{"id":1048,"date":"2001-05-27T00:23:21","date_gmt":"2001-05-27T00:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aletheiabaptistministries.org\/Blog\/may-qloving-the-brethren-an-additional-perspectiveq\/"},"modified":"2014-02-02T07:21:57","modified_gmt":"2014-02-02T07:21:57","slug":"may-qloving-the-brethren-an-additional-perspectiveq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/aletheiabaptistministries.org\/Blog\/may-qloving-the-brethren-an-additional-perspectiveq\/","title":{"rendered":"Loving The Brethren: an additional perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is no more difficult command in the Bible than for each one of us to love the brethren.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t just a worldly love in the family or emotional sense, it is agape love that gives of itself because it is right to give.\u00a0 Perhaps there is no more direct application to G.K. Chesterton\u2019s statement than in this area of the Christian life, \u201cThe Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting.\u00a0 It has been found difficult; and left untried.\u201d<\/span>1<\/sup><\/p>\n

My mother used to say that it is hard to love the unlovely.\u00a0 Churches and individuals have been guilty of this failure and I think more so as America celebrates an opulent life-style where unlovely people just don\u2019t fit it.\u00a0 It is a dangerous trend for churches to \u201ctarget\u201d audiences to which it wants to minister, and not at all surprising that too often such audiences turn out to be the upper classes of society.\u00a0 Even the \u201cmillennial\u201d kids with their lap-tops and trust funds are only a small percentage of all of our nation\u2019s young people.<\/p>\n

But with that said I want to turn the attention of this article toward another neglected area of biblically mandated love.\u00a0 That is the Bible\u2019s command to love the brethren that are in the church!\u00a0 I don\u2019t mean the ones that are on the fringes of Christian living (and neither do I sleight that worthy and proper attitude), but the ones that are holy and pure and have hungered and thirsted after a biblical righteousness.\u00a0 I find, especially in John\u2019s first epistle, the consistent command for the errant believer to love the obedient believer.<\/p>\n

It has been a trend in our current society to make heroes out of those people who fail.\u00a0 And of course failure is never their fault, always the fault of the rest of society.\u00a0 Failure is celebrated as victimhood and therefore deserving of both applause and redistribution of resources to make things even.\u00a0 I am simply making a comparison that has drifted into the church and caused us to forget how God in His Word admonishes failing brethren to love those who have not failed.<\/p>\n

As a pastor I have often seen and felt the love of good Christian people for the sinning and disobedient within the church, but I have also seen and felt the antipathy of the erring brethren toward those who would encourage and even admonish them to do right.\u00a0 Of course we know that sin blinds the perspective and obedient believers are to continue ministering to the disobedient.\u00a0 But we must not forget that those who are in sin and disobedience lie under great obligation from scripture to repent and change.<\/p>\n

The cure for our sin is to look upon Christ and see the difference in our lives and His and then to confess our failure to meet that holy standard.\u00a0 Kyle Yates wrote, \u201cNo stronger cord can ever bind us than the cords of love so clearly seen as we look upon the incarnation, the life, and the death of our Lord and Saviour.\u201d2<\/sup> I find several ways in which the sinning Christian is admonished in scripture to follow this pattern toward Christ and also toward the brethren.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The erring are to love the righteous<\/h3>\n

In his third epistle, John admonished believers to love one another and not be like the world which hates believers because believers are righteous.\u00a0 For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous<\/em> (1 John 3:11-12).\u00a0 John does not bother us with whether or not Abel loved Cain.\u00a0 True Christianity will be like Abel and not like Cain.\u00a0 But when brethren fall out of love with one another, the attitude of Cain has crept in and caused the sinning brother to react in the same way (as the whole lost world).\u00a0 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer <\/em>(vs 15) John says of him, and has called into question his own salvation: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.<\/em><\/p>\n

Who is called upon for action here?\u00a0 The sinning brother!\u00a0 And what is he to do?\u00a0 Love the \u201crighteous\u201d brother!\u00a0 The righteous brother has remained true to his Lord, loving in spite of the lack of return on his investment.\u00a0 He cannot do more than he has done any more than Abel could change his righteous actions at the altar of God.\u00a0 But Cain could have and should have changed his attitude toward his brother!\u00a0 John has merely drawn the parallel to believers within the church.<\/p>\n

Long ago William Wilberforce observed, \u201cJohn Owen has made an apt comparison:\u00a0 Religion in a state of prosperity is like a colony that is long settled in a strange country.\u00a0 It is gradually assimilated in features, demeanor, and language to the native inhabitants, until at length every vestige of its distinctiveness has died away.\u201d3<\/sup> This happens as much in the matter of brotherly love as in any matter.\u00a0 We have let the world dictate how the sinning brother should respond and we have encouraged him in it rather than admonished him to love the brethren.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The prosperous are to love the poor<\/h3>\n

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. 17 But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? <\/em>(1 John 3:16-17).\u00a0 In an affluent society, it is common for the church to cater to the rich and famous and to overlook their obvious sins.\u00a0 It is always easier to admonish the lower class to respect the higher class than to admonish the wealthy.\u00a0 James called this \u201crespect of persons.\u201d\u00a0 My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons . . . . Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts? <\/em>(James 2:1, 4).<\/p>\n

