From time to time I present a Sunday School lesson at my church. Perhaps it is foolish of me to do so, but I decided to share extracts from a few of these lessons on my blog. I hope you enjoy them.

LESSON ONE

Every other Sunday in my church we celebrate Holy Communion.  Rarely our Pastor leads us in reciting the Ten Commandments.  On other occasions he simply repeats Christ’s summation of the law.

This is the summation:

“Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.  This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like unto it.  Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself.  On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

What is the active verb in those two commandments.

LOVE.

Think about it.  If you examine the other commandments closely, they are mere extensions of the commands to LOVE God and your fellow man.  If you truly LOVE God and fellow man you will not murder, you will not commit adultery, you will not bear false witness, etcetera.

Now, let’s examine the Apostle Paul’s vary familiar statement about the nature of LOVE.

1 Corinthians 13

“If I speak with the tongues of mankind and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give away all my possessions to charity, and if I surrender my body so that I may glory, but do not have love, it does me no good.

“Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant.  It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered,  it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;  it keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

“Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away with; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away with.  For we know in part and prophesy in part;  but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away with.  When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.  For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

Aren’t these magnificent words.  I don’t believe anyone could have expressed these thoughts more eloquently.  Of course, Elizabeth Barrett Browning came close.  Remember “How do I love thee, let me count the ways,”

But what about the meaning of the word love?  We English language speakers are handicapped by having only one love word to express a great variety of meanings.  By contrast the Greeks used different words to express various sorts of love. When the ancient Greek biblical manuscripts were translated these different words all came to us as the one word, “LOVE.”

Agape was the Greek word used to describe divine love or selfless, unconditional love. It was the word used by Paul in Corinthians,

Eros referred to sexual passion.

Phileo was the word used to describe friendship or brotherly love.

Storge was the term for love between parents and children.

Turning once more to a non-Biblical example, the beautiful poem Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote to her husband could be classified as eros love, romantic love.  However, there is more than a touch of agape in it.  When a man and a woman truly love each other, when there is unconditional love that endures through thick and thin, there is a spiritual element about it. I believe that the very best marriages are a combination of eros love and agape love.  In this sort of marriage, as the years go by, eros fades but agape remains and grows ever stronger.

Moving even further from the Bible. Let me give you a few reflections on some personal experiences with love. 

I was fortunate enough to be bathed in storge love, familial love, from my infancy. My parents and older siblings petted and pampered me to excess. My first real experience with another sort of love came 81 years ago. In September 1944 I had just turned 15 and entered my second year in high school.  It attended a church youth gathering one night and met a young girl who was new in town.  Somehow, suddenly, her appearance and mannerisms hit me like a ton of bricks.  I fell head over heels in love.  Just as Thumper the rabbit described this sensation in the movie Bambi, I was absolutely twitterpated. Some would call this “puppy love” but, believe me, it was very real to this puppy.  

Using the Greek lexicon, how should I describe my feelings for this girl?  It certainly was not storge, the parent-child sort of love; neither does the brotherly-sisterly-fellowship love described by phileo fit.  What about eros?  There wasn’t a  hint of the carnal in my feelings for the young lady.   Actually, I worshiped her. Having exhausted all else,  I believe the only way to describe my attitude toward her would be to call it agape love – immature agape love.

Unfortunately, my first romance had a very sad ending. Within a few months the young lady tired of being treated like a saint, and she dumped me for a more down-to-earth sort of guy.  I was devastated. The moon and the stars fell out of the sky. I believe my feelings at that time may be described by comparing them to those of the proverbial snake who fell in love with a garden hose.  Both of us had loved not wisely but too well.

I can laugh about it now, but it truly hurt at the time.  It took me a long time to recover, and my young heart bore a small callous.

Growing up is not an easy process.  In my first few years of life, I was king of the castle — lord of my little fiefdom.  Then, at the age of five or six I ventured out into the wider world — that great ocean of humanity.   No longer was I king.  I had to learn to swim with the other urchins.  It was either that or drown, and we struggled to stay afloat while searching for every bit of love and support we could get.  I was fortunate enough to have average looks and intelligence.  I could get lost in the crowd.  But there were those who stood out in some special way.  Some fortunate ones were super intelligent, good looking, athletically gifted.  Then there were the less fortunate ones, those handicapped by physical unattractiveness, low intelligence, etcetera.  Either way, whatever their gifts or lack thereof, all God’s children need love and acceptance.  It’s part of human nature.  Sadly, it is most difficult for those in that second group to get it.  People like that often have low self-esteem and look for connections in all the wrong places, say, for instance, a neighborhood gang. 

Let’s offer a special prayer for these unfortunate ones.

One thing I know, God has not abandoned those unfortunate persons who are so often victims of neglect, disrespect and abuse. Perhaps their horizons are more limited than more gifted ones.  But these people still have choices, and with God’s help they can rise above the most miserable of environments and gain control over bitter memories of a difficult past.  They can actually convert physical and intellectual limitations  and experiential liabilities into assets.

As for you gifted ones, remember that all your talents are gifts from God.  You did not create them yourself. He expects you to thank God for your blessings and use these gifts in his service.  Unfortunately, there are far too many persons who forget God and choose to use their talents and abilities only to satisfy selfish desires or for self-glorification.

Now, let’s get back to LOVE and the Bible.

Do you remember how Jesus summarized God’s commandments?

“Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.  This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like unto it.  Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself.  On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Agape is the greek word used in that summation. It may be described as unconditional, selfless, and sacrificial love that is an action, not just an emotion.  It’s the highest form of love.

I LOVE YOU!!!

J