Sermon illustrations for Easter 6 (2016)
Illustration
Object:
Acts 16:9-15
Years ago during an interview to be called as a pastor, I was asked a question about who my favorite biblical character was. I pondered this for a moment, and although all the big names like Abraham, Moses, Sarah, Mary Magdalene, Deborah, Rahab, and Rebecca came to me, I settled on Lydia. I had to explain to a couple of people who Lydia was, but the more I talked about her the more certain I was that I had made a good choice.
Lydia was a businesswoman in a time when that was unusual. We never hear of a husband, so we assume she is either widowed or remained single. She has her own household, so she is reasonably well off. She makes a product, purple cloth, used mostly by the wealthy. And Lydia is a worshiper of God. Lydia’s heart is opened to listen to Paul -- and upon hearing about the Way of following Jesus, Lydia and her whole household are baptized. This is a woman of both deep faith and action. It is the type of woman I hope I have come to be.
Bonnie B.
Acts 16:9-15
A young girl had just come home from school. She loved first grade and was excited to tell her mom everything that had transpired that day. She tossed her backpack by the stairs in the hall and ran to the kitchen, where her mom was working. She climbed up on one of the kitchen stools and began to describe all the amazing things that happened that day. Her mom, who’d just gotten home from work herself, was getting dinner ready -- so she mumbled an occasional “Uh huh” and “Yes, dear” as her daughter talked virtually non-stop. Her daughter noticed, however, that her mom wasn’t really listening. She stopped mid-sentence. Her mom continued to work. The girl hopped off the stool and walked over to her mom. She put her arms around her to get her attention. “What is it, dear?” her mom asked. “I hear what you’re saying.” The little girl looked up to her mom and replied, “I know, but are you listening?”
There is a difference between hearing and listening. In this text Lydia, a worshiper of God, listened to Paul and his companions. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly. Her listening made all the difference. Sometimes people who’ve heard about the Lord for a long time haven’t really listened. Have you?
Bill T.
Acts 16:9-15
While at Troas, Paul receives a vision -- a man from Macedonia cries out for him to visit because they need help! It turns the vision is true -- but the man was a woman, Lydia, whose household business is making purple dye, a pretty exclusive item for use of royalty.
In response to the vision, Paul comes to Philippi. Normally Paul would visit the local synagogue first, make connections, and then widen the circle of his ministry to include those beyond the Jewish faith. Philippi was a Roman colony (citizens of Philippi were citizens of Rome, a pretty exclusive privilege) on the Via Egnatia, a major east-west road that connected Rome with Asia Minor. There were folks from all over the empire living in Philippi. It was a place where Roman soldiers retired.
With no synagogue to visit (there weren’t the ten men necessary to provide a quorum, and women were not included in that number) Paul went to the river, where he found a group of women praying. These were a class known as God-fearers, Gentiles who believed in the God of Israel but for one reason or another were not able or allowed to take the next step and become converts of Judaism. Women, for instance, could not join on their own.
There was nothing to stop them from becoming Christians, however. Lydia invited Paul and his company to join her at her villa. The Roman household typically consisted not only of extended family but also slaves, servants, artisans, and others associated with the household’s craft, and might number a hundred or more. The Christian house church followed the model of the Roman household, and in this case Lydia is the head of this house church.
Frank R.
Acts 16:9-15
The distinction was between Jews and Gentiles. It could be between Lutherans and Catholics or Baptists, or foreigners or Americans, etc. We are all purified by faith, not by the group we belong to (Democrat or Republican).
I can’t tell my son or daughter that they can no longer be my child if they do not follow all the rules I give them (like cleaning up their room, getting home on time, eating all the food on their plate, etc.). They are still my kids -- even if adopted -- as long as they love me and have faith that I am their parent.
I have seen great things done by Baptists and Roman Catholics. If they are done through faith in our Lord, then they are our brothers and sisters! We are all forgiven by grace through faith. We are all God’s children.
This is not even something new. It was told by the prophets in the Old Testament. The same God has given us both testaments. In the Old Testament there was more emphasis on the vital importance of obeying every one of God’s laws. Through Christ the emphasis changed to faith. We learn through our Lord how much God loves us.
God even loves Muslims! All they have to do is turn to him with all their hearts. Our job is to help them know about God’s love. That is an assignment for all Christians -- to spread the word of God’s love.
