ON LOVE; PART MCXL
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GoodWill IS Love in Action
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FIRST IS THE GREAT COMMANDMENTS: “The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:29-31).
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WHAT THEN IS LOVE? In a general sense love is benevolence, good will; that disposition of heart which inclines men to think favorably of their fellow men, and to do them good. In a theological sense, it includes supreme love to God, and universal good will to men. While this IS from an older definition of Charity, which IS rendered in the King James Bible from the same Greek word agape which IS generally rendered as Love, we should amend our own definition here to include the idea that in the reality of Love a man will accord to ALL men ALL things that he would accord to himself and to say that Love IS our thoughts and attitude of the equality of ALL men regardless of their outward nature or appearance…that ALL ARE equally children of Our One God
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PLUS THE EVER IMPORTANT AND HIGH IDEAL TAUGHT TO US BY THE CHRIST: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12).
In the last essay we continued our look at Love, at agape as the Master teaches us, and, in addition to revealing the Truth of Love in understanding and Wisdom, we combined the idea with Jesus’ words on Light and darkness through our discussion of the Master’s most specific words on Love. While the Great Commandments and the Golden Rule should be enough to change the hearts of men, the Master DOES NOT leave us wanting. He explains in detail how that the Truth of Love, of agape, works and shows us how that one must Love everyman through his expression in this world.
The unhidden reality of Jesus’ words should show us that in the expression of Love IS one’s expression of Light and that this Light of Truth IS the reward to men whose focus is upon the things of God and NOT upon the things of the world. We discussed how that the single eye IS that focus upon the things of God while the ‘evil’ eye IS one that IS focused upon the self and the interests of the self. And, while it may seem a harsh statement, the doctrinal use of Jesus’ words according to Luke ARE an example of this ‘evil’ which IS rendered from the Greek word poneros; we read Jesus’ words again saying: “Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again” (Luke 6:38).
As we discussed there ARE too many who teach and believe that this saying IS in regard to another’s giving in return for one’s giving and some see this as even more than measure for measure. The idea of men IS NOT a part of this saying yet it IS used by many to support this doctrinal idea and if we can see this in the context of the preceding words about reward and grace, which IS unfortunately rendered as thank, we can then see how that this reward, this grace, IS from God and NOT from men.
To this we should add a two ideas; first IS that Jesus’ tells us to “love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil” (Luke 6:35). And second IS that while in these words many will see ONLY the idea of lending and NOT that of giving, the greater Truth IS found in this very idea as to “lend, hoping for nothing again” IS tantamount to giving and in the preceding idea that one should “Give to every man that asketh of thee” (Luke 6:30), we should be able to see the greater idea and the Master’s intent.
We must see ALL of these words from Jesus’ together and NOT in the doctrinal habit of taking the ideas that ARE doctrinally liked out of context. And we should relate like ideas between gospels together as they ARE ofttimes presented from differing viewpoints. We should try to see that it IS ONLY lending when that which IS given IS returned and if one IS “hoping for nothing again“, the loan then IS essentially a gift. The Apostle Matthew DOES NOT offer us the same detail but the idea IS the same as it IS led with giving; we read the Master’s words here as: “Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away” (Matthew 5:42). The intent here IS the same.
We should try to see how that Light IS understanding and Wisdom and Love while darkness IS poneros; this word, rightly rendered, IS hurtful, calamitous, which IS causing, involving, or resulting in a calamity; disastrous according to today’s dictionary 7. The idea of diseased IS added by the lexicon 2 while Thayer’s defines poneros as: full of labours, annoyances, hardships 9 and like ideas and in ALL of this there IS naught that equals the common idea of ‘evil’. And if we can see this idea of poneros from a spiritual perspective we can then see that the eye whose focus IS upon the world IS focused then upon thoughts and attitudes that ARE hurtful and calamitous to one’s realization of Truth and its expression then IS full of labours, annoyances, hardships from the perspective of the Soul whose intended expression IS Love.
