Those of you with whom I serve at CBC have already heard this, but it's still something I've been chewing on since last week, so perhaps others might benefit. Regardless, here are my thoughts on part of chapter 1 of Philippians...
In Philipians 1:9, Paul prays “that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.” I find that interesting because a lot of times among Christians, you see people trying to divorce love and knowledge. They’ll say things like “I don’t need to know theology, I just need to love and follow Jesus.” Or they say, “Well dude, doctrine divides, but love for Jesus unites us all, so let’s just not worry about all the complicated stuff and just love Jesus together.” And in a certain, very limited sense, there’s some truth to that. Sometimes we Christians do put all of our beliefs into the same category such that the only person we can serve and worship Jesus with is our husband or wife (and we’re starting to have doubts about them!). But, even if there’s some truth to that, let’s not miss Paul’s point, which is that love and knowledge always go together, even and especially when it comes to Jesus. After all, we expect somebody who loves us to actually know us, right? That’s why we love it when our spouse brings us coffee with 2 creams and no sugar, just the way we like it. Because that little bit of care taken to first of all learn what we like and then to act on that knowledge communicates love at a deep level. It’s why when we’re looking for someone to marry, we look for somebody who “gets” us, who knows us deeply and loves us anyway. We want those who love us most to know us best. And so Paul’s prayer is for their love to increase in knowledge and depth of insight, so that they might love better the One whom they know more.
1 comment:
Excellent thoughts. :)
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