I know a Muslim who believes in Jesus, but won’t tell her family. Now she is in God’s hands, and it is up to him if that faith is enough!
It sounds like God can take someone (any one) outside our group of insiders and make them a people for himself. It is not up to us to judge!
Bob O.
Revelation 21:10, 22--22:5
The setting was the monthly luncheon of the local ministerial association. The speaker was a pastoral colleague in the midst of a particularly rough spot in life -- the collapse of her marriage, a divorce that led to financial difficulties, a long and nasty custody dispute over the children, followed by her diagnosis of and treatment for a particularly aggressive cancer.
She reported that prior to this series of disasters, she had led a charmed life. Little, if anything, had gone wrong. She was not, however, lamenting her circumstances. Her assessment was quite the contrary. She informed her gathered colleagues that she had been energized by the struggle. She claimed that this difficult road she had been traveling had made her a far more sensitive pastor. Rather than getting to a better place in life, she had concluded that she wanted to spend the rest of her ministry walking as a companion in suffering with those who struggle.
After the meeting, a close minister friend expressed his disagreement. As she put it, “I have already spent too much time slogging through the swamp of suffering. I don’t want to spend any more time there than necessary. I want to climb to the top of the mountain and shout encouragement to those struggling through the valley. ‘Don’t give up. You can get through this. God will give you the strength. Come up here on the mountain with me. The view is absolutely stunning.’ ”
This passage from the Revelation of John is a description of that view from the mountaintop. To paraphrase: “Look over there. It is the beautiful city of God. Notice that the New Jerusalem it is not a gated community. Everyone is welcome. Take a look at that river. Have you ever seen a cleaner body of water? Don’t give up believing. It is coming.”
R. Robert C.
Revelation 21:10, 22--22:5
President Woodrow Wilson was the only academic to occupy the Oval Office. He had a Ph.D., and before his election was the president of Princeton University. Yet he was not stoic, an attribute that often seems to be assigned to those in academia. He wrote hundreds of passionate and very romantic love letters to his wife Edith. They were sexual, but not pornographic, and they all expressed the deepest of emotions. Even while dealing with the sinking of the Lusitania, Wilson still wrote incredible love letters to his wife.
Application: Having our name in the Lamb’s Book of Life is like having a love letter from God.
Ron L.
Revelation 21:10, 22--22:5
This is a lesson about the glory of God. Ken Sande, the founder of Peacemakers Ministry and an expert in conflict resolution, has written: “What are you really living for? It is crucial to realize that you either glorify God, or you glorify something or someone else. You’re always making something look big. If you don’t glorify God... you inevitably show that someone or something else rules your heart.”
In heaven we will not need light and sun, not even a place to worship, for God will be there! Nothing else will rule our hearts. To the extent that this vision of the future orients our lives in the present -- since, as Episcopal theologian Marianne Micks once observed, for Christians the future has a claim on the present (The Future Present, p. 177) -- then this lesson should orient everyday life like Sande proposes. Christians need nothing and no one but God. In that spirit, the insights of Martin Luther are most relevant: “We are to trust in God alone, turn to him, expecting from him only good things.... Although much that is good comes to us from men, we receive it all from God through his command and ordinance. Our parents and all authorities... have received the command to do us all kinds of good. So we receive our blessing not from them, but from God through them. Creatures are only the hands, channels, and means through which God bestows all blessings” (The Book of Concord, pp. 367-368).
Lives devoted to God in this way are happier and more energetic. Neurobiological research indicates the lives lived focused on God exercise the front part of the brain (the prefrontal cortex), which is then bathed in natural dope (especially dopamine) and gives feelings of happiness, pleasure, and also enhances energy (Dean Hamer, The God Gene, pp. 72ff; Daniel Amen, Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, p. 81).
Mark E.
John 14:23-29
I was having a discussion recently about peace. While speaking with some friends, I was exploring how I feel when my purpose is aligned with the purpose God has for me. I expressed the feeling as one of quiet excitement that engenders a sense of peaceful certainty in the decisions I am making. It is this peace that I think Jesus is offering. It is the peace in the mind and in the spirit that we love God with our whole selves and are aligned with the path God lays before us.
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I am like Paul -- I do what I don’t want to do and don’t do what I want, but on the occasions when I have aligned my mind, body, and spirit with the direction God is leading, I know the power of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit is with me. I know in my bones that the knowledge I have is supplemented by the wisdom of God, and even in the face of challenges I am not afraid. May this peace fill you.
