QC and SG accountabilkity session (1/7/16)
Wen Ai shared about the book she was reading ("Furious Love") and how it had touched her and made her feel the need to love people more. (Thanks, Wen Ai!) The book had stories of individuals who were faithful in small ways and who were able to make their love for people concrete.
I asked the question then: "Are we supposed to love everyone equally? Do we love, for instance, Christians more than non-Christians?". Joshua then asked, "Does God love everyone equally?", which led to our main discussion for the evening! There is certainly a sense in which God loves everyone, but it is clear that He does 'play favourites'. Shaun kept saying, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated" (Rom 9:13). If God's love is expressed in action, and some are saved and some are not, clearly God does not love all in exactly the same way. Selwyn objected: but doesn't God treat us in response to the way we treat Him? (Which is to say, if we reach out to Him in holiness and love, then He will love us) The problem, though with this view, is that in Romans 9 we are told that God played favourites even before the twins were born. Jesus chose Judas knowing of his impending betrayal prior to Judas' sin, which was foretold (Mat 26:24, Jn 6:64). God raised Pharaoh to display His glory in judgement (Ex 4:21. In other words, God's actions are not merely reactive, but active in ordaining judgement. There are thus distinctions in how God displays His love to people. It is fallacious to state "God loves the sinner but hates the sin" because the Bible is clear that He does indeed hate and set Himself against the wicked ((Dt 7:9-10, Ps 11:6). I referred us then to Don Carson's excellent (and free) ebook "The difficult doctrine of the love of God" (http://s3.amazonaws.com/tgc-documents/carson/2000_difficult_doctrine_of_the_love_of_God.pdf) so that we can get a good grasp of the fact that God's love has distinctions, and is not 'unconditional' the way many people take 'unconditional' to mean. I ended by saying that we must be most keenly aware, that although we may be favoured by God, His favour to us is unmerited - out of grace, not out of anything deserving we did. This must lead to gratitude and humility, never to pride and a sense of superiority over others.
Christians are asked to do good especially to those of the household of faith (Gal 6:10). Jesus certainly distinguished between His disciples, and the crowds, and His enemies, in the way he trusted (or did not trust) them (Jn 2:23), spoke to them (c.f. scolding the Pharisees in the harshest terms) and telling them that they did not believe because (Jn 8:45) He told them the truth. He taught us to "not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs" (Mat 7:1). This teaches us to be discerning in our interactions with people. In one sense, we are to love and forgive even our enemies (Mt 5:44), and yet clearly this does not mean trusting them unreservedly or failing to condemn them. So our love for people, just like God's love for people, must be nuanced. It cannot be an all-or-nothing proposition. We must know that in life we have to make tough calls. But we should be prepared to give the benefit of the doubt until we are sure of where people's hearts are.
Selwyn asked the question that his cell discussed. "Where does faith come from?" He clarified that by faith he meant "saving faith". The simple answer that he came up with, and the correct one (from Eph 2:8-9) is, it is a "gift of God". Saving faith needs 1) knowledge of the facts 2) assent./agreement with the facts and 3) trust and confidence in the facts such that we place our lives in a position of total dependence on the facts. This saves. We remember Abraham as the great model of how faith/trust saves (Gen 15). and we said that we do not have to be fully cognizant of theology to be born again. A 'simple faith' can suffice for a child, and yet we are called to have more than a 'simple' faith. Faith must be childlike, not childish. (1 Co 3:2, Heb 5:12). We must grow in all the aspects of our faith.
