A Hard lesson - Taught by God to love one another

You know how if you're reading the Bible in a desultory fashion, ...ok, I know we should always read the Bible expectantly, receptively, devotionally or whatever other word best describes paying attention. But to be honest, sometimes reading where you've read before, and knowing what's coming, and being familiar with it all, it takes an ambush to get that attention.

Reading Thessalonians last night I was ambushed. Paul tells them, 'You yourselves have been taught by God to love one another.' (I Thessalonians 4.9) The point is so important Paul invents a word, "theodidaktos", which means 'taught of God'. Now how does God teach converted pagans to love one another? What pedagogic methods does God employ? Well, not distance learning because love cannot be taught remotely. Not with multi-media angels making God point with power. And what learning outcomes does God set for us to demonstrate with critical awareness that we have learned what we have been taught?

God's love is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, he tells the Roman house churches. Love is greater than faith and hope he tells the Corinthians. Love fulfils the law of Christ. All true enough. But this hapax legomenon,this word "theodidaktos" which Paul manufactured for the purpose, is a seriously disruptive word, suggestive of personal discomfort which is the inevitable result of being taught, not what to do, but who to be, and who to be like.

Taught by God to love - followers of Jesus are taught by God what love is, what love costs, where love leads, how love works, why love hurts, where love is needed, and when.

Taught by God to love - the greater love that lays down its life, the love that loves to the end, the loves demonstrated not only in words but in actions, - like breaking bread, washing feet, touching the broken, turning water to wine, loaves and fish into nourishment.

Taught by God to love each other - which means when I don't love I haven't learnt the first lesson about God, that God is love, and that love is cross shaped, outward reaching, creatively persistent, compassionately imaginative, unafraid of rejection and itself fearlessly welcoming.

God of love, teach us to love, so that others may say of us, theodidaktos, taught of God, to love.

Comments

[Margaret]

I wonder why sometimes we find it so hard to do?

[Jim Gordon]

Margaret, could it be that love as something we feel, gets in the way of love as something we do? That much maligned but sensible scholar William Barclay defines love as indefatigable goodwill. Not an emotional feeling of benevolence, but a determined attitude of goodwill that finds ways of acting in a loving way. Not sure what Jesus FELT about argy bargying disciples the night before he died, but I know what he DID when he took the basin and the towel.

Then there's the important Gospel perspective - if God teaches us to love maybe it isn't about what we do, so much as what we let God do in us. Grace I find more perplexing the more I try to understand it, outguess it, or even just be open to it! So no easy answer to your hard question - but I reckon answering it is one of the key demands of following after Jesus, taught by God.