Bonnie B.
John 14:23-29
People can have all kinds of fears. There’s acrophobia, the fear of heights. Claustrophobia, the fear of small spaces, is one that a lot of people have to fight. One more recently classified is coulrophobia, or the fear of clowns. I don’t really struggle with any of these, so it is easy to write about them without hesitation. There is one that is a bit more difficult, because it is real to me -- and ornithophobia is what it is called. What is that, you ask? It’s a fear of birds. I know. That sounds silly, but it’s real. When I was about five or six, I had the job of gathering eggs in my grandparents’ henhouse. It was one of those old-fashioned sheds with cubbies for each hen to sit in on her nest. I’d done it for quite a while with no problems. One day, though, something startled the hens while I was in there. They began flapping and fluttering around out of control. It was hectic, erratic, and frightening. Ever since that time, I have been nervous around birds. They just seem so out of control.
Isn’t that the root of most of our fears? The idea of a situation being out of control makes us wary and fearful. In the world in which we live, there are many things much larger than birds that seem out of control and make us afraid, for ourselves and the future. The disciples understood that too. Jesus was leaving them, and uncertainty was ahead. Into that chaos Jesus speaks the words of our text: “Peace I give you.” “Don’t let your hearts be afraid.” In the insanity that flourishes around us, let’s know his peace and trust him.
Bill T.
John 14:23-29
The NRSV translates the Greek word parakletos as “Advocate.” According to author Willard Swartley, who wrote an exhaustive commentary for the Believers Church Bible Commentary series, the word can be translated as “comfort,” “console,” “encourage,” “counsel,” “exhort,” “admonish,” “advocate,” “beseech,” and “call for help.” Some versions of the Bible don’t even try to translate the word. They transliterate it as “paraclete.”
This Advocate is the Holy Spirit. But what is Jesus trying to tell us about the Holy Spirit by using the word parakletos?According to the big, fat Greek dictionary known as Liddell-Scott (useless factoid -- Henry Liddell was the father of Alice Pleasance Liddell, the Alice in Alice in Wonderland), a parakletos could be one who is called in to provide support, especially in a court case. A parakletos could also be someone who pleads for a defendant in court in order to enlist the sympathy of the judges.
So which one is it? Probably all of the above. The Holy Spirit is our advocate in many different ways.
And to delve a little deeper, the Greek word parakletos is reminiscent of the Hebrew word goel,sometimes translated as “redeemer.” In the book of Job, the long-suffering hero cries out “I know that my Redeemer lives” (Job 19:25). In the context of ancient society, the goel or redeemer is the guy every family member counts on, the one who helps your kid make bail, or fixes a problem with city hall, or helps you pay the rent, or knows a guy who knows a guy who can fix the potholes on your street.
Frank R.
John 14:23-29
If we love our mothers and fathers, we will obey them. Whoever we love we will obey, and we will be loved in return by them. If we resist obeying God or our parents, then we show that we don’t love them.
We will not be children of our parents (or of God) because of the things we do. We do them to show that we are their children.
The Greeks have four words for love. Eros is a romantic love. But that is not the one the Bible means here. Philios is the love of friendship -- Philadelphia is the city of love! This is a brotherly love. This is not the one the Bible means either, because it is a love between equals. Sergey is a family type of love, and this may be one interpretation since we want to be in God’s family. Agape is the most powerful love. It is the kind of love that made Jesus willing to suffer on a cross. Sometimes agape love is a love so powerful that only God can have it.
God created us out of love and gave us free will. He wanted our love for him to be voluntary and not forced. When we choose a wife, we want the love to be mutual. That is why the kind of marriage that is forced upon a girl may well not have the “love” that any of those four Greek words imply. It may come later, but some arranged marriages may not even be for the love of the parents who forced them.
Love can’t and shouldn’t be something forced on us!
Jesus teaches us the meaning of God’s kind of love by what he has done and is doing for us. God’s love is not the kind of love you can find the meaning for in a dictionary. It is a love beyond anything that could be translated or understood intellectually. The whole Bible is a message of love -- God’s love. The Bible says that God IS love! The only reason we can understand it is through God’s Spirit. Then we feel his love in our hearts.
Our love for God only comes in response to God’s love for us. His Spirit is the only thing that can give us that love. Only His Spirit can put it in our hearts. When the Spirit is in our hearts, then we can feel the peace that only Jesus can give. Only then will our hearts not be troubled!
