Love Devine, All Loves Excelling

Jesus’ departure also created anxiety and questions amongst the apostles (Pentecost, 1981). Thus, in the narrative of John 13:36-14:31, Jesus lovingly admonishes the apostles with the command of “Let not your heart be troubled” (Wiersbe, 2007). As a consequence of this command, Jesus promised the apostles a place in heaven along with Christ’s return (John 14:3), assurance that Christ was the way to the Father (John 14:6), and a permanent, indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit (John 14:16; Acts 13:52) who would be the apostle’s teacher (Luke 12:12) in Jesus’ absence (Gromacki, 1978). Most profound is the fact that with Jesus’ ascension into heaven, the apostles would benefit in Jesus’ absence (John 14:9) with greater spiritual power (Pentecost, 1981). Additionally, Jesus also revealed the divine essence of the Godhead (John 14:9) while further defining the true essence of Christianity, “Ye in me, I in you” (Gromacki, 1978).

Thou didst promise to hearken to our supplications, to dry our tears and to give us consolation and relief. Never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession, either for the common welfare, or in personal anxieties, was left unaided.

The secular saint, like the hero saint, is motivated by love. While Augustine tells us that the hero saint is moved by love for God, the secular saint as the humanist thinkers of our modern age assert is moved by love for self and/or fellow man. Thus, love appears to be at the heart of the meaning of life. Throughout history love has been given many different names. For the pagan Greeks, there was eros (erotic or sexual love), agape (spiritual love), and phileos (a kind of platonic, friendly love). For the Christians, love was best described as caritas charity (a selfless love of God and neighbor). The modern world, which turned in a sense away from the Christian concept of reality, adopted a more ego-centric idea of love of love that was not selfless but selfish.

The Akathist hymn, in the very way that it is laid out, invites those praying to contemplate the mystery of Christ’s birth and saving action. A narrative story beginning with the

You kept Your Promise…You gave us the gift of Your Holy Spirit. Living, swelling, communing on the inside of us—and our children. Oh that we would live our lives in such a way that would manifest

I remember my first personal interaction with Bob Goff. When a mountain of a man with the brightest smile you have ever seen runs up to you, asks for a picture with you, and gives you a piece of bubble gum it makes an impact! As I read Love Does the words exploded from the pages as I could hear Bob’s laugh in each chapter. This one interaction with the author radiates the Goff’s key thesis and thoughts. At the end of the day our faith comes down this: love God, love people, and love does. Love is an action, and “love is never stationary” (Goff, 2012)

This love is portrayed as a turbulent force that possesses the power to create both positive and negative change. Those affected by this force are wholly in its power, to the exclusion of reason and often morality. Transformations in the

Although Vanhoozer explains many positive opinions on Platonic view of love (eros), essentially this view focuses on the self-love and focus more on a paganist view. Nygren shares that patristic concept has confused the true meaning of love (agape) with the pagan notion of eros. The desire to fulfill love through self-gratifications void the critical element of God’s love in the Old Testament for His creative beings. Further, it fully disregards His action to build a relationship with humanity through his Son, Christ. John makes a pivotal point in sharing, “For God so loved the world that he gave His only Son” (Jn 3:16). Nygren makes an important point in stating “The man who God loves has no value in himself. His value consists simply in the fact that God loves him.” Therefore, it is through love that God is able show forth His love in spite of the sinful nature of humanity and build a relationship with

In the Greek Era, many philosophers tried to define love, especially one that was timeless. Throughout literature, there have various perspectives on love. In The Iliad, which was during the Greek era, there was greater importance on honor than love. In The Confessions, which was written during the early Christian age, there was a great importance for love of God. In Gilead, which is a modern novel, there is great importance for love in general, especially that for family. Out of all the Socratic definitions of love in The Symposium, Diotima had the most universal definition of love, which was “the desire to possess the good forever” (206A). To possess the good forever, one must reproduce with their body or reproduce with their soul. Diotima’s idea of the desire to possess the good forever through reproduction of the body and of the soul is present in all three sections of literature including The Iliad, Confessions and Gilead.

await the blessed hope, the appearance of the glory of the great God and of our

25 For great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; he is to be feared above all gods.

The natural world plays an important role in Bernard of Clairvaux’s theological life. According to Bernard of Clairvaux, love is one of the passions and what is natural should be at the service of the Lord of nature. There are 4 degrees of love, and the first one is when man loves himself for his own sake. Because nature has become rather frail and weak, man is driven by necessity to serve nature first. It results in bodily love and such bodily animal that does not know how to love anything but himself begins to love God for his own benefit, because he learns from frequent experience that in God he can do everything which is good for him, and without God he can do nothing. The second degree of love is when man loves God for his own good. Man loves good for his own sake, not God’s. The wise man will know what he can do by himself and what he can do only with God’s help, and then people will avoid hurting him who keeps you from getting hurt. The third degree is when man loves God for God’s sake. As man needs God more frequently, the taste of his own sweetness leads us to love

The main topic in this series is the battle between the love and the religion. The love is a natural thing that is a basic element of humanity, but the religion suppresses it. This series is not to judge whether either side is wrong or right, but instead it seeks out a new perspective for the new generation to think about the issue, and encourages them to find the best

In its original cultic sitz im leben, where the psalm would have been sung in antiphon, the exhortation would have been directed toward the congregation in the liturgy, whereby they would respond with the second part of each verse, the whole assembly telling the wondrous story of YHWH’s salvation of Israel. We too can join in this choral liturgy, seeing the thread that is drawn from the pillars of the earth at creation, through Israel’s history, to Christ’s cross and resurrection, even to our own day where we continue to see the salvation of YHWH in our midst.

How is it that someone could love us so much that he sent his flesh and blood to be brutally murdered for our wrong doings? How can love be more than a simple expression? The love of God in Christ is the greatest invitation for nonbelievers to hear the gospel message. No other book of the Bible declares God’s love, greatest sacrifice of love, and the greatest gift of love, more than the book of John. John is often referred to as the “Gospel of Love,” John not only emphasizes God’s love for the world, but also Christ’s love and compassion for His disciples. However, our separation and blindness from seeing the unconditional love of God, is sin. Sin results in the breakdown of both our divine and human relationships, making us incapable of loving the way God intended. Sin has turned the greatest commandments about loving God and our neighbors on their head, so that instead of being God-centered, we have become self-centered. This paper will