Monday, February 2, 2015

Honor All Men, Love the Brethren

Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. 1 Peter 2:17

Surely Peter meant "love all men". After all, that's what John tells us God does in John 3:16, right? To do what God does, we must love all men.

Wrong. Enough sappy, unrealistic, "love" is generated by John 3:16, to drown a whale.

Personally, I have trouble loving my relatives and neighbors. But that's just me. How my friends love me is a mystery.

I was discussing John 3:16 with a very dear friend. She recommended just looking at surrounding verses to see the qualifiers in this verse. If anyone would dare say the following statement in a typical church, he or she would be shunned: "God does not love everyone. He loves His elect."

There. I said it. I hope you will not shun me. Sentiment dominates the Word of God in such a matter.

I have heard people list the things in the Bible that they refuse to believe because they disagreed with them. I have to remember that many are on a shopping trip, choosing doctrines that are pleasant, and rejecting others, based on the preferences of their fallen natures. This leads to some bizarre shopping carts.

A lady who wishes to teach haughtily rejected Paul's scripture saying that women should not teach or have authority over men (I Timothy 2:23). My own sister said this was written because "we all know Paul was a woman hater".

And so the selection goes in the great shopping mall of popular and unpopular doctrines.

Very few shoppers will accept that God does not love all people. Happily, Bible students are catching on.

An online search of the term "world" is very enlightening. However, those who have made such a study will be consigned to the rank of those who--though they proclaim that God loves everyone--hate us.

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