In this case, it is the wealthier brother who needs to find it within himself to love the poor brother as an equal.\u00a0 The very lack of it is to admit to his sin.\u00a0 Perhaps it is the repulsive thought of shaking hands and embracing; or the loathsome task of having such an one to the house for dinner; or just the pridefulness of thinking oneself better because of possessions.\u00a0 And we ought to avoid all humbuggery like \u201cI love him as a brother\u201d\u00a0 which, of course, is to admit that you do not at all!<\/p>\n

Chesterton wrote once, \u201cLove desires personality; therefore love desires division.\u201d4<\/sup> It is the world that tries to put everyone on equal footing so it can bring itself to love everyone.\u00a0 The early churches seated slave and master on the same pew, and rejoiced that God had made such an arrangement possible through the cross of Calvary!\u00a0 He that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord\u2019s freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ\u2019s servant <\/em>(1 Cor 7:22).<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The deserters are to love the loyalists<\/h3>\n

It is one of the sad realities of church life that when a sinning believer needs the church the most he slips away, almost hiding and waits for his brethren to discover what has happened and come and find him.\u00a0 John says that\u2019s the attitude of the world, not believers!\u00a0 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: <\/em>(1 John 2:19).\u00a0 The book of Hebrews was largely written to keep the true believers from deserting the fellowship and going back to the temple worship:\u00a0 But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul\u201d <\/em>(Heb 10:39).<\/p>\n

I was given a book by a good friend of mine who had gone through difficult times and found great help in the book.\u00a0 In it, the author, David Jeremiah, writes,<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve missed you in church.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWell, the truth is that we\u2019re having trouble in our marriage.\u201d\u00a0 If that\u2019s true, get up early and go to both services!\u00a0 You need all the church you can get in such a time.\u00a0 Our faith isn\u2019t a luxury intended for periods of smooth sailing\u2014neither is our fellowship.\u00a0 When trouble comes along, that\u2019s when it\u2019s wonderful to be part of a faithful, Bible-believing body of people who will rally around you.\u00a0 They\u2019ll pray for you, support you with their resources, encourage you, and counsel you in the tough decisions.\u00a0 The devil is the only one whose opinion is that you should take a sabbatical from church in the hard times.5<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Who is commanded to love the brethren during those times?\u00a0 The ones who have remained have not ceased to do so.\u00a0 It is the one who has left who needs to love the brethren!\u00a0 (Note: Even if he has been wronged, separation only adds insult to injury.\u00a0 I am writing of those who sin and then leave).\u00a0 When Peter developed a wrong attitude, he separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision <\/em>(Gal 2:12).\u00a0 Jude says this is the action of the lost, not the saved, These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit <\/em>(Jude 19).<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The unbelievers are to love the believers<\/h3>\n

This is not redundancy but warning.\u00a0 When John says, He that saith he is in the light and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now <\/em>(1John 2:9), he means, of course, that such an one claims to be a brother but in reality is not.\u00a0 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him <\/em>(1 John 3:15).\u00a0 Sinning \u201cbrothers\u201d may be sinning because they are not brothers at all and therefore have no brotherly love in them.\u00a0 Such hypocritical ones need desperately to experience the love of Christ so they can truly love the brethren.\u00a0 We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren <\/em>(1 John 3:14).<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

And So . . .<\/h3>\n

I hope this can be taken as an additional view of what it means to love the brethren.\u00a0 It should be a subject for introspection.\u00a0 As Francis Schaeffer wrote,\u00a0 \u201cWe must not get angry.\u00a0 If people say, \u2018You don\u2019t love other Christians,\u2019 we must go home, get down on our knees and ask God whether or not they are right. \u00a0And if they are, then they have a right to have said what they said.\u201d6<\/sup><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Notes:<\/address>\n
1. G.K. Chesterton, What\u2019s Wrong With The World <\/em>(San Francisco:\u00a0 Ignatius Press, 1994) 37.<\/address>\n
2. Kyle Yates, Preaching From The Psalms <\/em>(New York: Harper, 1948) 168.<\/address>\n
3. William Wilberforce, Real Christianity <\/em> (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1997) 99.<\/address>\n
4. G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy <\/em>(Wheaton: Harold Shaw, 1994) 142.<\/address>\n
5. David Jeremiah, A Bend In The Road <\/em>(Nashville:\u00a0 Word Publishing, 2000) 97.<\/address>\n
6. Francis Schaeffer, The Mark of the Christian <\/em> (Downer\u2019s Grove: IVP, 1972) 13.<\/address>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is no more difficult command in the Bible than for each one of us to love the brethren.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t just a worldly love in the family or emotional sense, it is agape love that gives of itself because it is right to give.\u00a0 Perhaps there is no more direct application to G.K. Chesterton\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[123],"tags":[167,175],"class_list":["post-1048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-christian-living-cross-discipleship","tag-love"],"yoast_head":"\nLoving The Brethren: an additional perspective - Aletheia Baptist Ministries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/aletheiabaptistministries.org\/Blog\/may-qloving-the-brethren-an-additional-perspectiveq\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Loving The Brethren: an additional perspective - Aletheia Baptist Ministries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There is no more difficult command in the Bible than for each one of us to love the brethren.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t just a worldly love in the family or emotional sense, it is agape love that gives of itself because it is right to give.\u00a0 Perhaps there is no more direct application to G.K. 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