Agape

This posting represents the last of a five part series on the ‘marks’ of maturity for the Christian. Of course, this is a massive subject and our look at it has been brief and sketchy at best. As a model, there are likely some pretty big holes in it. For example, is humility not a necessary sign of real maturity? I believe it is. Nonetheless, I hope this cursory study has been helpful. I know it has been helpful for me, though difficult, to try and think it through, and I hope it represents a fairly decent framework.

Let’s review the first four marks before we consider the final one:

Mark One – Understanding / Wisdom / Discernment
Mark Two – Discipline / Self-control / Delayed Gratification
Mark Three – Competence / Diligence / Productivity
Mark Four – Responsibility / Dependability / Faithfulness

And now for the fifth and final mark - It can be described using words like love, compassion, and selflessness.

There is strong scriptural warrant for seeing ‘love’ as the highest value for which we are to aspire; the ultimate in Christian character. Of course, the English word ‘love’ has varied meanings in our present cultural context, but the Greek word ‘agape’ used in the New Testament to reference the love of God which we are to emulate is the kind of love we want to consider. It is a selfless love that is unconditional in nature and is willing to sacrifice for the sake of others.

There are so many Scriptures that speak to this as God’s highest calling for us that it is hard to even know where to start. Here are a few of my favorites:

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Jn 15:13

“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Rom 5:6-8

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.” 1Jn 3:16

“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” 1Jn 4:10-12

From these passages, emerges a clear picture of the selfless and sacrificial nature of agape love. This is the epitome of maturity – to get our eyes off of ourselves and our own needs and wants and to be able to focus on the needs of others and then act in the way that truly has their best interest at heart at personal cost to ourselves.

In Colossians 3:14, Paul says that it is love that is over all and binds all the other virtues together. In the previous post we considered the virtue of faithfulness. In the process of that brief study I was struck by the number of times the Bible links love and faithfulness together.

“Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.” Prov 3:3

“Many claim to have unfailing love, but a faithful person who can find?” Prov 20:6

In the book of Psalms alone, love and faithfulness are linked more than twenty times. (Psa 25:10 ; 26:3 ; 36:5 ; 40:10 ; 57:3 ; 57:10 ; 61:7 ; 85:10 ; 86:15 ; 88:11 ; 89:1,2,14,24,33,49 ; 92:2 ; 98:3 ; 100:5 ; 108:4 ; 115:1 ; 117:2 ; 138:2)

It is not strange that the Bible would draw connecting lines between love and other virtues because love is the king of virtues. All other virtues ultimately depend upon it. Take for example a mature view of conflict. Without love that is impossible. For another example, consider courage. Is real bravery really possible without love?

And, of course, this is all in stark contrast to the self-centred, narcissistic culture of our day when we are makings far more ‘takers’ than we are ‘givers’.

“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me… And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” 1Cor 13:11,13