{"id":1345,"date":"2015-07-19T07:00:38","date_gmt":"2015-07-19T13:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/returningking.com\/?p=1345"},"modified":"2015-07-27T08:11:21","modified_gmt":"2015-07-27T14:11:21","slug":"loving-those-we-dislike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/returningking.com\/?p=1345","title":{"rendered":"Loving Those We Dislike"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Originally published in The Fort Bend Herald]<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0One of the most difficult concepts of Christianity involves a series of commands that relegate us to love pretty much everyone, everywhere and in every situation.\u00a0 While the sentiment of that seems truly noble and altruistic, many find themselves in a very difficult crisis of faith for the simple fact that there are some people we honestly find very hard to like.\u00a0 \u201cLiking\u201d involves commonality in thought or position.\u00a0 It involves someone we consider compatible and worthy.\u00a0 It involves reciprocity.\u00a0 Indeed, all of us have those around us of whom these traits simply do not exist.\u00a0 We simply do not \u201clike\u201d everyone.\u00a0 How, then, are we to love them?<\/p>\n

The first order is to confirm the need for such indiscriminating love in the scriptures.\u00a0 Indeed, Jesus tells us to love our neighbor (Mt 22:39).\u00a0 The apostles teach us to love one another in the church (Rom 12:10) and our spouses (Eph 5:25).\u00a0 These emanations of love seem easy enough to fulfill; or at least a realistic goal to shoot at- until we realize that even these two commands come with caveats:\u00a0 Jesus said to love our neighbors as ourselves, <\/em>and Paul instructed husbands to love their wives as their own bodies.<\/em><\/p>\n

But wait: it gets worse, for Jesus further said that we should love even our enemies! (Mat 5:43-44)\u00a0 This instruction, he follows with, \u201cFor if you love those who love you\u2026 do not even the tax collectors do the same?\u201d (v. 46)<\/p>\n

Now the sentiment is getting downright troublesome.\u00a0 Let\u2019s face it, it\u2019s hard at times to love even those people we share Thanksgiving Dinner with \u2013 let alone those who have earned the moniker of \u201cenemy.\u201d\u00a0 For all practical purposes, the very definition of \u201can enemy\u201d is someone that in the very least we do not like at all.<\/em>\u00a0 How, then, are we to love those we (sometimes for good reason) simply do not like?<\/p>\n

The bad news is this is not an easy pursuit, even when properly understood.\u00a0 The good news is most of us have completely misunderstood<\/em> this set of commands because of language issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cLove,\u201d in English is an extremely flexible term.\u00a0 We love our spouses and we love our dog.\u00a0 (Surely those two do not mean the same thing.)\u00a0 We love certain forms of art.\u00a0 We love chicken fried steak and we love our children.\u00a0 Each of these things gets coined as \u201cthat which we love\u201d but with significantly distinct meanings and inferences that actually separate this idea of \u201clove\u201d into numerous categorically different things altogether.<\/p>\n

In the New Testament there are two different Greek terms translated into English as \u201clove.\u201d One term is the term most similar to that \u201clove\u201d we claim for our families and friends.\u00a0 The other is a sense of the idea of \u201clove\u201d that frankly, we do not use very often in conversational English.\u00a0 (There is no Greek equivalent to our love for chicken fried steak to my knowledge\u2026 that must be an English thing.)<\/p>\n

The lesser used term for \u201clove\u201d in the NT (about 20 times) is phileo<\/em> (phil-eh\u2019-oh); often referred to as \u201cbrotherly love.\u201d\u00a0 Such is the namesake for the city of Philadelphia and various other English terms with the \u201cphile\u201d suffix.\u00a0 This term is best understood as \u201crelational\u201d love.\u00a0 It is that \u201cI love you because you and I have a personal connection.\u201d\u00a0 This term best fits with our love of family and friends, because it is reciprocal: the love we have for those we \u201clike.\u201d Most of us are thinking of THIS type of love when we hear the command to \u201clove your enemies.\u201d\u00a0 But, relax \u2013 that is not the command we have been given.<\/p>\n

The second and far more common \u201clove\u201d in the NT (over 250 times) is agape<\/em> (ah-gah\u2019-pay) (n) or agapao<\/em> (ah-ga-pah\u2019-o) (v).\u00a0 This is (potentially) unreciprocated love.\u00a0 It is a love that is chosen, deliberate and service oriented; but not necessarily relational.\u00a0 To love in this manner is tantamount to Jesus\u2019 golden rule: to treat others as we wish to be treated.\u00a0 This is the love we are administering when we give money to help feed or clothe total strangers.\u00a0 It is the love we are sharing when we stop to help a stranger on the side of the road.\u00a0 These are not reciprocal actions:\u00a0 I\u2019m not helping because I realized that was a friend of mine I just passed on the highway.\u00a0 These are chosen, deliberate acts of service to others out of reverence for their creator and recognition of their need.<\/p>\n

While both types of love are commanded in scripture in various scenarios, we are ten times more often commanded to agapao<\/em> those around us: love through service and with potentially nothing gained in return.\u00a0 THIS is the love we are commanded to give our enemies.\u00a0 \u00a0We are to value them as human beings and provide them with dignity and service when able.\u00a0 We should help them when in need.\u00a0 We should speak kindly and act compassionately even if they are our political enemies or are on the \u201cother side\u201d of the culture war.\u00a0 It is this love that God demonstrated toward us in that he loved us while we were his enemies (Rom 5:8).\u00a0 In the same manner, we are to love our enemies; even if we don\u2019t happen to like them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Originally published in The Fort Bend Herald] \u00a0One of the most difficult concepts of Christianity involves a series of commands that relegate us to love pretty much everyone, everywhere and in every situation.\u00a0 While the sentiment of that seems truly noble and altruistic, many find themselves in a very difficult crisis of faith for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,5,10],"tags":[220,219],"series":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/returningking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/returningking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/returningking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/returningking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/returningking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1345"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/returningking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1350,"href":"http:\/\/returningking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345\/revisions\/1350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/returningking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/returningking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/returningking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1345"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/returningking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=1345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}