blog-maryBlog - Joyful Curmudgeon - Blog
A Mary T. Hoffman Commentary from All-Creatures.org

 

"Joyful Curmudgeon" An oxymoron?
No! I see all the beauty of God's creation and I'm joyful.  At the same time, I see all the suffering and corruption going on in the world, and feel called to help expose and end it so that we may have true peace and compassion.

 


Christian Love or Agape - 29 Jan 2006
By Mary T. Hoffman

Sometimes I wonder if the apostasy or falling away from Christianity has been going on since very early times. Many Christians seem to be concerned about “end times” apostasy. They seem to want to place blame or scapegoat one group or another for not adhering to their particular ideas of what “true” Christianity is.

But in my opinion, they skirt the real issue. In 1 Corinthians 13, the Apostle Paul makes it very clear what true Christianity is all about:

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

1. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. [Emphasis mine]

2. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. [Emphasis mine]

3. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. [Emphasis mine]

4. Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, [Emphasis mine]

5. does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,

6. does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;

7. bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8. Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. [Emphasis mine]

9. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part;

10. but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.

11. When I was a child, I used to speak as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.

12. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know fully just as I also have been fully known.

13. But now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. [Emphasis mine]

NASB

That’s right! True Christianity is about love! In my opinion, the “apostasy” is the turning away from Christian Love (Agape).

Go on to: Priorities and Character - 30 Jan 2006
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