Can we see how this IS so? Can we see how that one’s focus upon the things of God brings Light while one’s focus upon the things of the self keeps a man in the darkness which Paul shows us as being asleep saying that “knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light” (Romans 13:11-12). This brings us back then to Love, to agape, as this IS the context in which the Apostle Paul gives us these words….the same Love that the Master teaches us in the Great Commandments.
This idea IS missed by so many who DO not conflate these ideas of being asleep in “the works of darkness” to the reality of Love and specifically the tenet that “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” as we read in the Great Commandments which ARE again at the top of our essay. Paul says: “Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:8-10).
We should remember here that the ideas behind the doctrinal view of the law IS an invention of men. The law of Moses as it IS called by many became more doctrinal than the actual commandments of the Lord while those of the Master go virtually ignored and here we should remember that the saying that “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” IS a commandment of both God in the Old Testament and Jesus the Christ in the New. When Paul speaks of the law and gives examples of the commandments, we should see that these ARE rather synonymous terms save for the expansion of the law that IS the product of the doctrines of men. In essence, the law and the commandments in their True form ARE the word of God and ARE the commandments of the Master. It IS these that we reference in the trifecta which which also shows the rewards for keeping His words. We read our trifecta again saying:
- “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free“ (John 8:31-32).
- “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).
- “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me” (John 14:21-24).
It IS unfortunate that there ARE NO visible parts of the doctrinal church that bring the idea of Love and of keeping His words to the forefront of their teachings. Yet these ARE the basic fundamentals of most ALL that Jesus says. Searching on the internet for ‘what IS Jesus message?’ will return some of the most visible ideas and NONE of those found on the first page, save one, Truly mentions Love and that one lists several of Jesus sayings on Love with NO context and NO comment. A few DO speak about Repentance but NONE tie this to keeping His words as this IS given us by the Apostle Mark who tells us Jesus’ words as “repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15).
The idea of believing IS from the Greek word pisteuo and we ofttimes show how that this IS much more than that nebulous idea of simple belief, that it has the much deeper meaning of KNOWING, an idea that comes in the first part of our trifecta. This nebulous idea along with the even more nebulous idea of faith from the Greek word pistis, have hijacked the minds and emotions of men away from good sense. Here in Jesus’ words from Mark’s Gospel, the common idea IS to be sorry and remorseful for whatsoever one has done wrong and to nebulously believe the ‘good news‘ of the Kingdom of God. Most ALL fail to see the second part of the trifecta in this equation which requires that one keep His words or, as Jesus frames this, that one “doeth the will of my Father“; and they fail as well to understand the True intent of Repentance as one’s change of focus from the self and the self in this world to the things of God.
The ideas here of Repentance and KNOWING the gospel Truth, which IS given us by the Apostle Matthew as “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand“, ARE two versions of the same idea and in this we should be able to equate the idea of the Kingdom with the idea of believing, or, better, KNOWING, the gospel. Few if any doctrinal ideas see that it IS in keeping His words that one IS Repented and that this IS as well the KEY to KNOWING which IS the deeper idea of pistis and pisteuo. While it may be easier to see pisteuo and pistis in nebulous terms which ARE more comfortable in the minds and the emotions of men, this DOES NOT make these doctrinal ideas True.
And few, if any, doctrinal ideas see the corresponding idea of Love and how that the Truth of agape IS the result of some measure of that KNOWING which provides some measure of understanding and IS then some measure of Wisdom. The idea of Love, of agape, as the expression of men in this world IS lost in the doctrinal interpretations of men and much of this IS because of the common understanding of agape: as Love in the common sense of the mental and emotional attraction and attachment to others and to things in this world. In this sense it IS impractical to “love thy neighbour as thyself“. It IS NOT impractical however to see this Love from the perspective of the Golden Rule which has NOT the idea of agape in its wording but DOES have this most definitely in its meaning.