Bob O.
Years ago during an interview to be called as a pastor, I was asked a question about who my favorite biblical character was. I pondered this for a moment, and although all the big names like Abraham, Moses, Sarah, Mary Magdalene, Deborah, Rahab, and Rebecca came to me, I settled on Lydia. I had to explain to a couple of people who Lydia was, but the more I talked about her the more certain I was that I had made a good choice.
Lydia was a businesswoman in a time when that was unusual. We never hear of a husband, so we assume she is either widowed or remained single. She has her own household, so she is reasonably well off. She makes a product, purple cloth, used mostly by the wealthy. And Lydia is a worshiper of God. Lydia’s heart is opened to listen to Paul -- and upon hearing about the Way of following Jesus, Lydia and her whole household are baptized. This is a woman of both deep faith and action. It is the type of woman I hope I have come to be.
Bonnie B.
Acts 16:9-15
A young girl had just come home from school. She loved first grade and was excited to tell her mom everything that had transpired that day. She tossed her backpack by the stairs in the hall and ran to the kitchen, where her mom was working. She climbed up on one of the kitchen stools and began to describe all the amazing things that happened that day. Her mom, who’d just gotten home from work herself, was getting dinner ready -- so she mumbled an occasional “Uh huh” and “Yes, dear” as her daughter talked virtually non-stop. Her daughter noticed, however, that her mom wasn’t really listening. She stopped mid-sentence. Her mom continued to work. The girl hopped off the stool and walked over to her mom. She put her arms around her to get her attention. “What is it, dear?” her mom asked. “I hear what you’re saying.” The little girl looked up to her mom and replied, “I know, but are you listening?”
There is a difference between hearing and listening. In this text Lydia, a worshiper of God, listened to Paul and his companions. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly. Her listening made all the difference. Sometimes people who’ve heard about the Lord for a long time haven’t really listened. Have you?
Bill T.
Acts 16:9-15
While at Troas, Paul receives a vision -- a man from Macedonia cries out for him to visit because they need help! It turns the vision is true -- but the man was a woman, Lydia, whose household business is making purple dye, a pretty exclusive item for use of royalty.
In response to the vision, Paul comes to Philippi. Normally Paul would visit the local synagogue first, make connections, and then widen the circle of his ministry to include those beyond the Jewish faith. Philippi was a Roman colony (citizens of Philippi were citizens of Rome, a pretty exclusive privilege) on the Via Egnatia, a major east-west road that connected Rome with Asia Minor. There were folks from all over the empire living in Philippi. It was a place where Roman soldiers retired.
With no synagogue to visit (there weren’t the ten men necessary to provide a quorum, and women were not included in that number) Paul went to the river, where he found a group of women praying. These were a class known as God-fearers, Gentiles who believed in the God of Israel but for one reason or another were not able or allowed to take the next step and become converts of Judaism. Women, for instance, could not join on their own.
There was nothing to stop them from becoming Christians, however. Lydia invited Paul and his company to join her at her villa. The Roman household typically consisted not only of extended family but also slaves, servants, artisans, and others associated with the household’s craft, and might number a hundred or more. The Christian house church followed the model of the Roman household, and in this case Lydia is the head of this house church.
Frank R.
Acts 16:9-15
The distinction was between Jews and Gentiles. It could be between Lutherans and Catholics or Baptists, or foreigners or Americans, etc. We are all purified by faith, not by the group we belong to (Democrat or Republican).
I can’t tell my son or daughter that they can no longer be my child if they do not follow all the rules I give them (like cleaning up their room, getting home on time, eating all the food on their plate, etc.). They are still my kids -- even if adopted -- as long as they love me and have faith that I am their parent.
I have seen great things done by Baptists and Roman Catholics. If they are done through faith in our Lord, then they are our brothers and sisters! We are all forgiven by grace through faith. We are all God’s children.
This is not even something new. It was told by the prophets in the Old Testament. The same God has given us both testaments. In the Old Testament there was more emphasis on the vital importance of obeying every one of God’s laws. Through Christ the emphasis changed to faith. We learn through our Lord how much God loves us.
God even loves Muslims! All they have to do is turn to him with all their hearts. Our job is to help them know about God’s love. That is an assignment for all Christians -- to spread the word of God’s love.
I know a Muslim who believes in Jesus, but won’t tell her family. Now she is in God’s hands, and it is up to him if that faith is enough!
