loving kindness. ‘Only look,’ they say, ‘look how they love one another’”3
Beyond fond feelings
Unfortunately, the word “love” in the English language has been so overused that it now means little more than, “having fond feelings”. After all, we “love summer”, “love ice cream”, “love shopping”, etc. But, this is obviously not the type of love that Jesus was referring to when he told his disciples:4
The words translated here as “love” and “loved” are forms of the Greek word agape. Jesus didn’t leave us with a long sermon or a book on the meaning of agape. He instead chose to show us the meaning of agape by living it out before us:
Love for one’s neighbor is nowhere defined but everywhere illustrated. In the parable of the good Samaritan, “neighbor” is shown to mean anyone near enough to help, and love involves whatever service the neighbor’s situation demands. The parable of the sheep and goats shows love feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and the imprisoned. In the untiring example of Jesus, love heals, teaches, adapts instruction to the hearers by parable and symbolic language, defends those criticized or despised, pronounces forgiveness, comforts the bereaved, befriends the lonely. We are to love others as he has loved us and as we love ourselves. Such imaginative transfer of self-love does good without expecting return, never returns ill treatment, ensures unfailing courtesy even to the lowliest, sustains thoughtful understanding that tempers judgment.5
Jesus’ life perfectly displayed the Apostle Paul’s definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.6
Love in the New Culture
Without Christ-like agape for one another it is impossible for us to build and sustain the New Culture. This type of supernatural, self-sacrificing love cannot be created through training courses, books, or even strong-willed determination. As I explained in Principle 3, it can only flow through our life by remaining in Christ and walking in the power of the Holy Spirit. As the Apostle John explains:
“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son? into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for? our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” (1 John 4:7-12)
“We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.” (1 John 4:19-21)7
An example in the early church
An ethnicity-related dilemma that faced the early church provides us with an excellent example of how love should be lived out in the New Culture. In A Theology of the New Testament, George Eldon Ladd describes:
One of the most vivid illustrations of how love should work out in Christian fellowship is seen in the problem raised by foods offered to idols. Every Hellenistic city had a large quota of temples, and most of the meat sold in the macellum or market (1 Cor. 10:25) had come from a temple where it had first been sacrificed to a pagan deity, part of it possibly eaten at a feast in the temple, the rest sold to the public in the market. Jews were forbidden to eat foods that had been sacrificed to idols.
Some ethnic groups in the early church had no problem eating food sacrificed to idols while others, like the Jews, felt it was immoral and offensive. Tensions were rising:
Those who ate these foods despised the narrow scruples of those who did not, while those who abstained sharply criticized and condemned those who ate (Rom. 14:2-4).
This was a very serious conflict that threatened to divide the church into various ethnic groups. Each group could have chosen to stand their ground and say, “Do you whatever you want and we’ll do whatever we want.” They could have formed denominations of the idol-meat-eaterians and non-idol-meat-eaterians. Had the early Christians mishandled this issue it would have had devastating results. But, with the guidance of the Apostle Paul and a commitment to love, they chose another path:
Those who have scruples against such food are to exercise love by not condemning those who have no such scruples (Rom. 14:3). On the other hand, those who feel free to eat are to show love by not despising those with strong scruples (Rom 14:3). Those whose conscience offends them must not eat (Rom. 14:22); those whose conscience is clear are free to eat. However, love requires that when those with a free conscience find themselves in a situation where the exercise of their freedom would really offend other Christians and cause them to violate their conscience and thus lead them to sin, in love those with a free conscience are to abstain… The basic principle is clear: personal freedom must be tempered by love for other Christians. It is clear that such love is not an emotion but Christian concern in action.8
We no longer wrestle with eating food sacrificed to idols. But, if we are pursuing the New Culture we will need to work through a regular flow of emotionally-charged issues such as how we are to worship, pray, exercise spiritual gifts, etc. A variety of biblical interpretations and cultural values will be strongly held on all sides — just like they were for this situation in the early church. It is our responsibility to exercise Christ-like agape and to:
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.9
Essentials of the New Culture: justice, sharing, and love
In these last three articles I have written about how justice, sharing, and love are essential principles of the New Culture. Of course, these three aspects are very inter-related. Our desire to love and share with one another motivate us to live out justice in our community and our society. Our commitment to love and pursue justice determine the way that we share with one another. Pursuing justice and sharing are expressions of love.
Are you a part of a church or an organization that you would like to see become more multi-ethnic? Then I encourage you to ask, “How well are justice, sharing, and love being lived out in our organization and in the individual communities (small groups, age groups, etc) within our organization?” As you consider solutions to various issues ask, “Will this solution lead to greater justice, sharing, and love in our organization?” And, make it a point of asking the various ethnic groups represented in your organization, “From your perspective, how well are justice, sharing, and love being lived out in our organization?”
Footnotes:
1 The Holy Bible : New International Version. electronic ed. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984, S. Jn 13:34-35
2 The Holy Bible : New International Version. electronic ed. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984, S. Jn 14:15
3 McKinion, S (Ed.). (2001). Life and practice of the early church: a documentary reader. New York, NY: New York University Press. (p.50)
4 Schwandt, John ; Collins, C. John: The ESV English-Greek Reverse Interlinear New Testament. Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2006; 2006, S. Jn 15:12
5 Elwell, Walter A. ; Comfort, Philip Wesley: Tyndale Bible Dictionary. Wheaton, Ill. : Tyndale House Publishers, 2001 (Tyndale Reference Library), S. 827
6 The Holy Bible : New International Version. electronic ed. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984, S. 1Co 13:4-7
7 The Holy Bible : New International Version. electronic ed. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984, S. 1 Jn 4:7-21
8 Ladd, G (1993). A Theology of the New Testament. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (p.567)
9 The Holy Bible : New International Version. electronic ed. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984, S. Eph 4:2-3
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