God is love - a Lenten series 13 Love is not rigid
Paul can be sly in his theological treatises. He sets up eating meat as a "disputable matter." But his list of "indisputable matters" is missing. I'm not saying he doesn't have some hills to die on, but then the provenance of his letters can also be in dispute themselves, as within the corpus of letters attributed to him he praises women apostles and speakers but also condemns them. It does not appear Jesus has a problem with women teachers as they were the first commissioned to tell the news of his resurrection. One thing Paul's letter are consistent on is the lack of efficacy of ritual, cultic/religious rituals because the rituals do not get us a checked box by God, as God is not using a list to evaluate his children.
Since God is love, he loves his children and wants them to grow in love with his other children.
Comparing check lists does the opposite of this.
As Paul sums it up in verse 15, "are you acting in love?" If not, you've gone off the narrow path of love onto the path of selfishness.
In his Sermon on the Mount Jesus says,
Matthew 7:13 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
Narrow is the way of selfless love, broader is the way of selfishness. But life is in that narrow stream.
I've written recently about Jesus' loving flexibility with the Syro-Phonecian woman.
Romans 14 Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. 2 One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3 The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. 4 Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand....13 Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister. 14 I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean. 15 If your brother or sister is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love.
Since God is love, he loves his children and wants them to grow in love with his other children.
Comparing check lists does the opposite of this.
As Paul sums it up in verse 15, "are you acting in love?" If not, you've gone off the narrow path of love onto the path of selfishness.
This photo of Nisqually River is courtesy of TripAdvisor
In his Sermon on the Mount Jesus says,
Matthew 7:13 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
Narrow is the way of selfless love, broader is the way of selfishness. But life is in that narrow stream.
I've written recently about Jesus' loving flexibility with the Syro-Phonecian woman.
Comments