Have mercy on me, Oh Lord, a sinner...

Okay, so this is going to be a long one (probably VERY long), but I think if we as a culture are going to get through these discussions, we need to stop relying on pre-cut snippets and sound-bytes and start really digging into the nuts and bolts of not just the what, but the how and the why of what we profess to believe.

In a discussion about how unloving Christians seem to be, someone used 1 John 4:8 as a general indictment of unloving behavior. Which developed into the following word-wall. This whole issue is one that I've been seeking God's guidance on for the better part of 4 years now. What exactly is our job, as Christians? And after reading through the Gospels looking for guidance, I've been horribly convicted about it. So I guess, I'm just gonna share my thoughts, but it starts in 1 John because of that specific discussion.

So, 1 John 4:8 is situated in a really interesting context. John is writing to drive home a point: fractious and un-loving behavior is ungodly. Full stop. Even in the early church, disunity and arguing were rampant, especially between the traditionalist Jewish-Christians and more progressive Gentile-Christians. The Jews tended to see Christianity as a fulfillment and perfecting of the Old Law, whereas the Gentiles mostly saw it as this miraculous new thing that existed all by itself.

So into this situation, you had all of these professing Christians running around yelling at each other and causing strife among the collective church. And John is crying out against this with everything he's got, because all of this bickering is absolutely destroying the efficacy and ministry of the church.

So, 1 John 4 begins with a section about testing spirits, specifically if someone claims to be speaking authoritatively about the Gospel, then their message should depend ENTIRELY upon the redemptive work of Christ. If they refuse to testify to the salvatory work of Christ, then the spirit with which they preach isn't from God, but is actively working against Him.

IMMEDIATELY following this is the passage about loving each other. And believe it or not, the first and second parts of the chapter are basically the same thought stream. John is proscribing a method for “testing the spirit” of people claiming to preach the Gospel. In verses 7-21, he's building a logical construct to illustrate his method. To paraphrase:

“We should love each other, because love comes from God, and everyone who loves each other loves God and has been loved by God. Anyone who doesn't love others doesn't love God, because God is love. This is how we know if someone loves God. And the fact that God sent His Son to die for us is how we know that He loves us. Not because we loved Him. So then, if God loved us, then we should love others. Because He has loved us, He sent His Spirit to us, which allows us to testify to the Gospel of Christ. And if anyone confesses Christ's work, then he has the Spirit of God, which means he should love others. And there is no fear in love, because love gets rid of fear. Fear comes from being afraid of punishment, but if we believe He loves us, we shouldn't be afraid of that anymore. Because we love Him, which means that He loved us first.”

It's almost comical. John is baby-stepping us to the idea that loving each other is important:

J: God loves us.

C: Yup.

J: God loves us, because He is love.

C: Uh-huh.

J: And because He loved us, we can also love.

C: I'm with you so far.

J: So if God loves us...

C: Yep

J: And we love others because He loved us...

C: Mmhmm

J: Than we should........

C: …...... PURGE THE CHURCH OF THOSE VILE PROGRESSIVIST-GENTILES -or- TRADITIONALIST-JEWS!!!!!!11!!!1!

You can almost feel the disappointment in John's writing, because the last section of the passage literally starts with “Anyone who says “I love God”, but hates other Christians actually doesn't even KNOW God. Which we know because Jesus literally COMMANDED that we be loving to each other.”

So there you go, the entirety of 1 John 4 is about Christian conduct to each other, not to unbelievers. But then, what are Christians guidelines for how we treat/behave towards non-Christians?

Well, let's look at a few different places, so that we can see that this theme is really woven throughout the New Testament.

Galatians 5:17 makes the point that the things our flesh wants are the opposite of what the Spirit of God wants. Chiefly, our flesh wants to take care of itself, and the Spirit of God wants us to take care of others, which we see directly from the mouth of Christ in John 13:34-35. Christians are supposed to be known by their love for others. This is because, like 2 Peter 1:3-11 points out, through the work of Christ, we are joined to God's Spirit, which frees us from the corruption of sin and allows us to culminate our faith in loving others (notice how in verse 7, godliness leads to affectionate behavior to other Christians, which leads to love for others in general). And Paul deals with this EXHAUSTIVELY in Romans. In chapters 7 and 8 especially he reiterates over and over again that mankind naturally is self serving, and the only reason that we're not is by the action of Christ in our lives.

So, what does that mean? Romans 2 makes it abundantly clear that non-believers have a law to themselves. Things like not killing and not stealing are pretty universally condemned. We instinctively, even without Christ in our hearts, know that killing others is a bad thing. Christ's work is to turn our vision from “how do I build a good life for myself” to “how do I build a good life for others?” Jesus Himself says this in Matthew 22:34-40: loving God is important, but loving others is JUST AS IMPORTANT. And Paul echoes this in 1 Corinthians 13. All of the religiosity and all of the holiness is USELESS if you don't behave lovingly to others.

