Bible Question:
Hi Aixen7z4, LOVE is a very very powerful word, if not the most powerful word in the dictionary.lOVE encompasses everything that is spiritually, legally and morally good. When there is love in our hearts, minds and souls our actions respond to the goodness and dictates of our hearts.When there is love ,anger and hatred-the greatest enemies of mankind-are absent and anything that opposes to love will disappear. Having expounded the power of love, I now refer to your recent response and give an excerpt of the part on which I wish to comment. You said "What if we abolished all the old commandments and just kept two "love God" and "Love one another" Would you be in favour of that? That would keep us killing and stealing obviously, but also from adultery and envy" With spiritual love in our hearts the question of whether we are in favour of abolishing the old commandments does not arise and kept two i.e. 1.Love God. 2. Love one another. A big yes to these. If we comply with just these two commandments and live our lives accordingly,we shall be on good ground and when the time comes we shall be on our way to our desired final destination--Heaven With love in Christ. FytRobert |
Bible Answer: Hi FytRobert, I think that 1 John 3:16-24 would be a good passage to look at the love of God and the spirit of love that we should have for each other. Verse 16, King James, "Hereby perceive we the love of God, because *He laid down *His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." I starred the pronouns because in the King James those pronouns are not capitalized. The New King James which capitalizes pronouns of Deity does not have the word "God" in its version. Some manuscripts do not include the word "God" and the NASB also does not include it. For my personal copy I have penciled in "We know the love of God/ by this..." The book stresses that God/ is love and He/ is righteous to my mind. Verse 24 I interpret as "And the one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And we know by this that He/ abides in us, by the *spirit which He has given us." To my mind that spirit is the spirit of love. Verse 16: We know the love of God/ by this... Verse 24: And we know by this that He/ abides in us... Verse 23: And this is His/ commandment... 1) I think that we have to differentiate between the truth of the word of God and the Truth who is the Word. 2) Verse 19, we are of the truth and assure our hearts before "it". We love in deed and truth. And if our heart doesn't condemn us, we have confidence before "Him". From the heart, Ray |