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May Your Love Abound

             And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, (Philippians 1:9-10)

Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it. (Proverbs 22:6)

A friend told me her story with the verse from Proverbs above. She had thought it meant that we should train a child in the direction we wanted them to live. She realized that it was more about teaching a child in accordance with the child’s personality, abilities, etc. I suspect both are true. We should teach children both what is right and good, and according to their proclivities. If you have a child with mechanical skill, teach him/her mechanics. Don’t demand that a child who loves to cook ignore the stove and learn to repair an engine. But at the same time, teach a child that it’s wrong to steal or beat people up no matter what their skills, talents, or preferences are.

How does that connect to Philippians 1:9-10? In today’s primary passage, Paul wrote that love and knowledge are inextricably linked. Sometimes, when others judge our love for someone, they couch it in emotional terms. We’re to be compassionate, tender-hearted, accepting, approving, etc. Sometimes, they say we should “speak the truth in love.” Today’s passage suggests that love is not love unless it includes knowledge and depth of insight. It needs to include not only encouraging the beloved toward what is good and right, but also toward what fits that person.

And where there is disagreement between what is right, good, and true, and good, and what fits the person?  I suggest that telling them to go with what they think fits even though it’s not right, good, and true is not seeking what is best for the person. They have a decision to make, but what is not right, good, and true is also not loving

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