RCL reading for Sunday, May 3, 2009:
Excerpt from the New Revised Standard Version
via Oremus (http://bible.oremus.org)
1 John 3:16-24
16 We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.
17 How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?
18 Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.
19 And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him
20 whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
21 Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God;
22 and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.
23 And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.
24 All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.
STUDY GUIDE
What does the passage tell us about God?
What does the passage tell us about human beings and the relationships between people?
What does the passage say about the relationship between God and human beings?
How does the passage call us to change?
Adapted from “Theological Bible Study,” from In Dialogue with Scripture: An Episcopal Guide to Studying the Bible, ed. Linda L. Grenz (Episcopal Church Center, 1993), p. 96.
PARALLEL BIBLE COMMENTARIES via http://biblecommenter.com.
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary
3:16-21 Here is the condescension, the miracle, the mystery of Divine love, that God would redeem the church with his own blood. Surely we should love those whom God has loved, and so loved. The Holy Spirit, grieved at selfishness, will leave the selfish heart without comfort, and full of darkness and terror. By what can it be known that a man has a true sense of the love of Christ for perishing sinners, or that the love of God has been planted in his heart by the Holy Spirit, if the love of the world and its good overcomes the feelings of compassion to a perishing brother? Every instance of this selfishness must weaken the evidences of a man's conversion; when habitual and allowed, it must decide against him. If conscience condemn us in known sin, or the neglect of known duty, God does so too. Let conscience therefore be well-informed, be heard, and diligently attended to.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Continuing his attack on the docetic party in the church, John the Elder draws a subtle line between faith and works. "By this we shall know," is repeated as the fruits of love, love being the new law. Astonishingly he anticipates Kierkegaard, Nietsche and Freud by turning to subjective distress. If our "hearts condemn us" he recognises the modern preoccupations with guilt, shame and dispair. His comfortable words might amount to a light horse attack on endogenous depression, but they are of a piece with the rest of his formulation of the outworking of the agape God. We may think we are evil but God knows us better than we can know ourselves and he has already forgiven us. He died for us. That we are innocent is proved by loving our brothers!
ReplyDeleteJohn's definition of agape is a tough one. Such love is unselfish, responsive and sacrificial. It is interesting how he connects loving with praying and praying with obedience.
ReplyDelete