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What’s It All About?

In “What about ‘x’” so far, we’ve covered a lot of different topics — the 39 articles, our worship services, the bible, roles in the church, and recently, our synod (gatherings).

What’s it all about?  The Anglican approach is to look at a “three-legged stool” when asking this question.  The three legs are scripture, tradition, and reason.

Let’s start with scripture.

What does the Bible “say” generally?

Matthew 22:

Jesus was asked, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”  Jesus said to him, “‘Love the Lord your Godwith all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.  The second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  All the law and the prophets (i.e., the rest of the bible) hang on these two commandments.”

How do we love God and love our neighbour?

Psalm 34:

Come children. Listen to me.

I will teach you what it means to fear the Lord. 

Do you want to really live? 

Would you love to live a long, happy life?

Then do not speak evil or deception. 

Turn away from evil and do good. 

Seek shalom and pursue it.

(Shalom means health, wholeness, peace, wellness, prosperity, completeness, fullness of relationship with God and each other)

What if we make a mistake?

Psalm 32:

How blessed is the one whose crimes are forgiven, whose sin is pardoned. 

How blessed is the one to whom the Lord does not assign wrongdoing, in whom there is no deceit. 

So if we do good and seek health, wholeness, completeness, etc. with intent, our words and actions in sync, that is loving God and loving our neighbour?  And if we do wrong, God knows our true intentions and forgives us?

That’s close!  Your actions in loving your neighbour are offerings of love to God as well.  If you do wrong, truly resolve to correct that behaviour, then confess to God and ask for His forgiveness.

As Jesus put it, “I give you a new commandment—to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.  Everyone will know by this that you are my disciples—if you have love for one another.” (John 13)

As some of Jesus’ disciples wrote (1 John 3 and 4):

For this is the gospel message that you have heard from the beginning: that we should love one another …. Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been fathered by God and knows God.  The person who does not love does not know God … By this the love of God is revealed in us: that God has sent his one and only Son into the world so that we may live through him.  In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Dear friends, if God so loved us, then we also ought to love one another. If we love one another, God resides in us …

In Ephesians 4: 

"Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” 

And in Colossians 3, "Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive."

That sounds too simple. 

To successfully love, in all circumstances to all people, takes discipline, perseverance, fortitude, courage, discernment.  It may sound simple, but it’s not easy.

How can you love better?

Share what you would like to, without betraying any confidences.

+David