The OP of another thread suggested I post my own thread because I have a completely different take on the topic. Consider the following link;
http://www.youtube.com/embed/3YXINEYdnkY
So back to my thought on the video in the link, and there are many more like it. I think it does more harm to Christendom than good. It creates a generation of christians (lower case ‘c’ intended) that have hearts full of love (the incorrect kind of love) and empty heads (no knowledge of God) and that is not saving faith.
I know people who watch videos like this and get all emotional about loving everybody like Jesus did, and what’s interesting is there are only a hand full of verses in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John that deal with this topic. If you put them all together they barely make a paragraph, so what do you do with the rest of the Scriptures?
But you have people that read these same verses over and over again and watch these videos and get inspired to love everybody because that’s what Jesus did and they build their whole theology around it because it sounds good so it must be right.
As I stated before, the context of ‘love’ in the Scriptures is sacrificial love or ‘agape’ as in the Greek. That context is there for a REASON. I find all too often that people will take the word ‘love’ from the Scriptures and regard it as ‘philia’ or friendship type of love.
Philia is a feeling type of love, and feelings come and go. I gave the example of John Gibson Paton who went as a missionary to an island of man-eating cannibals. He didn’t go there to be buddies with man-eating cannibals. If he did, after his child died, after his wife died, when the cannibals wanted to eat his dead child and wife, after his first experience pulling arrows from his body, etc. may have changed his ‘feelings’ towards them.
Agape or sacrificial love isn’t a feeling, it’s an attitude, and that’s why today there isn’t a man-eating cannibal on that island that hasn’t made a confession towards Lord Jesus Christ as his Lord and savior.
Jesus is looking for Christians to upset the world, not to befriend it. Consider John 15:18.
These are actual conversations I’ve had with people;
Person 1:
I say; “He is a false teacher, the Gospel isn’t about getting rich”, they reply; “Judge not, least you be judged. Jesus says to love everybody”. I’ll come back with; “2 Peter 2:1”, they reply; “Jesus says to love everybody, the devil put that in the Bible, everything negative is from the devil”.
Person 2:
I say; “Why do you pray to Padre Pio, there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved other than the name Lord Jesus Christ”, they reply; “Oh I don’t believe that, Jesus says to love everybody!”.
Every time I come across this same response over and over again I’m literally dumbfounded. These people have invented their whole theology around a few verses of Scripture. Then they watch these videos to reinforce their theology. They form a jesus (lower case ‘j’ intended) to go with that theology which is a figment of their imagination and cannot save them from their sin.
I think the disciples in Jesus time had a better chance with the people, at least they didn’t have all this nonsense floating around on YouTube. Now if there were videos on loving God perfectly and meditating on His Law day and night, now that would be inspiring. Who among us can say they’ve perfected loving God? If we did, his second commandment would be a result of the first and we wouldn’t have to make videos on how we have to try at it.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/3YXINEYdnkY
So back to my thought on the video in the link, and there are many more like it. I think it does more harm to Christendom than good. It creates a generation of christians (lower case ‘c’ intended) that have hearts full of love (the incorrect kind of love) and empty heads (no knowledge of God) and that is not saving faith.
I know people who watch videos like this and get all emotional about loving everybody like Jesus did, and what’s interesting is there are only a hand full of verses in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John that deal with this topic. If you put them all together they barely make a paragraph, so what do you do with the rest of the Scriptures?
But you have people that read these same verses over and over again and watch these videos and get inspired to love everybody because that’s what Jesus did and they build their whole theology around it because it sounds good so it must be right.
As I stated before, the context of ‘love’ in the Scriptures is sacrificial love or ‘agape’ as in the Greek. That context is there for a REASON. I find all too often that people will take the word ‘love’ from the Scriptures and regard it as ‘philia’ or friendship type of love.
Philia is a feeling type of love, and feelings come and go. I gave the example of John Gibson Paton who went as a missionary to an island of man-eating cannibals. He didn’t go there to be buddies with man-eating cannibals. If he did, after his child died, after his wife died, when the cannibals wanted to eat his dead child and wife, after his first experience pulling arrows from his body, etc. may have changed his ‘feelings’ towards them.
Agape or sacrificial love isn’t a feeling, it’s an attitude, and that’s why today there isn’t a man-eating cannibal on that island that hasn’t made a confession towards Lord Jesus Christ as his Lord and savior.
Jesus is looking for Christians to upset the world, not to befriend it. Consider John 15:18.
These are actual conversations I’ve had with people;
Person 1:
I say; “He is a false teacher, the Gospel isn’t about getting rich”, they reply; “Judge not, least you be judged. Jesus says to love everybody”. I’ll come back with; “2 Peter 2:1”, they reply; “Jesus says to love everybody, the devil put that in the Bible, everything negative is from the devil”.
Person 2:
I say; “Why do you pray to Padre Pio, there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved other than the name Lord Jesus Christ”, they reply; “Oh I don’t believe that, Jesus says to love everybody!”.
Every time I come across this same response over and over again I’m literally dumbfounded. These people have invented their whole theology around a few verses of Scripture. Then they watch these videos to reinforce their theology. They form a jesus (lower case ‘j’ intended) to go with that theology which is a figment of their imagination and cannot save them from their sin.
I think the disciples in Jesus time had a better chance with the people, at least they didn’t have all this nonsense floating around on YouTube. Now if there were videos on loving God perfectly and meditating on His Law day and night, now that would be inspiring. Who among us can say they’ve perfected loving God? If we did, his second commandment would be a result of the first and we wouldn’t have to make videos on how we have to try at it.