The tone throughout all of this is that, of course the unsaved behave differently. They're following their nature. They're living in the way that makes sense to them, and no one should be surprised by this. Our instincts are not to always put others first. Sure, maybe sometimes we will (Romans 5:7), but not with any real frequency. The only reason Christians have a greater sense of their destructive nature is because of God's work in us. And make no mistake, we're still screwed up, we just have a better sense of HOW screwed up we really are.

But Christ's command is clear. Carry the Gospel, the hope that things won't be broken forever, into the world. And we are SUPPOSED to be doing this by demonstrating God's love for others. Jesus spent His efforts on the most broken parts of society. He ministered to the diseased, the poor, the thieves, and the whores. His premise is clear: God loves ALL of you, not just the people who are well-behaved. “Those who are healthy don't need a doctor, but those who are sick” Mark 2:17. And to come back to 1 John, in chapter 2, verses 3-6 we see it all spelled out even more clearly: anyone who claims to know/follow God, but doesn't keep His commandments is a liar. 1 John 2:6 specifically states that “the one who says he resides in God OUGHT TO WALK JUST AS JESUS WALKED.”

So, now we get to the TL;DR version:

-1 John 4 is specifically about Christians loving other Christians.

-1 John 2:3-6 says that if you claim to follow God, but don't obey Jesus, you're lying about following God, which is terribly bad news for me, because:

Jesus in Mark 2:17- ministry to the unsaved is super important

Jesus in Matthew 7:12, Matthew 22:34-40, John 15:12, and John 15:17- loving God is important, but loving the people around you is just as important. I'm LITERALLY COMMANDING YOU TO ACT LOVINGLY TO OTHER PEOPLE.

Jesus in John 13: 34-35- The world should know that you're legit because you will act lovingly to others.

Jesus in Matthew 7: 1-5- The whole point of the law is to convict yourself. Stop worrying about what everyone else is doing and get yourself right!

Jesus in Matthew 18:15-17- Talk about people's sins in private, with just them, and even then, only if they already follow me.

Jesus in Matthew 20:26-28- love others by literally behaving like a servant to them.

Jesus in Luke 14:12-14- If you're gonna have a feast, it'd be best if you invite the poor and crippled, so that you won't expect to be paid.

Jesus in Matthew 25:31-46- If you're unkind to the poor, the homeless, the immigrant, the sick, the imprisoned, or any of the others at the bottom of society, you've literally been unkind to God.

Wait, so if I don't live with an open hand to the poor and needy, I don't really love God? Yep!

What if I make a big deal about everyone's sin? Yeah, that's literally the opposite of what you should do.

Somehow, somewhere, the LITERAL WORDS OF CHRIST have been flipped over. I was somehow convinced that Christ convict and highlight other people's sin, when he LITERALLY TOLD ME TO DO THE EXACT OPPOSITE! I grew up thinking that God wanted us to make the poor work harder, the sick fend for themselves, and the immigrants just go away, when IT'S LITERALLY IN THE BIBLE THAT DOING THOSE THINGS MAKES GOD VERY ANGRY. Like, send-people-to-eternal-punishment angry.

If you had to boil down the message of the gospel and true Christ-Command-Centered-Christianity, it might look something like:

God doesn't hate fags, He hates hypocrites.

God doesn't hate Trans people, He hates people who yell about everyone else's sins.

God doesn't hate abortionists, He hates people who are uncharitable to the poor, homeless, sick, felons, and immigrants.

God doesn't hate anyone. He hates sin, specifically because it hurts us.

GOD LOVES HUMANITY. All of it. That's why He died to save us. We're broken, and so of course we do what makes sense to us. No one should be surprised by that. But when we find Him, and are changed by Him, we become acutely aware of how screwed up WE are. Not everyone else. Us. And that revulsion at OUR OWN brokenness, revealed to us by God, shows us just how much He loves the rest of them. And moved to compassion, we ought to strive to relieve their suffering. Just like God is striving to remove ours. Because doing that, loving mankind and giving up everything for them IN SPITE of their brokenness, is the LITERAL gospel.

So yeah, I hope that clears up my position. I'm sure it'll be unpopular with many, but it's the conclusion I've some to after a lot of Bible searching. You can believe whatever you want, because it's not my job to judge who's right because it's God's job, and He's better at it than I could ever be. But Christ's commands are clear as day in the scripture.

I love all of you, and am just so angry at myself for taking so long to actually go read Jesus' own words. I'm so monumentally disappointed in my own blindness and how my own spirit has twisted God's commands into things that make me look better. I am a Pharisee, and it breaks my heart.

Grace, peace, mercy, and love to you all.