Love Is The Theme Of The New Testament

Christians today need to grow in love and to show that love through concern and service for the well-being of others. We need to put the care and well-being of others above our care and concern for ourselves. We need to love all people, not just the ones that are like us, or that are nice, or that can help us get what we want. This love for people will reflect God’s love for all people which He made clear by His laws in the Old Testament and the sacrificial death of Christ for our sins in the New Testament.

‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. The second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two precepts hang all the law and the prophets’ (Mathew 22.37, 38, 39, 40). ‘By this all men know that they are my disciples, if ye have love one to another’ (John 13.35) …’He who loveth God loveth his brother also’ (1 John 4.21) …’If any man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar’ (1 John 4.20) …The first thing that takes our attention is the saying of Jesus, ‘Thou shalt love,’ etc. (501-2)

The Harper Collins definition is, “The chief purpose of love is to bring one’s neighbor into communion with God. True self-love and love for God are coincident or coextensive.” This definition says that to love others you have to bring others to God, just as St. Francis of Assisi said, “Preach the gospel at all times. When

God shows love in the greatest ways. There are so many passages, especially in the book of John that prove what a loving God we have. He sacrificed his only son for us and if that doesn't prove his amount of love then I'm not sure what could. Everyday this attribute of God shines through anybody who believes in him. There are ways love is working in your life right now and you don't even realize it. Romans 13:10- "love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law." Going about your day with love will never steer you wrong. Even if you feel like you just cannot be loving today, try your hardest to have an attitude of love and it will change your perspective for sure. It can drastically change your personal views as a believer, the way you can apply this attribute, and how the attribute of love can draw in non-believers.

Wright concisely states, “Love is the language they speak in God’s world, and we are summoned to learn it against the day when God’s world and ours will be brought together... Love is not a “duty,” even our highest duty. It is our destiny”

This paper will examine the books of Corinthians and the universal truth of love in the New Testament. Corinthians One and Two were written to the church at Corinth and deal with the need to recognize and put sin out of our lives.(Corinthians)

Wesley speaks of love, being a “perfect love”. A love “excluding sin, love filling the heart, taking up the whole capacity of the soul. It is love ‘rejoicing evermore, praying without ceasing, in everything giving thanks”. As Christians we must be intentional about loving God, loving others, loving self. 1 John 4:8 declares, “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.”

Love is often a word mistreated by most people. Now days, the word love is thrown around so much, it has lost its meaning. People forget why we are living, breathing humans today. People forget about the sacrifices made for the sins we acted out. People forget about the love that God has for us. It is easy to misinterpret the meaning of God’s love. Human love and God’s love are two different things. The love from the Lord is invincible and no human can come close to that type of love. God created mankind because He loved humanity.

No emotion has such universal meaning as love. It is an integral part of the human condition. Love is the basis for by which all other emotions can be gauged. Friendship and even grief are steeped in love. Love is so central to our lives that it is fitting and proper that it should be the topic of so much discussion. Every culture and every writer has some commentary or evaluation of love. The New Testament has its share of love commentary. The entire basis of the Christian tradition is God's love for humanity. "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son." (John 3:6) Jesus preached a great deal about love of neighbor, love of God and even love of enemies. (Matt 5:44) Shakespeare's Biblical knowledge is well known and he

We hear a lot more teaching and preaching about human love than we do about God's love - the love of God for us. You see, most that is preached is religion - instruction as to how to do good (including loving God and others), and refraining from doing bad.

My personal general theology is based on the scripture John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” This has always impacted the way that I have talked about God to others. I’ve spoken about God in a manner of love because He loves us enough to give His only begotten son for our salvation. God loves us enough to make our process toward salvation easier by allowing our requirement to merely believe in Him. God loves us enough to allow our souls not to perish, if we believe in Him. God’s love is the foundation of my personal theology. In this project I will cover areas that relate to God’s love for us. The topics

commandment us to love one another according to John 13:36 through salvation we can show

To start, one of the major reasons Christianity spread as quickly as it did was because of its teachings. Jesus taught his many followers stories of love, whether

The Book of 1 John is a very important book because even thought it was written during the 90 A.D and the authorship of this book has not been discover. It has some meaningful information for the people during that time and is even relevant to the believers and unbeliever of today. The Book of 1 John has many themes displayed throughout this book even though it only has five chapters in the entire book. One of the major themes displayed in this book is love. 1 John 2:7-17 scriptures let us know that God’s greatest command and greatest gift to people is Love. He lets the people of this time that this is not a new commandment because it was required in the Old Testament and it remains in the New Testament. As a believer we must love everyone just as God love us. Another example of love being displayed in 1 John is 3:11-24 when God provided us with a clear example of his love by providing a bad example and a positive example of how love should be. From this example Blomberg mentioned that “We should expect the world to hate us as they hated Christ, but we should lay down our lives for one another if necessary. The next most powerful demonstration of the genuineness of our love comes when we share from the surplus of our material possessions to help those in need (Blomberg. 2006)”. Then lastly, 1 John 4:7-21 talks about love again, that when you love it should be divine and genuine. That love should be displayed in an emotion way but we should also show love to God by obeying

In the Farewell Discourse of Johns gospel, Jesus speaks of his abiding love and ultimate commandment given to his disciples. He tells his disciples, “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love… I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete. This is my commandment: love one another as I love you” (John 15:9-12). This guide he gives to his disciples, as a way to live in relation to each other, can connect with that of Phaedrus idea of love. In the Symposium, Phaedrus speaks of love as a great god who gives the greatest goods and there is no greater good given to a boy than a lover. The lover is the guidance, to hold accountable the boy, just as we are held accountable by Jesus. He gives us this commandment of simply loving each other as he loves us and the Father him. Just as the Lover in Phaedrus definition of love, the Lover is guiding the boy to be his companion and to love