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Peanuts cartoon shows Lucy standing with her arms folded and a stern expression on her face. Charlie Brown pleads, ?Lucy, you must be more loving. This world really needs love. You have to let yourself love to make this world a better place.??{{more: continue …}}Lucy angrily whirls around and knocks Charlie Brown to the ground. She screams at him, ?Look, Blockhead, the world I love. Its people I can?t stand.??
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I?m sure sometimes we all feel that way. Maybe you feel that way right now. Loving the world in general isn?t that difficult; loving the people around us can be a major challenge.?
In Romans 12, Paul discusses how God has gifted various church members with faith appropriate for different roles in the church, Paul offers comment on how love reaches for the common good in the church. Paul begins this section with the heading, Let love be genuine. In other words, Love others authentically and genuinely! The next verse, Romans 12:10, literally begins by saying, In brotherly/sisterly love be lovingly affectionate. He gives practical, detailed ways for loving others. Verse 13 ends with the phrase pursuing hospitality, but Paul’s word for hospitality is literally love of stranger. So there is a lot of love language here.
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Our example for how to love is Jesus. Paul’s words to bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse in verse 14 sound a lot like what Jesus says in Matthew 5:44, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, or what he says in Luke 6:28, Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. There are other allusions to sayings of Jesus in the rest of chapter 13, and Jesus’ love for others at the cross is stressed in Romans 15:1-3. So Paul is hinting that to love genuinely is to love as Jesus loved. And the passage doesn’t just say “Love others more,” it describes very specific behaviors for loving others.
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Paul’s gives us ideas for genuine Christ-like love in Romans 12:9-21. He is giving us very specific ideas for authentic love. For example, he says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (12:15), or “If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (12:18). Another very specific idea for love is found in the quotation from Proverbs 25:21-22 to feed and give something to drink to hungry and thirsty enemies. It means to think about and to help meet others’ genuine needs, including the needs of people who do not like us. But what’s the point of the result; “By doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads” (Romans 12:20; Proverbs 25:22)? I think this means that by doing good you will help the person repent. This fits with the theme in this section that we are not to have any part in repaying evil in our personal relationships and it fits with the overarching theme that love is to be genuine.
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? See you on Sunday when we will discuss the? ?”Marks of a True Christian”.?
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?”I don’t know how, but I know WHO!”??
?Peace,Pastor Nelda