The Golden Rule IS the essence of agape applied to one’s interrelationships with others but this, while more practical, still requires some measure of understanding which IS our means of breaking through our own nurturing and indoctrination that greatly obnubilates sound reasoning. Such understanding IS shown to us by Emmet Fox, a Christian writer of some renown who IS NOT appreciated by the mainstream church, who says: I PRACTICE, the Golden Rule of Jesus instead of merely admiring it. He said, “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” The important point about the Golden Rule is that I am to practice it whether the other fellow does so or not. **
In this proactive idea of the Golden Rule IS the True intent of the Master but this has been supplanted by interpreting Jesus’ words in terms of reciprocity, an idea that has NO foundation in the words of the Master which ARE reported by Matthew as “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12) and by the Apostle Luke as “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise” (Luke 6:31). While neither of these ideas imply the idea of reciprocity and while they DO, and ARE likely intended to, amplify the idea of “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself“, they ARE nonetheless seen by too many as ideas to be DONE in a reciprocal way.
The Golden Rule need NOT be stretched to its limitations as in this tact it IS bound to fail; it DOES however need to be included in the thought process of ALL interrelationships with others. If this IS the starting point, that in ALL dealings with others we DO show the same sense of GoodWill that we would want to be shown, we can be well on our way to the Truth of agape as our expression. Again this IS based in understanding and, in regard to the Golden Rule, there IS little need to see beyond the carnal ideas of men. In practice this expression of GoodWill in carnal dealings will progress through understanding to the reality of agape where we see ALL men as equal on the True level of existence, the spiritual.
The point here IS that this process of Love, of agape, must begin somewhere and the easiest place IS that it begin in one’s carnal Life by simply practicing the idea that “as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise“. This IS a common sense approach to right human relations and it IS this approach that will provide us with a new vision through which the greater idea of agape can flow. Can we see the point here of measure? It behooves the man who Truly seeks God to begin to shed the doctrinal views on the interrelationships with others in this world and to begin to see the Light of Jesus words and of the words of the apostle who tells us “that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed” (Romans 13:11).
These words from Paul ARE timeless as ARE Jesus words that tell us “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). And these ideas ARE timeless; they ARE for every man and every generation as his time or their time comes upon them; when they first look upon the Truth and ARE able to glimpse the reality behind Jesus’ words and the clarifying and amplifying words of His apostles and, indeed, ALL world scripture. And we should understand that for both of these sayings the True flow of the words and ideas which ARE presented ARE so that we can get a glimpse of the Truth.
In Paul’s words there ARE some ideas that ARE hidden from the view of the casual reader who sees them through his doctrines. The idea of time IS used two times here and from two different Greek words. First he tells us that we should KNOW the time and here the word eido IS rendered as KNOWING and kairos IS rendered as time. Other translations treat these words differently, some view this as a personal time while others with an historical perspective. We should of course take this personally and understand this idea if eido in terms perception and discernment 2 and recognizing the opportunity when we can perhaps better understand how we can KNOW that our time has come.
The idea of time in this part IS NOT time as we understand it by the clock and the calendar. Here in this word kairos we should see Strong’s defining ideas of: an occasion, i.e. set or proper time:—X always, opportunity, (convenient, due) season, (due, short, while) time, a while . In the combination with eido the idea can easily be seen as KNOWING the opportunity, discerning the proper time, or perceiving our due season and while “knowing the time” can bring this idea out, these other ways of seeing eido kairos can better show Paul’s intent.
The next Greek word that IS rendered as “high time” IS hora which IS preceded by the Greek word ede that IS rendered in the King James bible as now. The idea of “high time” IS a translator’s embellishment as there IS no Greek word here that can be rendered as high. The idea IS that the time IS now, that the time has come for the reader “to awake out of sleep” and in this we should be able to see that the apostle IS speaking to ALL who DO NOT yet Love as IS depicted in the preceding ideas. This IS ALL who DO NOT have that expression of agape as a central part of his Life….it IS to these that the apostle’s message IS sent and it IS these that he admonishes “to awake out of sleep“. Who IS asleep? ALL who DO NOT live according to his words, the commandments of the Lord, saying:
“Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:8-10).
