I Thessalonians 4:9,10 – “Like Him”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁹But you are not having a need [for us] to write to you concerning brotherly love, for you yourselves are God-taught ones into the love (agape) of one another and ¹⁰for you are doing this into all the brothers in all of Macedonia. But we are urging you, brothers, to abound more and more,

I’m still pondering over this passage. As I related earlier, I think it is a bombshell, and I hate to leave it until it has detonated and done some significant demolition in my own heart. I have one idea of something I could do to move in the right direction. I’ll see how that goes.

But in the meantime, I want to ponder on the basic concept of “brotherly love.” I came across the word in some study I was doing years ago and its truth has really helped me a lot, so I’d like to scratch down some current thoughts about it.

In the NT, the word definitely got corralled to apply to the believers themselves, to fellow Christians; however, to a Greek speaking person, it was a word that applied to the “mutual love” that should exist within any group. Although sin has all but obliterated any real expression of this word, the one place you definitely see it is when a “group” – whether it be a family, a team, a community, a platoon of soldiers, or any other “group” – gets attacked from without. Usually the members of the “group” will suddenly and even viciously band together to defend each other. A family can be a most awful squabbling, fighting bunch of wretches until someone speaks badly of them – then watch them all suddenly pull together to defend each other. That is a natural expression of this thing God puts in our heart and calls “brotherly love.”

We all belong to many “groups:” our church, of course, is a group and our family too, our workplace or school, a club we belong to, our neighborhood or community, sports teams, etc., etc., and even within those groups we identify ourselves as part of sub-groups within those groups. From God’s perspective, “brotherly love” is something that should be present in all of our groups.

I think this is one place where the glory of the Gospel ought to shine in the church. John 3:16 tells us “God so loved the world that He gave His Son …” Our God very deeply and dearly loves people and, being made in His image, the only reason we don’t is because sin has so twisted our hearts and blinded our eyes. Everywhere we all go, although people can be (and often are) very nice, yet groups too often are spoiled by all the in-fighting and back-biting and people speaking so badly of each other, tearing each other down, tearing their leaders down, and just making their “group” a miserable place. How many families actually dread Thanksgiving because they “have to” see the rest of their family, whom they despise? How many people’s jobs are miserable because everyone there is so ugly and hateful to each other? As G. Barlow said, “The natural heart is selfish and cruel, and delights in aggression and retaliation.” Unfortunately these very words too often describe churches. And that is my point. This whole matter of “brotherly love” is one place where the glory of the Gospel ought to shine. A church ought to be one place where people could go and actually escape the misery of this world’s hatefulness. Even unbelievers ought to be able to see the love that prevails in a church. “By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.”

I would like to suggest this is a point of significant repentance for American Christians. We need to see that all the back-biting and meanness is not just “normal.” It is SIN and grievous sin at that. As Paul says in our passage, we are actually “God-taught ones” to love each other. I would suggest that the hatefulness that characterizes most churches is perhaps one of the great sins that actually turns people away. While we congratulate ourselves that we “stand for the Gospel” and hold all the right doctrines and have all the great “ministries” and sing “Oh How I Love Jesus,” yet what outsiders see is the in-fighting and back-biting and, because of that, they lose any interest they may have ever had in whatever it is we believe.

I would suggest we American Christians need to see our back-biting as very grievous sin and repent and, instead, see that it is our personal mission to promote love within our church. We ought ourselves to sincerely try to be loving to the other people of our church and to always speak well of each other, to build each other up, to build up our “group,” to support our leaders, and to make our church a haven of brotherly love in a very cold hateful world. If we think there is a problem with someone, we ought to handle it Biblically, by personally, prayerfully, humbly, and privately addressing the matter with them – with very deliberate love in our own hearts. What a different place our churches would be if we actually humbly submitted to Jesus’ admonition to “love one another!”

But, before I leave the subject, may I remind us all that we are the church. As we leave our church building and head back out into our world, we take the church with us. The church is us. What I mean is that, as we head out to interact in whatever “groups” we may be a part of, we still ought to carry the same commitment to brotherly love. No matter where we are, we should make it a point to love the other members of our group, to speak well of them, to build them up, to support our leaders, and just to be a dynamo of goodwill within that group. We can’t change other people. We can’t stop the other members of any group from self-destructing, but we don’t have to join them in it. Just by our words, our attitude, and our presence, we should be a force moving people toward respecting each other and seeing each other’s strengths rather than always being so consumed with each other’s faults. I think of Paul’s words, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Eph 4:29). Those words should guide us not only in our churches but everywhere we go.

And, once again, may I point out that God dearly loves people. “Brotherly love” is simply you and I seeing other people through His eyes. It’s not another “rule” we have to observe, it is the natural outgrowth of people who’ve learned to sit at His feet and literally let themselves get lost in the wonder of who He is. Jesus drew people with love. Beholding His image, may we all be changed into that image.