self-seeking continues as another description of love according to Paul in his letter to the Corinthian church. By now the list is growing to example and test what true love is like. This characteristic of what love is not is (in three Greek words) seeking the things of its own. The route of the word for 'seek' is the same as used in a question or dispute where an answer is being searched for. It captures effort involved in the process of finding out an answer towards "getting to the bottom of a matter" (HELPS, 2011). Love is not then trying to get answers for the profit of yourself. It is not selfish.
I want to post another day about the word 'love' in the bible (because Greek has a few words for 'love', unlike English where we use the same word for the love we have for partners, children, hobbies and chocolate), but in brief the word used for love in 1 Corinthians 13 is not a romantic love. Romantic love is 'eros' (we get the word erotic from it), and that is the kind of love that characterises romantic relationships (so 1 Corinthians 13 is useful for all people whatever their relationship status, and not just at weddings). The word used for love in 1 Corinthians 13 is agape. Agape (a-ga-pay) is a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew (what the Old Testament was written in) word 'hesed'. Hesed is translated into English as 'steadfast'/'unfailing'/'unconditional'/ 'faithful' love. It is the unilateral love that God shows to His people. More simply, agape/ hesed is best exampled by God's love for His people because He loves them even though they continually mess up. God loves His people, though He created them and gave them everything so there is nothing they can repay Him with. God has no reason to love His people, 'He loves them because He loves them'. This is agape, this is the kind of love Paul is encouraging the church to model. The way I have best understood this is by an Old Testament Prophet called Hosea. In Hosea chapters 1-3, God tells Hosea to marry an adulterous/ promiscuous/ unfaithful girl. He marries Gomer (who was probably a prostitute) knowing she was going to cheat on him. Gomer ends up doing just that, but Hosea carries on loving her and in chapter 3 buys her back from the men she's sold herself to. He knew what she was like before he married her, and she continues in that nature, but he carried on loving her irrelevant and though it must have killed him emotionally inside to do so. All the while he's doing this, Hosea is prophesying the same message from God, and feeling the same feelings of love, yet rejection, at his love's unfaithfulness. You see, God loved the Israelites, but they kept abandoning Him as God and going after the local Gods (like Baal and Asherah). The Israelites get taken into exile in punishment for their unfaithfulness, but even though they hurt God so much by going after other Gods, He still loves them, and still wants to be with them (Ezekiel 16 has a similar prophetic message). God is the same in the New Testament, He loves His people so much that he becomes one of them - a human in a fallen world. He becomes one, lives with them, and eventually gives His own life to pay for all the unfaithfulness of His people. "Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13), and this is exactly what Jesus did; though His people did not deserve it, though they continually turned against Him betraying Him and nailing Him to a cross, though the church is NOT perfect, and ALL Christians continually reject Jesus, mess up and don't live lives of love; though all of this, He chose to die for us. He realised that we were too messed up to turn towards Him (we were all like Gomer - prostitutes in nature), and the only way to restore the relationship was for Him to show His love by dying for us and giving us His Spirit to restore that broken relationship. This is agape, this is love - 'love is not self-seeking'.
Agape is the love that is modelled to us, and it is a love we can also live. One of the scientists we looked at a lot in my degree was a scientist called Richard Dawkins (a remarkable biologist in fairness). Dawkins wrote a book called "the selfish gene theory" in which he said that we do everything to propagate our own genetic information, and all behaviour is in effect to maximise what we pass on to the next generation. Kindness is simply something we do to ensure the survival of our genes. I think he would say that everything we do is ultimately selfish, and indeed this line of reasoning can be applied to most actions and argued in his favour, but do we only act to benefit ourselves? Love is not self-seeking, God is love, and living in love is living in God (1 John 4:16). Perhaps we live in love for a 'good feeling', or some obligation or a sense of responsibility, perhaps we love because it could win us favours, or in the hope of some divine reward, maybe we love people because they make us feel good and we quite like them - all of this is true and it is a good reason to love, but we can also love for no other reason other than because we decide to love people. I tell you the truth, when you love even though it is costly, there you will find the greatest reward. When we only love something because of what it can give us, our love is limited, and our motivations towards it bitter and demanding. I believe love is a choice, if it wasn't then Jesus would not command His disciples to love (John 13:34), if we could not choose to love then Paul wouldn't bother telling the Corinthian church what love is like. Choose to love people and you will see a whole new side to them.
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| Human Forms Art Exhibition, 2012; Stockton Riverside College |
You could look at this art piece and move on quickly or exit. Leave it, pass it by without love. You might think it is beautiful, abstract, ugly, great, rubbish, expressive - I don't know. It's more amazing however if we take time to love it. This is a BTEC student's final piece. A student will have spent weeks on this painting; thinking about it, panting it, writing about the ideas behind it. This is not just blotches of paint on a canvas, this is well planned out. People are the same, each of them are amazing and have so much detail if we are willing to appreciate and understand it. Is it worth while getting to love what we do not love? In a challenge to myself, I have decided that I need to give 'Dubstep' a chance today.
God guide
love
xSx
Update:
Update:
Since starting this blog I became a Counsellor. You can read more on blog on subjects like Therapy at:
www.simonslistening.co.uk
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