Shaun asked about food prohibitions set out by the Jerusalem council in Acts 15. We noted that this is a historical narrative to reduce the chance of Gentiles stumbling Jews, not a didactic account. The relevant teaching is in Mark 7:18-19, where Jesus calls all foods clean. Clearly also, Paul teaches the Corinthians that eating food offered to idols is not wrong in an of itself, but must not stumble our weaker brothers/sisters. (1 Cor 10)
I asked the question then: "Are we supposed to love everyone equally? Do we love, for instance, Christians more than non-Christians?". Joshua then asked, "Does God love everyone equally?", which led to our main discussion for the evening! There is certainly a sense in which God loves everyone, but it is clear that He does 'play favourites'. Shaun kept saying, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated" (Rom 9:13). If God's love is expressed in action, and some are saved and some are not, clearly God does not love all in exactly the same way. Selwyn objected: but doesn't God treat us in response to the way we treat Him? (Which is to say, if we reach out to Him in holiness and love, then He will love us) The problem, though with this view, is that in Romans 9 we are told that God played favourites even before the twins were born. Jesus chose Judas knowing of his impending betrayal prior to Judas' sin, which was foretold (Mat 26:24, Jn 6:64). God raised Pharaoh to display His glory in judgement (Ex 4:21. In other words, God's actions are not merely reactive, but active in ordaining judgement. There are thus distinctions in how God displays His love to people. It is fallacious to state "God loves the sinner but hates the sin" because the Bible is clear that He does indeed hate and set Himself against the wicked ((Dt 7:9-10, Ps 11:6). I referred us then to Don Carson's excellent (and free) ebook "The difficult doctrine of the love of God" (http://s3.amazonaws.com/tgc-documents/carson/2000_difficult_doctrine_of_the_love_of_God.pdf) so that we can get a good grasp of the fact that God's love has distinctions, and is not 'unconditional' the way many people take 'unconditional' to mean. I ended by saying that we must be most keenly aware, that although we may be favoured by God, His favour to us is unmerited - out of grace, not out of anything deserving we did. This must lead to gratitude and humility, never to pride and a sense of superiority over others.
Christians are asked to do good especially to those of the household of faith (Gal 6:10). Jesus certainly distinguished between His disciples, and the crowds, and His enemies, in the way he trusted (or did not trust) them (Jn 2:23), spoke to them (c.f. scolding the Pharisees in the harshest terms) and telling them that they did not believe because (Jn 8:45) He told them the truth. He taught us to "not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs" (Mat 7:1). This teaches us to be discerning in our interactions with people. In one sense, we are to love and forgive even our enemies (Mt 5:44), and yet clearly this does not mean trusting them unreservedly or failing to condemn them. So our love for people, just like God's love for people, must be nuanced. It cannot be an all-or-nothing proposition. We must know that in life we have to make tough calls. But we should be prepared to give the benefit of the doubt until we are sure of where people's hearts are.
Selwyn asked the question that his cell discussed. "Where does faith come from?" He clarified that by faith he meant "saving faith". The simple answer that he came up with, and the correct one (from Eph 2:8-9) is, it is a "gift of God". Saving faith needs 1) knowledge of the facts 2) assent./agreement with the facts and 3) trust and confidence in the facts such that we place our lives in a position of total dependence on the facts. This saves. We remember Abraham as the great model of how faith/trust saves (Gen 15). and we said that we do not have to be fully cognizant of theology to be born again. A 'simple faith' can suffice for a child, and yet we are called to have more than a 'simple' faith. Faith must be childlike, not childish. (1 Co 3:2, Heb 5:12). We must grow in all the aspects of our faith.
Shaun asked about food prohibitions set out by the Jerusalem council in Acts 15. We noted that this is a historical narrative to reduce the chance of Gentiles stumbling Jews, not a didactic account. The relevant teaching is in Mark 7:18-19, where Jesus calls all foods clean. Clearly also, Paul teaches the Corinthians that eating food offered to idols is not wrong in an of itself, but must not stumble our weaker brothers/sisters. (1 Cor 10)
Actually, I would like to clarify that my point was that Jesus called us to love our enemies, just as God's love is perfect when he extended common grace to all (Matt 5:45) - in that sense, we are asked to love all equally. But I also understand now that over and above common grace, God extends special grace to His elect, and in that sense that is where the inequality in love will arise - in conformity with Christ we may also be asked to extend special love to certain persons e.g. fellow believers/wives/husbands/parents/children etc. This special love are pearls which should not be thrown, especially, to pigs.
ReplyDeleteSo it's like a layered, triangular-prism cake: the bottom layer is for all equally, but the top layers are for special persons. That may be why my answer was both "yes" and "no". Not sure if my understanding still needs to be corrected. I also may have to re-read Wesley's understanding of God's holy love (am still reading a book on it). Am open to correction!
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DeleteIt's nice to have a comment and to know people are reading! I think we will avoid much confusion when we realize that speaking of God's love (or worse. God's 'unconditional' love) must keep the fact in mind that God's love has a range of meanings. Just reading Carson's book from pages 16-20 will be very helpful (it's less than 100 pages anyway). Chapter 3 on "God's love and God's sovereignty" is excellent too! :)
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