Skip to main content

God is Love 4


 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
(I Corinthians 13:13)
 
                              Mr. Grudem brings two characteristics together to provide the next balance. God is both infinite and personal. “He is infinite in that he is not subject to any of the limitations of humanity, or of creation in general. He is far greater than everything he has made, far greater than anything that exists. But he is also personal: he interacts with us as a person, and we can relate to him as persons. We can pray to him, worship him, obey him, and love him, and he can speak to us, rejoice in us, and love us.” (Systematic Theology, p. 167)
         He then goes on to compare God to the gods of other religions, beginning with the Romans. I want to mention the Roman gods in a slightly different context. As I’m thinking about it, there were gods of lots of things, but the goddess of love, Venus, was within the major pantheon. There was a god of hate, usually the god in charge of the underworld, sibling or half-sibling of Jupiter (or some such) and part of the old ruling family, but love was included among the heavy hitters of the Romans (and Greeks.)
          Love may be celebrated even more (but perhaps no more wisely) now.
We’re told
Love is love
Love conquers all
Love will keep us together
All we need is love, love, love[1]
Love is a many splendored thing
What the world needs now, is love, sweet love
We hear hate-filled screams of “love trumps hate.”
We think “But I love him/her” defeats any other argument.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is
 love. (I Corinthians 13:13)
          I could quote lyrics, poets, and people for hours. The point is that we recognize that no matter how finite we are, love is not. I conclude that love  is infinite. And yet, it is personal. It involves people, touches people, influences people.[2]
         

[1] And then, they broke up the band.
[2] I’m not saying that animals are incapable of love, but even with animals, it’s “personal” in that it involves relationships. That doesn’t mean that animals are people any more than the fact that an elephant can love makes anything that loves an elephant.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Shepherd!

                 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep . (John 10:14) God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” (Genesis 3:14) The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths     for his name’s sake. Even though I walk     through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil,     for you are with me; your rod and your staff,     they comfort me. (Psalm 23:1-4) For the Jews, it was politically incorrect to make claims about yourself as a teacher (or possibly as anything else.) Teachers were expected to take pride in the...
Post a Comment
Read more