![]() ![]() Some insist that “love one another” is too wishy-washy. So it’s more than a little odd when Christians, whether back in John’s day or our own, get impatient with those of us who emphasize love above all else.īut why do some Christians react this way? Why is a simple insistence on loving others so wearisome, even so aggravating, to some? It’s the one thing that remains always and forever.Īccording to both Jesus and the Apostles, love is it. Love is the virtue that binds together all other virtues. The only thing that matters, in fact, is a faith that works itself out in love. You want to fulfill God’s Law? Love others, they said, simple as that. Loving others is the benchmark of genuine faith, they said-if you don’t love others you’re not a true disciple of Jesus, you don’t even truly know God. ![]() All Scripture hangs like a seamless coat on this single hook: love God by loving others.Īnd Jesus’ first followers were equally clear on this. In fact, Jesus says, this love of God/others sums up everything else God commands. After all, Jesus was emphatic about what the greatest commandments of God were: love God and love others, and you can’t have one without the other. I, too, feel the pressure of this regular question: “Michael, why do you always talk about ‘love’?” Sometimes this is simple curiosity, but often the criticism is plain: this teaching, that we are to “love one another,” is somehow seen as insufficient. I can sympathize with John in this story. Those writings are filled with exhortations to love. We have no way of verifying Jerome’s story, but it certainly sounds like John-that is, the author of the Gospel and Epistles of John. “Because,” John replied, “it is the Lord’s command, and if this only is done, it is enough.” This went on week after week, until at last, more than a little weary of these repeated words, his disciples asked him, “Master, why do you always say this?” Every week these were his words to the congregation: “Little children, love one another.” ![]() John was old and frail, unable to walk, so his disciples would carry him into the gathering of believers on the Lord’s Day. The 4th-century theologian Jerome tells a story about the Apostle John. ![]()
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