faith took this photograph. it was quite a day!

in two weeks, hannah turns eight.

Barth, CD I/2, p.393:

Often enough we can see in others, and especially in ourselves, that it is possible to be a regular and genuine and serious seeker after God, out of a passionately sincere heart, or a real sense and experience of the many compulsions of life and conscience - only to give it all up when our apparent seriousness is suddenly taken seriously, in a situation in which our seeking could really be a finding... and simply because the God we find, who has let himself be found, is not the One of whom we can joyfully confess that it is Him we have sought. We love Him or think that we love Him at a distance, but we do not love Him near at hand. We prefer to withdraw to that pretended love at a distance. But is not that love unmasked and adjudged as non-love?

Barth, CD I/2 p.390:

At this point I should again like to quote H.F.Kohlbrügge: "The feeling of sin and misery begins and remains in us, the more we are irradiated by the sun of righteousness. Whoso is born of God has his supreme good in God alone; nothing else can satisfy him. Idols must all give place one after the other. But the more the love of God increases in the heart, the more knowledge there is of inability, and, even with the best of wills, unwillingness, to love God the Lord, and to love Him with all the heart and soul and mind and strength. The spirit will not come from the flesh..."

According to Kohlbrügge, there are definite marks of a sorrowful kind by which the children of God can know that the love of God is in them.  These are weeping, groaning, crying, sorrow and concern because in their hearts they find only perversity and hostility, only the love of sin and the world and the things which are seen, because they have no desire at all for God and his love, but a cold, sluggish, hard and stony heart, filled with all kinds of evil considerations and other sinful thoughts. Therefore the children of God must at all points humble themselves before the holiness of God. They must bow beneath His holy law. They must be crushed and broken in respect of the love of God and neighbour. They must be humbled to the very core. They must apply to themselves what the apostle Paul says in the seventh chapter of Romans, especially of the sin which the regenerate find in themselves in the light of God's law. For the fact that they are overwhelmed in this way proves that the love of God is in them."

What he said.

I don't always see things the way Greg Boyd does (though I love his clear and articulate voice), but in this he is spot-on:

Christians are known in the broader society for a lot of things, but their depth of love for one another — let alone for “sinners” and “enemies” — doesn’t make the list (see Kinnaman & Lyons, UnChristian). In this light, the beautiful vision of the Church that Jesus expressed in his prayer on the night he was betrayed — the vision of a Church that reflects the perfect love of the triune God — almost sounds comical.

So what should we do? Whatever else might be said, I honestly don’t believe we’ll even begin to move in the right direction until we resolve that loving one another (and everyone else) is a higher priority than proving, protecting and enforcing the rightness of our doctrines.

I’m almost certain someone just now had the thought — “Here we go again, compromising correct doctrine in the name of love.  More fluffy, post-modern, sentimental garbage!” Was I right?

The thing is, there’s absolutely nothing fluffy, post-modern or sentimental about placing love above doctrinal correctness, for this conviction permeates the NT! Truth be told, we shouldn’t even contrast “love” and “doctrinal correctness” in the first place. We should rather regard the command to love as the most foundational doctrine of the church and thus the most important doctrine to be correct on! Peter says, “Above all, love each other deeply, for love covers a multitude of sins” (and alleged “heresies”? I Pet. 4:8, cf. Col 3:14). If love is to be placed “above all,” then there simply can’t be any other command or doctrine or agenda that competes with it for the top position. It must stand on top alone.