Love Archives - Gospel Union - A blog about Christian faith and unity

Walking in the light of…love?

Monday, 29 July 2013 by Editor

Many of us have been taught something very wrong about 1 John 4:8 – “Walk in the light as he is in the light and you’ll have fellowship one with another.” We’ve been told that if our brother is not walking in the light (as we obviously ARE…LOL), then we can’t have fellowship with him,

Published in Bible, Love

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Solving For Love In The Equation of Life

Tuesday, 22 March 2011 by Editor

The other day I read an article by a woman who had some painful experiences as an adoptive mother and wife from a failed marriage. She explained that she and her husband had been unable to have children, and had consequently set out to adopt a child to fill the void in their family. That

Adoption Fallen World love Parenting Sacrificial Love sin

Published in Adoption, Love

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Love unexpressed

Friday, 25 February 2005 by Editor

I was listening to a talk show recently where the discussion was centered on patriotism and love of country. Most were calling in talking about their appreciation for the freedoms they have in America. One person called in to say that, although he considered himself patriotic and felt that he loved his country, he didn’t

Dennis Prager love

Published in Commentary, Love

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Christian friendly fire

Wednesday, 23 February 2005 by Editor

In most wars, a good percentage of the casualties comes from “friendly fire,” or ammunition that hits the wrong target due mostly to inadequate communication and misunderstandings about the orders given. I was surprised at the start of the current Iraq war that the number of casualties from these kinds of accidents, including overturned trucks

Bickering division unity

Published in Commentary, Love

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Expressing the inexpressible

Tuesday, 22 February 2005 by Editor

I am filled with awe that my niece was baptized into Christ this weekend and that she got to share in an exciting day of fellowship, singing, and good will with close to a hundred other believers from all over Southern California. It’s amazing how joy in Christ can be so contagious. I tried to

baptism Joy love

Published in Commentary, Love

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The deep things of God

Tuesday, 15 February 2005 by Editor

What are the deep things of God? Sometimes I lose sight of what’s deep and what’s not so deep in the scheme of things. Was tithing of mint, rue, and other herbs a good thing for the Pharisees to do? Yes. Were those things the deep things of God? Forget about it. Luke 11:42 –

greatest commands legalism love

Published in Commentary, Love

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The Greatest Command

Friday, 04 February 2005 by Editor

It occurs to me that if one or two commandments are the greatest, that others are lesser in importance. As difficult as this is to swallow, given our desire to obey all that Jesus commands, He had no problem prioritizing the commandments of God. Granted, the Old Law is the specific context of the Pharisee

Commands greatest commands love

Published in Commentary, Love

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Always the critic

Tuesday, 25 January 2005 by Editor

Whenever I encounter other believers, I find myself ashamed at all of the critique that automatically flows like a river through my mind. I’m painfully aware that I’ve prided myself on being able to find something doctrinally wrong with any religious person or group I’ve ever encountered. What was I thinking? Of course, I can

Judgmentalism love Patience

Published in Commentary, Love

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Zero-sum love

Tuesday, 11 January 2005 by Editor

In a zero-sum world, where the books must be reconciled each month, there is a fixed supply of love. In this model, when one feels it and expresses it toward new acquaintances in his life, there is less love available to the people who have always been there. It should be readily apparent to Christians

brotherly love love

Published in Commentary, Love

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Freed from the law

Monday, 04 October 2004 by Editor

When God spoke to Moses on the Mount, he delivered to him both a detailed, proscriptive law, and a pattern for the construction of the tabernacle. There were details for nearly every contingency. When questions arose about the application of a particular law, Moses would receive supplemental instruction directly from God to clarify. Was God’s

Bible Law legalism love sin

Published in Bible, Commentary, Law, Love

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Barton Stone - "I blush for my fellows who hold up the Bible as the bond of union, yet make their opinions of it a test of fellowship; who plead for union of all Christians, yet refuse to fellowship with such as dissent from their notions. Vain men! Their zeal is not according to knowledge, nor is their spirit that of Christ. Such antisectarian-sectarians are doing more mischief to the cause and advancement of truth, the unity of Christians, and the salvation of the world, than all the skeptics in the world. In fact, they create skeptics."

Alexander Campbell - "We will not hearken to those questions which gender strife, nor discuss them at all. If a person says such is his private opinion, let him have it as his private opinion; but lay no stress upon it; and if it be a wrong private opinion, it will die a natural death much sooner than if you attempt to kill it."

Alexander Campbell - "But men cannot give up their opinions, and therefore, they can never unite, says one. We do not ask them to give up their opinions--we ask them only not to impose them upon others. Let them hold their opinions, but let them hold them as private property. The faith is public property; opinions are, and always have been private property. Men have foolishly attempted to make the deductions of some great minds the common measure of all Christians. Hence the deductions of a Luther, and a Calvin, and a Wesley, have been the rule and measure of all who coalesce under the names of these leaders. It is cruel to excommunicate a man because of the imbecility of his intellect."

Alexander Campbell - "Dear sir, this plan of making our own nest, and fluttering over our own brood; of building our own tent, and of confining all goodness and grace to our noble selves and the "elect few" who are like us, is the quintessence of sublimated pharisaism. The old Pharisees were but babes in comparison to the modern: and the longer I live, and the more I reflect upon God and man--heaven and earth--the Bible and the world--the Redeemer and his church--the more I am assured that all sectarianism is the offspring of hell; and that all differences about words, and names, and opinions, hatched in Egypt, or Rome, or Edinburgh, are like the frolics of drunken men; and that where there is a new creature, or a society of them, with all their imperfections and frailties, and errors in sentiment, in views, and opinions, they ought to receive one another, and the strong to support the weak, and not to please themselves. To lock ourselves up in the bandbox of our own little circle; to associate with a few units, tens, or hundreds, as the pure church, as the elect, is real Protestant monkery, it is evangelical pharisaism."

Alexander Campbell - "I have tried the pharisaic plan, and the monastic. I was once so straight, that, like the Indian's tree, I leaned a little the other way. And however much I may be slandered now as seeking "popularity" or a popular course, I have to rejoice that to my own satisfaction, as well as to others, I proved that truth, and not popularity, was my object; for I was once so strict a Separatist that I would neither pray nor sing praises with any one who was not as perfect as I supposed myself. In this most unpopular course I persisted until I discovered the mistake, and saw that on the principle embraced in my conduct, there never could be a congregation or church upon the earth."

Alexander Campbell - "I have no idea of adding to the catalogue of new sects. I labor to see sectarianism abolished and all Christians of every name united upon the one foundation upon which the apostolic church was founded."