Silent in the Background

1 John 2 is much longer than 1 John 1 which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, and it contains a wide range of themes and ideas – sin (again), forgiveness (again), light & dark (again), warning of anti-Messiahs, and encouragements to abide in God. It’s well worth reading and meditating on. But as we’re thinking about the love of God, I want to highlight the first half of verse 5 – Whoever obeys Jesus’ (or God’s) word, truly in this person the love of God has reached perfection (that’s one translation, click the link to see a couple of others). This verse, and actually quite a lot of this chapter, is quite striking and challenging, because it links our actions (obedience to God) with the perfection or completeness of the love of God. How, we wonder, can God’s love depend on what we do? Aren’t we supposed to be saved by faith, through the free gift of God, not by our own works? I think we can say a couple of things. First, ‘love of God’ here probably does not mean God’s lo

Continuing our thinking about the love of God I was reading Romans 5.5 this week, which says that "God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us." (NRSV) 'God's love' is the translation of ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ (he agape tou theou) which is in the genitive case - 'the love of God'. As it happened, in my beginner NT Greek class last week we were discussing how the genitive case has a wider range of meaning that simple possessive or ownership. (This was new to me, as a very beginner linguist.) My teacher pointed out the genitive can be understood in several ways: the love God has for others the love that another has for God (as in 'I have a great love of books') 'of' can imply authorship, as in 'the gospel of Mark' Translating the phrase above simply as 'God's love' seems to me to give it the first of these meanings. However, perhaps the original text (also?) carries the second

We recently began a new series on Sundays exploring the love of God. I encouraged our church to read the book of 1 John, which is a very short book near the end of the Bible.  It’s a lovely book (actually a letter) with a lot to say about God’s love, as well as how that is demonstrated in Jesus to take away what would separate us from God (sin). To encourage you, here are some quick thoughts about 1 John 1 . Reading this chapter (which is only ten verses long), I have been caught by the very opening. Look at the verbs in the first three verses – declare, heard, seen (with our own eyes), touched, testify. The writer is talking about something very real, something experienced with our physical senses, something which can be seen, heard and touched. This is the writer’s experience of God the Father and Jesus Christ, the Son of God, which he is declaring in order to have fellowship with his hearers and readers. The letter goes on to speak of joy, love and sin, all of which we might