On Sunday we talked about Brotherly love and tried to define it in all it’s parts. We got down to stating that brotherly love needs to have a source, a goal, an attitude, and an action and the only definition we could come to was that the source was the Holy Spirit. Brotherly love seems to resist definition. Perhaps the most useful way to continue to discuss it would be to discuss examples of it that we ourselves have experienced. And so my own personal example follows:
An example my wife an I recently experienced of brotherly love was in Cambodia. While we were only there for a week we experienced a great deal of vulnerability and encouragement from the believers there. The team leaders explained to us in detail many of the trials and heartaches they had experienced trusting us only because we too trusted in Christ and with no relational history. They all also opened up their homes to us and served us by blocking out their schedules to assist us and talk to us while we were with them (no small feat as they were in the middle of a transition where many were on or going to furlow). We sincerely appreciated their love but in no way could repay them for their generosity and it isn’t clear whether that will ever happen. They gave their love to us with no strings attached.
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One Response to “Brotherly Love”
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July 22nd, 2007 at 8:34 am
I appreciate what you’ve begun here Matt L. Additional thoughts - Brotherly love also has an example and a likewise response: 1 John 3:16
In We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
Brotherly love is not merely from the Holy Spirit, but from the fullness of God as Trinity. The HS has poured out the love of God (the Father) in our hearts - this Spirit is also called the Spirit of Christ - and Christ abides in us by the Spirit (1 John 3:24
) at the following verses and examine the interplay between the fullness of God as expressed in the Trinity, the Father and Son and Spirit - and examine how this triune God relates to brotherly love:
1 John 4:7-21
:
7Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
8The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
9By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
10In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.
13By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.
14We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
15Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.
16We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
17By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.
18There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.
19We love, because He first loved us.
20If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.
21And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.
As for examples. I experience the love of God through believers when they greet me warmly, through a touch on the arm, through a phone call that expresses care, through the using of other’s gifts to build up the body, through a brother who lays his life down in broken humility for me in action rather than living at a relational distance, when a brother reproves me of sin who knows me and cares for me (rather than judging from a relational distance which often results in gossip and/or slander), through listening to me (rather than dominating conversation), and a variety of other ways… most recently, I experienced brotherly love when Tim, Rachel, Lane, Anna, Jaden, Jonah, Bill, and David Stevens came just to greet us as the airport when we arrived from Rwanda - they all sacrificed to be there, that was love… I experienced brotherly love when my children cried and clung to me when I arrived in the airport and when I walked into the house, it was covered with streamers, decorations, and a welcome home sign. I experienced brotherly love when Bill called me 2 days later just to see how we were doing, when Lane came by just to visit and brought cookies, when Matt L. showed up at our house to help with organizing finances and we also talked about life together, when Josh met me for lunch and gave me a hug and spent time sharing his heart with me. And this is just since I got home, there were many other examples from Rwanda. Because God is relationally loving, we are to be relationally loving, which involves loving interaction which could include such things as anonymous giving or unknown service to another that God sees - actions or words that build up rather than tear down like the world, etc.
love,
Scott