All about "love is..." as Paul tells the people of Corinth (I Corinthians 13).
1. The original Greek was written or dictated to the faithful/seekers/curious of sin-city Cornith who knew Greek.
2. The original term was ('karitas'?/charity=grace; as in King James: these 3 remain - failth, hope, charity) AGAPE (not philos, eros, or the 4th one)
3. Since "God IS love" then God is AGAPE (love for strangers in all shapes and sizes, all faiths and experiences of worldly fame or ill repute; love of family on a par with love of enemies and strangers now dead and those yet to be born). And therefore, if the object of Bible study is to wrestle with the Word, including the Word Made Flesh, then we English speakers need some exercises and aids that will help to untangle AGAPE-God's-love from all the other uses, especially that love we crave in the eyes of family and friends (respect, dignity, significance that one's words and life example matters in some small way). In sum, to grasp "Thy Kingdom... on earth as it is in heaven" we need to understand this AGAPE Love.
4. One of God's 99 (or more) names is "I Am" and so if the core of God's character and stuff is this Ground of Being (IS 'ness) consists of AGAPE Love, then by definition all that EXISTS is thrumming with IS'ness and that hum IS Agape love. God is. God is love. And so the simple command that each child of God is to Love Your God (to return that one-way Agape Love) and to love your neighbor as yourself [extend the Agape Love equally to oneself and to others: bathe one and all in a full-body BEING and goodness] now comes down to (1) awareness of the surrounding climate of love that we all swim in equally, and (2) that as the hands and feet and face of God during our brief three-score and ten years on the planet, that we should echo and express that same surrounding climate of love, extended to all.
5. In order to establish habits of heart that make the highest priority this Agape Love (awareness of it and also expression/enacting of it), we need to help one another to stay on track (not to 'sin' off course). Many varieties of Intentional Communities, including the long and wide line of Anabaptists, Shakers, and the monastic withdrawl from The World (as well as those "in The World but not of it") have tried to make a scaffolding to help build Thy Kingdom... on earth as it is in heaven. And yet things somehow don't work: is Agape Love best in small flashes of glory and spontaneous expressions? Does it wither in an intentionally cultivated community?
1. The original Greek was written or dictated to the faithful/seekers/curious of sin-city Cornith who knew Greek.
2. The original term was ('karitas'?/charity=grace; as in King James: these 3 remain - failth, hope, charity) AGAPE (not philos, eros, or the 4th one)
3. Since "God IS love" then God is AGAPE (love for strangers in all shapes and sizes, all faiths and experiences of worldly fame or ill repute; love of family on a par with love of enemies and strangers now dead and those yet to be born). And therefore, if the object of Bible study is to wrestle with the Word, including the Word Made Flesh, then we English speakers need some exercises and aids that will help to untangle AGAPE-God's-love from all the other uses, especially that love we crave in the eyes of family and friends (respect, dignity, significance that one's words and life example matters in some small way). In sum, to grasp "Thy Kingdom... on earth as it is in heaven" we need to understand this AGAPE Love.
4. One of God's 99 (or more) names is "I Am" and so if the core of God's character and stuff is this Ground of Being (IS 'ness) consists of AGAPE Love, then by definition all that EXISTS is thrumming with IS'ness and that hum IS Agape love. God is. God is love. And so the simple command that each child of God is to Love Your God (to return that one-way Agape Love) and to love your neighbor as yourself [extend the Agape Love equally to oneself and to others: bathe one and all in a full-body BEING and goodness] now comes down to (1) awareness of the surrounding climate of love that we all swim in equally, and (2) that as the hands and feet and face of God during our brief three-score and ten years on the planet, that we should echo and express that same surrounding climate of love, extended to all.
5. In order to establish habits of heart that make the highest priority this Agape Love (awareness of it and also expression/enacting of it), we need to help one another to stay on track (not to 'sin' off course). Many varieties of Intentional Communities, including the long and wide line of Anabaptists, Shakers, and the monastic withdrawl from The World (as well as those "in The World but not of it") have tried to make a scaffolding to help build Thy Kingdom... on earth as it is in heaven. And yet things somehow don't work: is Agape Love best in small flashes of glory and spontaneous expressions? Does it wither in an intentionally cultivated community?
