From our twenty-first century perspective, Christian
love is a sensate quality. It is something experiential; it is something that
we feel internally. Love is a warm, affectionate, reciprocal bond that is
shared by brethren.
When the apostle Paul petitioned God on behalf of the
Philippian saints, he said, “And this I pray, that your love may abound still
more and more in knowledge and discernment” (Philippians 1:9). Did you catch
that? “…that your love [Greek, agape] may abound…in knowledge and discernment.”
Arthur Pink, in his work, Gleaning from
Paul, made the following observation about his passage: “The apostle longed
that their love might be so informed and their understanding so guided by
spiritual judgment and sense that on all occasions they would be able to
distinguish between truth and error in doctrine” (p. 209).
His point merits our attention. The modern concept of
love, in at least some segments of the church today, is more of an emotional
sentimentality (cf. Romans 10:2),
as opposed to the informed, judicial agape that Paul desired for his brethren
in Philippi.1 For many, love is an unconditional, familial
acceptance that overlooks, and even ignores, objective truth. In fact, it is
frequently viewed as an acceptable substitute for soundness of doctrine (cf. 1 Timothy 1:10; 2 Timothy 1:13; 4:3; Titus 1:9, 13; 2:1). Brethren are afraid to offend
anyone—under any circumstance—and so their relationship to a brother, family
member or friend supersedes their allegiance to divine will (cf. Luke 14:26).
While there is certainly nothing wrong with enjoying
warm feelings toward another child of God (cf. Philippians
1:3-8; 13-14), the real basis of any tie must be something
much more tangible than the fleeting whims of emotion. Our love must not be a
blind, unguided affection for any personality (cf. 1
Corinthians 1:12), but one that is spiritually
discriminating—i.e., an “educated” devotion (cf. Hebrews
5:14).
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1It was a “knowing” [Greek -- spignosis] love
that enabled them to become better acquainted with the truth of Scripture
(Strong, The New Strong’s Expanded
Dictionary of Bible Words, p. 1098), and it was a “judicial” [Greek --
aesthesis] love that helped them to make proper moral decisions “in the vast
array of differing and difficult choices” (Hawthorne, as quoted by Rogers, The New Linguistic and Exegetical Key to the
Greek New Testament, p. 448).
Educated
Love