Archive for the ‘The Epistles of John’ Category

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
As usual – Leithart brings to light what would otherwise remain in obscurity in the scriptures. With his ability to interpret scripture with scripture, and an uncommon sensitivity to how the ancient texts of the Bible are to be made relevant to today – From Behind the Veil is a tremendous resource.

What I particularly like is the way he first addresses textual, structural and linguistic analysis and then uses those insights in applying the text to our contemporary living.

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May

Do Not Love The World?

Posted by: Doug Tags: 1 John, Doug Wilson, Peter Leithart

I will be preaching from 1 John 2:15-17 on June 6^th and I have been meditating a little on this text for the last week or so.

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.

There are those what would tell us that love of God precludes loving anything that is in the world because it would be a replacement of God for any of our affections. Thus, while we can appreciate and be thankful to God for good things in this world, we can never love anything in this world.

Interestingly, John 3:16 tells us that God loves the world. Does this mean that we are not to love what God loves? Peter Leithart in his commentary on the Epistles of John, From Behind The Veil, writes:

“We need to specify what John means both by “love” and “world.” In some places, “world” refers to humanity or creation that is the object of God’s love (John 3:16). In this sense, we are to share in the love of the Father for the world, which expresses itself in self-sacrifice for the salvation of the world…John is not saying that we should despise creation. We should love daffodils and chipmunks and sunsets and waves on the ocean. Our love for the world should extend to cultural products as well. John doesn’t condemn our love for Japanese gardens and the Taj Mahal and Moby Dick and the Goldberg Variations. Even pop culture is not specifically in his sights: we not necessarily loving the world if we love Coca Cola and video games and 24 [Lost???] and U2. In themselves, all these things come from the hand of God and are to be received with thanksgiving and joy.”

Doug Wilson, in a recent blog post entitled, A Full Tank of Gas and Lots of Wyoming Ahead, disagrees a bit with some of the things his friend John Piper wrote in When I Don’t Desire God (a book I have not read). Piper says:

“So the question must be faced: How do we use the created world around us, including our own bodies, to help us fight for joy in God? In God, I say! Not in nature. Not in music. Not in health. Not in food or drink. Not in natural beauty. How can all these good gifts serve joy in God, and not usurp the supreme affections of our hearts” (p. 178).

“Gratitude is occasioned by a gift, but is directed to the giver” (p. 186).

Doug commented:

And this brings us to the heart of the problem — the relationship between Giver and gift.

The temptation we have is that of treating all this as a zero-sum game, assuming that any time spent on the gifts is necessarily time away from the Giver. But though this sometimes happens, it does not need to happen. Rightly handled, a gift is never detached from the one who gave it. Wrongly handled, a gift can be the occasion of selfishness, which is a common problem. But it can also be the occasion of a higher form of selfishness, one which pretends to be above the whole tawdry field of “gifts in themselves.”

Picture a particularly “pious” little child who was impossible to give gifts to, because he would always unwrap it, abandon it immediately, and run up to his parent and say, “But what really counts is my relationship with you!” A selfish child playing with a toy ungratefully is forgetting the giver. This pious form of selfishness is refusing to let the giver even be a giver.

From one perspective – failure to love what God has given to us in the world is a failure to love God properly. How can my loving heavenly Father be displeased with me when I properly love His gifts? I love and joy in God best when I love and take joy in His expressions of love to me. I love my loving heavenly Father all the more for the gifts that he has given me to love.