I Thessalonians’s 4:9
“Now about brotherly love, you do not need anyone to write to you, because you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another.”
Brotherly love is the second commandment (Matt 22:39). Moses gave the Ten Commandments, while Jesus summarized them in to two. The first has to do with loving God. This is the topic of four of the original ten. Loving one’s neighbor is the topic of the other six commands.
There’s an old christian song in which the chorus is “they will know we are christians by our love”. This was said by Jesus about His children in John 13:35. A sign of a christian is that he/she is loving.
How is this noteworthy? How is this different? Jesus mentioned that everyone loves. He says that His children will be different in that they will love everyone.
Within all groups exist hierarchies, christian or not. This is normal. Different friend groups form. However, those in the church should be able to cross into others groups and feel accepted. They don’t need to stay there. It’s loving for all groups to accept the cross overs.
For friend groups to be open to new members, the inside jokes need to be paused. If not, the newcomers will feel left out. This is the type of love Jesus is referring to. The comradere of peer groups is natural and good. However, it’s not natural to be open to those who are different socially. To be so is to love as Christ loves.
It’s also difficult to love those that are not pleasant people. Some are abrupt and make people uncomfortable. They don’t need to be our best friends, but we need to be open to those the Lord brings into our paths. As long as we aren’t endangered. We need to be patient with them. This is to love as Christ loves.
Jesus pushed it even further in Matthew 5:44. “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”. We typically push these out of our lives and minds. They are so toxic and distressing that we cope by avoiding even thinking about them. These are usually good practices. We don’t want their poisonous influence.
So, how can we love our enemies when we are avoiding them? At times the Lord will keep them in our lives. It may be a coworker, fellow student, neighbor or just someone that is part of our lives. In those cases we need to be gracious. We will often need to “be the bigger person”. This won’t be easy. We will need to rely on His love and guidance to get us through.
A word of caution. Some aren’t good influences and should be avoided. They may know we are christians and attempt to guilt us into staying in relationship. We can pray for them at a distance.
The Thessalonians excelled at this. Lord, may we as well.