It sounds like God can take someone (any one) outside our group of insiders and make them a people for himself. It is not up to us to judge!
Bob O.
Revelation 21:10, 22--22:5
The setting was the monthly luncheon of the local ministerial association. The speaker was a pastoral colleague in the midst of a particularly rough spot in life -- the collapse of her marriage, a divorce that led to financial difficulties, a long and nasty custody dispute over the children, followed by her diagnosis of and treatment for a particularly aggressive cancer.
She reported that prior to this series of disasters, she had led a charmed life. Little, if anything, had gone wrong. She was not, however, lamenting her circumstances. Her assessment was quite the contrary. She informed her gathered colleagues that she had been energized by the struggle. She claimed that this difficult road she had been traveling had made her a far more sensitive pastor. Rather than getting to a better place in life, she had concluded that she wanted to spend the rest of her ministry walking as a companion in suffering with those who struggle.
After the meeting, a close minister friend expressed his disagreement. As she put it, “I have already spent too much time slogging through the swamp of suffering. I don’t want to spend any more time there than necessary. I want to climb to the top of the mountain and shout encouragement to those struggling through the valley. ‘Don’t give up. You can get through this. God will give you the strength. Come up here on the mountain with me. The view is absolutely stunning.’ ”
This passage from the Revelation of John is a description of that view from the mountaintop. To paraphrase: “Look over there. It is the beautiful city of God. Notice that the New Jerusalem it is not a gated community. Everyone is welcome. Take a look at that river. Have you ever seen a cleaner body of water? Don’t give up believing. It is coming.”
R. Robert C.
Revelation 21:10, 22--22:5
President Woodrow Wilson was the only academic to occupy the Oval Office. He had a Ph.D., and before his election was the president of Princeton University. Yet he was not stoic, an attribute that often seems to be assigned to those in academia. He wrote hundreds of passionate and very romantic love letters to his wife Edith. They were sexual, but not pornographic, and they all expressed the deepest of emotions. Even while dealing with the sinking of the Lusitania, Wilson still wrote incredible love letters to his wife.
Application: Having our name in the Lamb’s Book of Life is like having a love letter from God.
Ron L.
Revelation 21:10, 22--22:5
This is a lesson about the glory of God. Ken Sande, the founder of Peacemakers Ministry and an expert in conflict resolution, has written: “What are you really living for? It is crucial to realize that you either glorify God, or you glorify something or someone else. You’re always making something look big. If you don’t glorify God... you inevitably show that someone or something else rules your heart.”
In heaven we will not need light and sun, not even a place to worship, for God will be there! Nothing else will rule our hearts. To the extent that this vision of the future orients our lives in the present -- since, as Episcopal theologian Marianne Micks once observed, for Christians the future has a claim on the present (The Future Present, p. 177) -- then this lesson should orient everyday life like Sande proposes. Christians need nothing and no one but God. In that spirit, the insights of Martin Luther are most relevant: “We are to trust in God alone, turn to him, expecting from him only good things.... Although much that is good comes to us from men, we receive it all from God through his command and ordinance. Our parents and all authorities... have received the command to do us all kinds of good. So we receive our blessing not from them, but from God through them. Creatures are only the hands, channels, and means through which God bestows all blessings” (The Book of Concord, pp. 367-368).
Lives devoted to God in this way are happier and more energetic. Neurobiological research indicates the lives lived focused on God exercise the front part of the brain (the prefrontal cortex), which is then bathed in natural dope (especially dopamine) and gives feelings of happiness, pleasure, and also enhances energy (Dean Hamer, The God Gene, pp. 72ff; Daniel Amen, Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, p. 81).
Mark E.
John 14:23-29
I was having a discussion recently about peace. While speaking with some friends, I was exploring how I feel when my purpose is aligned with the purpose God has for me. I expressed the feeling as one of quiet excitement that engenders a sense of peaceful certainty in the decisions I am making. It is this peace that I think Jesus is offering. It is the peace in the mind and in the spirit that we love God with our whole selves and are aligned with the path God lays before us.
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I am like Paul -- I do what I don’t want to do and don’t do what I want, but on the occasions when I have aligned my mind, body, and spirit with the direction God is leading, I know the power of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit is with me. I know in my bones that the knowledge I have is supplemented by the wisdom of God, and even in the face of challenges I am not afraid. May this peace fill you.
Bonnie B.
