The Curriculum of Love
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.”—John 15:12-14
One of the things the older women are expected to teach is love for husbands and children. This is an interesting requirement because doesn’t that naturally happen?
For those of us who have been married for awhile and raised children, we know all too well that this is not. How many times have I given the cold shoulder to the one I have vowed to love till death? How often do I let my impatience and irritation seep out onto my children? Even if we are not married, we can still respond in these ways to others in who share our pews or think uncharitably of those who lead us.
Interestingly, Jesus’ command in today’s passage comes on the heels of his footwashing in John 13 and just before his ultimate act of service. Just before that, they had probably been arguing about who was the greatest (Luke 22:24). They had just shared the first Lord’s supper and were on the way to the garden, with this act of loving service wiped clean from their minds.
No, love is not natural for us. But this is the basis of the new commandment He gives us. Up till then, they had lived by the law.
Now, Jesus calls them to something even greater: a love for God that is expressed in love for one another. And that is the same love we are to give to others—the same love the older women are to teach the younger women to give to their families: agape love.
What is Agape Love?
The classic biblical description of agape love, found in 1 Corinthians 13, is often quoted in wedding ceremonies. It tells us this love is patient, kind, not envious or boastful, not arrogant or rude, not insisting on its own way, not irritable or resentful, not rejoicing at wrongdoing, rejoices with the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. That’s quite a list!
However, this passage is not restricted only to married or familial love. In fact, this passage isn’t even in the context of marriage, which Paul does write about in this letter (ch. 7) but follows his discussion of spiritual gifts in the church (ch. 12). I mention this lest we think that this love is meant only for the married and not the single.
When we pair this with John 15:13, where Jesus tells His disciples “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends,” we get a full picture of what love looks like. First Corinthians 13 describes God’s love for us demonstrated throughout Christ’s birth, life, and death. This is what love is: the sacrificial laying down of one’s life for the good of another.
For us, we are to carry this same love into the church, God’s family—and that includes the smaller representations of the church in the home. If God has placed you in a family, we are to exercise that same kind of love to husband and children, and if unmarried, towards your parents and any siblings you might have or towards those in your church family.
But let’s face it—if we’re honest, most of the time we chafe at this love because it is completely unfair…to us.
However, what if fairness isn’t actually the goal of Christian relationships? What if fairness is a false baseline for our interactions? What if it is a worldly standard that draws our gaze inward instead of upward and outward where it’s meant to be? What if fair isn’t actually loving at all? What if it’s just our culture’s counterfeit masquerading as love but really selfishness in disguise? (source)
Real love—not the world’s love—is not the most natural thing in the world. Rather, doing” agape love is not natural for any of us. That is why it must be taught.
But just because true biblical love is unnatural for us, for those who are in Christ, it is not impossible. Because we now have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, He who knows the mind of Christ and shares the heart of Christ makes it possible for us to learn to love.
Where Love Begins
So how do we teach others to love?
Well, before we can teach agape love, it must be learned. If we want to train others to love those closest to them, then we begin by learning how Christ loved. For Jesus, this began with a loving relationship with His Father through abiding in the Father through dependent prayer.
We are no different. Loving others first begins with a loving reverence for God and a humble dependence on God.
Not surprisingly, this is the first on the list of qualifications for older women (v. 3). Reverence means living in a way that is “befitting in persons, actions or things consecrated to God” (Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words).
As I wrote about this in my previous post, I won’t elaborate it again here, but we must start with this. Without a reverence for God, we may end up saying and doing things that look good on the outside only, without true love. This reverence for God is one way that biblical love differs from worldly love.
In fact, it is the only source that will enable us to love sacrificially as Jesus does for us. When we spend time with God, a privilege made possible through Christ’s love for us, we can drink deeply from the source of all true love.
Love begins with reverence for God—our vertical relationship.
Teaching Love Even in Our Imperfect Love
Being the recipient of His extravagant love for us, without trying to pay it back, is one way that we are motivated to pass that love on to others. As the inequity and unfairness of this love sinks into our souls, we will want to love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). This is how God’s agape love is passed on to others through us in our horizontal relationships.
For some women, this may mean laboring daily, over and over, with unending household tasks. It may mean sacrificing their own ambitions for a season to help their children. Or it could mean going back to work so their husbands can go to school. It could mean befriending a woman who is struggling to get connected at church. It could be preparing a meal and delivering it to someone who has lost a loved one or had a new baby, even when you have your own hands full.
From personal experience, I know I am not an expert at this kind of love. I have failed many times, putting my own desires first, treating my loved ones with impatience and anger. There are many times when I wonder if I am even qualified to speak on love because I would be such a poor example.
But sometimes, this is also the very thing that the younger women we know need to hear. While we want to be a godly model, sometimes the more encouraging things to hear about are the hard times and failures. And not just that, but how God helped me to grow and change my heart so that it more accurately reflects His.
In fact, I am guessing this is the more important lesson we teach because they are the ones they will actually face on a daily basis. I don’t often get a chance to run into a burning house to save my children, but I will always have the opportunity to choose to be interrupted or read the same story again or listen to a friend instead of binge-watching my favorite dramas. They need to see us wrestling with selfishness and how God helps us to overcome this bent.
Working through this lack of love is still a work in progress for me. Frequently, I need to go back to understand the heart issues underneath that keep me from loving. As I slowly begin to see how these roots spring forth unloving fruit, the Gospel helps bring me back to Christ who loved me while I was still yet a sinner (Rom. 5:8).
Combined with abiding in God’s Word, God slowly trains me to love my own family—which helps me to empathize with other women who struggle to love theirs. It is taking the time to let God change me from the heart so that I reflect Christ more truly that helps me to walk with other women to do the same.
Love is Vital
Loving well in the 21st century is no easier today than it was back in Crete. Indwelling sin still makes it difficult to love others. Our own selfish propensities that have yet to die still rear its head.
But as Francis Schaeffer points out, “If I fail in my love toward Christians, it does not prove that I am not a Christian. What Jesus is saying, however, is that, if I do not have the love I should have toward all other Christians, the world has the right to make the judgment that I am not a Christian.” Our failure to love is that important.
Because loving God and loving others is the foundation of all the other commandments in Scripture, this is one essential lesson to learn. It is the identifying mark of all believers (John 13:34-35). It is what keeps us from maligning the Word of God.
However, on the positive side, a life rooted in God’s love for us spurs us on to do the hard work of loving others. With the help of the Holy Spirit gifted to us, we are given joy in hard and difficult circumstances—not as a fake mask, but in abiding peace. It is what gives us the hope to keep enduring and persevering through the unending challenges and myriad tasks of keeping life moving forward and caring for others.
What are the lessons of love that you are learning today? Will you allow God to help you do the hard work of changing your heart so that it reflects Christ’s love? Will you willingly take the risk to share that struggle today with the younger women around you so they may be encouraged to love well too?
