Everyone agrees that love is a good thing. The disagreement however is in the definition of love and the object of its action. How love is manifest.
1 Corinthians gives several definitions of love and the sermon largely centered on love being kind and taking the backseat to the feelings of inclusion experienced by others. Specifically if there are those in your congregation who are fearful of covid and will not attend church because the church does not mandate masks, then the rest of the congregation, out of love, should simply wear their masks to show kindness to the other members.
It was stated that many christians today would rather correct a brother's theology than show compassion to him.
Isn’t correcting a brother actually showing love? - "Love does not rejoice in iniquity but rejoices in the truth." - 1 Corinthians 13:6
On the masks.. we would be willing to give up truth to affirm the false fears of others. Our culture loves fear.. we fear death, sickness, the media preys on the fears of their viewers, we embrace horror movies, halloween . All to draw us away from fearing God. - "Make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts" - Romans 13:14 We love fearing things other than God and this misplaced fear has become a lust of the flush that we are commanded to make no provision for. Affirming this false fear is the opposite of loving truth and the opposite of love.
Love is not conformed to the expectations of the world (being non-abrasive about covid) in fact, 1 John 3 says the way we love should result in the world hating us - because those in the world who are lost hate truth. We should not dabble in any footing that is not the foundation of truth. This is not supposed to only be done in our speech behind closed doors but acted out in our everyday lives. Our love and our stance for truth should bleed out of our fingertips - "Let us not love in word or tongue but in deed and in truth" - 1 John 3:18
For those who would err on 'love causing no rifts' Matt 10:34 says that christ did not come to bring peace but a sword. He who loves his father, mother, son, or daughter, more than Christ is not worthy of Christ. And certainly he who loves the guy in the back insisting everyone affirm his fear and put on a mask would then also not be worthy. Love does have hierarchies. We are to first love Christ and therefore truth, and the sake of kindness should not betray this. Win the man and not the argument, but we do actually want to win the man, not allow him to continue the way he has been.
It was argued that proverbs 26:4-5 is contradictory on purpose to prove the point of proverbs that it takes wisdom to address fools. But I would argue that these verse do not contradict one another but perfectly describe how we are to address fools and they build the same case not contradict eachother. Verse 4 says” do not answer the fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him.” So this means, do not answer a fool by affirming their presuppositions and accepting them as your own. If you are talking to a fool you do not have to assume evolution in order to speak to him about how evidence does not scientifically back evolution because you have already given up your foundation and now are in danger of arguing not on the authority of god and scripture but on the authority of evidence, making you and your new friend the judge and not God. So do not answer the fool if it means you are going to accept his worldview. Verse five then says “Answer the fool according to his folly, less he be wise in his own eyes”. Now this is telling us we are to answer the fool according to his folly, but in order to show him he is wrong. So answer the fool while standing on your foundation of scripture and truth. (Sympathy) because it would not be loving to allow him to continue thinking he is wise while living in foolishness. Answer him according to his folly from our solid foundation in order to truly love him.
If a man is running towards a cliff it is more loving to tackle him to the ground in order to make him stop than it is to give him a hug and say “see you next fall”. Unfortunately this is not how many will behave in practice. We give up truth in order to appear friendly.
great insights into a complicated matter. the binding of consciences is nothing to be taken lightly and it is easy enough to accommodate weaker brothers assuming they are not given the authority to let their weakness steer the entire congregation. great insight into proverbs about dealing with fools. this ties in well to the ongoing sympathy/empathy conversation.
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