John 14:23-29
People can have all kinds of fears. There’s acrophobia, the fear of heights. Claustrophobia, the fear of small spaces, is one that a lot of people have to fight. One more recently classified is coulrophobia, or the fear of clowns. I don’t really struggle with any of these, so it is easy to write about them without hesitation. There is one that is a bit more difficult, because it is real to me -- and ornithophobia is what it is called. What is that, you ask? It’s a fear of birds. I know. That sounds silly, but it’s real. When I was about five or six, I had the job of gathering eggs in my grandparents’ henhouse. It was one of those old-fashioned sheds with cubbies for each hen to sit in on her nest. I’d done it for quite a while with no problems. One day, though, something startled the hens while I was in there. They began flapping and fluttering around out of control. It was hectic, erratic, and frightening. Ever since that time, I have been nervous around birds. They just seem so out of control.
Isn’t that the root of most of our fears? The idea of a situation being out of control makes us wary and fearful. In the world in which we live, there are many things much larger than birds that seem out of control and make us afraid, for ourselves and the future. The disciples understood that too. Jesus was leaving them, and uncertainty was ahead. Into that chaos Jesus speaks the words of our text: “Peace I give you.” “Don’t let your hearts be afraid.” In the insanity that flourishes around us, let’s know his peace and trust him.
Bill T.
John 14:23-29
The NRSV translates the Greek word parakletos as “Advocate.” According to author Willard Swartley, who wrote an exhaustive commentary for the Believers Church Bible Commentary series, the word can be translated as “comfort,” “console,” “encourage,” “counsel,” “exhort,” “admonish,” “advocate,” “beseech,” and “call for help.” Some versions of the Bible don’t even try to translate the word. They transliterate it as “paraclete.”
This Advocate is the Holy Spirit. But what is Jesus trying to tell us about the Holy Spirit by using the word parakletos?According to the big, fat Greek dictionary known as Liddell-Scott (useless factoid -- Henry Liddell was the father of Alice Pleasance Liddell, the Alice in Alice in Wonderland), a parakletos could be one who is called in to provide support, especially in a court case. A parakletos could also be someone who pleads for a defendant in court in order to enlist the sympathy of the judges.
So which one is it? Probably all of the above. The Holy Spirit is our advocate in many different ways.
And to delve a little deeper, the Greek word parakletos is reminiscent of the Hebrew word goel,sometimes translated as “redeemer.” In the book of Job, the long-suffering hero cries out “I know that my Redeemer lives” (Job 19:25). In the context of ancient society, the goel or redeemer is the guy every family member counts on, the one who helps your kid make bail, or fixes a problem with city hall, or helps you pay the rent, or knows a guy who knows a guy who can fix the potholes on your street.
Frank R.
John 14:23-29
If we love our mothers and fathers, we will obey them. Whoever we love we will obey, and we will be loved in return by them. If we resist obeying God or our parents, then we show that we don’t love them.
We will not be children of our parents (or of God) because of the things we do. We do them to show that we are their children.
The Greeks have four words for love. Eros is a romantic love. But that is not the one the Bible means here. Philios is the love of friendship -- Philadelphia is the city of love! This is a brotherly love. This is not the one the Bible means either, because it is a love between equals. Sergey is a family type of love, and this may be one interpretation since we want to be in God’s family. Agape is the most powerful love. It is the kind of love that made Jesus willing to suffer on a cross. Sometimes agape love is a love so powerful that only God can have it.
God created us out of love and gave us free will. He wanted our love for him to be voluntary and not forced. When we choose a wife, we want the love to be mutual. That is why the kind of marriage that is forced upon a girl may well not have the “love” that any of those four Greek words imply. It may come later, but some arranged marriages may not even be for the love of the parents who forced them.
Love can’t and shouldn’t be something forced on us!
Jesus teaches us the meaning of God’s kind of love by what he has done and is doing for us. God’s love is not the kind of love you can find the meaning for in a dictionary. It is a love beyond anything that could be translated or understood intellectually. The whole Bible is a message of love -- God’s love. The Bible says that God IS love! The only reason we can understand it is through God’s Spirit. Then we feel his love in our hearts.
Our love for God only comes in response to God’s love for us. His Spirit is the only thing that can give us that love. Only His Spirit can put it in our hearts. When the Spirit is in our hearts, then we can feel the peace that only Jesus can give. Only then will our hearts not be troubled!
Bob O.