The idea of salvation IS the next idea in these words from Paul. The rendering of soteria as salvation in DONE purely in a doctrinal sense; this IS a word of doctrine that IS based in the root word soter which IS rendered as saviour. Both words are more complex that these simple ideas of the Savior in Christ and the salvation that IS offered to those who believe….Christians. Soter IS from the Greek word sozo which IS generally rendered as save and which IS also seen in terms of make whole, heal and be whole 2.
Beginning with sozo, we should try to see these ideas apart from doctrine. Thayer’s lexicon defines sozo as: to save, to keep safe and sound, to rescue from danger or destruction 9. If we can see this from a purely spiritual perspective we can then see how that the teaching and the example of the Master DOES serve this purpose. As one comes to accept and adopt His precepts and example as binding upon the life 4, he IS rescuing his Life from the vanity, the illusion and the glamour….”the bondage of corruption” (Romans 8:21). The converse of this idea IS found in the Master’s words saying “whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it” (Matthew 16:25).
In Jesus words we should be able to see that the idea of saving IS one’s personal choice and while this IS from a carnal perspective, the spiritual DOES work the same as it IS through one’s Life in this world that he must save the one or the other by his focus. This idea of focus IS made clearer in John’s presentation of this same idea; he writes “He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal” (John 12:25). If we can follow this same idea through the Greek words that ARE rendered as savior and as salvation, soter and soteria, we can perhaps see the True intent of these ideas.
We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.
| Aspect |
Potency |
Aspect of Man |
In Relation to the Great Invocation |
In relation to the Christ |
|
GOD, The Father |
Will or Power |
Spirit or Life |
Center where the Will of God IS KNOWN |
Life |
|
Son, The Christ |
Love and Wisdom |
Soul or Christ Within |
Heart of God |
Truth |
| Holy Spirit |
Light or Activity |
Life Within |
Mind of God |
Way |
Note on the Quote of the Day
This daily blog also has a Quote of the Day which may not be in any way related to the essay. Many of these will be from the Bible and some just prayers or meditations that may have an influence on you and are in line with the subject matter of this blog. As the quote will change daily and will not store with the post, it is repeated in this section with the book reference and comment.
We change our Quote of the Day today to the words from Solomon on Wisdom along with our thoughts on them from the original postings of them in In the Words of Jesus parts 46 and 556. These words ARE a testament to those things that we should be asking of the Lord and which are representative of the Holy Ghost. Wisdom, understanding and knowledge which will lead us to understanding the fear (reverence and respect and awe) of the Lord and the knowledge of God so that in this world we can understand righteousness and judgement and equity and be preserved by discretion and understanding. Thus are we in a position to treat everyone as we would want to be treated ourselves.
Since we are centered on the ideas of Wisdom today we offer the following from Proverbs as our Quote of the Day. Solomon, who is KNOWN for his Wisdom, which we read in the story of his Life was His gift from God, a gift that he receives because he does not want for the things of the world. But Solomon gains as well the things of the world in plenty and as his Life story proceeds we can see clearly that it is his Life in the world that is to his detriment. The wisdom however produces for us the writings of the Book of Proverbs and it is this that he is remembered for. His Life is interesting reading and is well documented in the Books of Kings and Chronicles.
….incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding; Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God. For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly. He keepeth the paths of judgment, and preserveth the way of his saints. Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path. When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul; Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee (Proverbs 2:2-11).
Let the peace of God rule in your hearts
- 2 New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
- 7 Dictionary.com Unabridged based on Random House
- 9 Thayer’s Greek Lexicon on blueletterbible.org
- ** From The Fifteen Points by Emmet Fox; © 1932 HarperCollins Publishers Inc
