dar334

I still ponder the word “brother” or “neighbor” when I read them in my Bible.  As I have said before, I take things at face value when I read anything, which causes a lot of confusion when I read the Bible.  When I read about the vine and the branches, and God trimming them, throwing the ones that don’t produce into the fire, I literally imagine a grapevine.  When “brother” is spoken, I see Ron and the word “neighbor” always conjures up my Katie.

The following Scripture from 1 John 4 falls under the heading “Obedience by Faith” which was one of my reading suggestions this morning.

20 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? 21 And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.

I struggle with the word hate, as it can having several levels of feeling.  I hate snow.  I hate cancer.  I hate liver.  I hate John Doe.  The Greek language has three words for love, which is why Jesus asking Peter three times if he loved him was hard for me to wrap my brain around.  (John 21:15-16)  Eros means desire and longing, as in the way you love your sweetheart.  It has a sexual content.   Agape is the kind of love you would have for your child or your parent, the most popular love in the New Testament, the kind of love Jesus had for his Father and the kind of love God had for his son.  Then there’s Philos, the kind of love you would have for your friends.  So now I’m on the complete opposite side of my topic.

Hate is a strong word, I hate to use it.  (Mental eye roll)  I have had some pretty strong negative feelings about people, but I don’t ever remember thinking I hated any one of them.  Perhaps I have hated those that I’ve heard about on the news that did unspeakable things, and I’m not quite sure if torture to death would fall under the hate column, I prefer to think of it as in the justice column, then it doesn’t take long for me to remember I am not to judge.  Anyways ….. the definition of brother is ‘a man or boy in relation to other sons and daughters of his parents’.  So in that respect, I got this one covered!  I do love my brother.  So after googling ‘brother definition’, I added ‘in the Bible’ since we seem to be way off  in our understanding of what God wants.  (I once heard the Bible referred to as an instruction manual, which I think we need to get back out, blow the dust off, and OPEN THE BOOK!)  The site I found the most helpful was bible-history.com where is says that the word brother means several people, one of the same tribe, one of the same kindred, a friend, a neighbor, an Israelite by birth.  Christ applied the word ‘brother’ to all Christians, and ‘neighbor’ to the world.  These definitions cover a wide range of people that we are to love.  So if indeed the Bible is an instruction manual, why aren’t we following the instructions?  Not just with loving our brothers, but our sisters should be loved too.  And our neighbors.  And all the people in the world.  So come on people, let’s start spreading the love, not the hate.  And while your at it, take a peek at some of the other things in the instruction manual we are not doing right.  Until God leads someone to write the New Testament version two, we better start following the directions in version one!

Always pondering,

dar