FAMOUS LAST WORDS
BROTHERLY LOVE AND AFFECTION
DR. JIM DIXON
2 PETER 1:5-8
JULY 11, 2010
Well, you’ve all heard the song All You Need Is Love by the Beatles, and some of you were actually alive when that song first came out. Of course, the Beatles sang those words, “All you need is Love, Love is all you need,” and in the past two generations, 2,400 songs have been written for this world’s need for love. “What the world needs now is love, sweet love,” “Love makes the world go round,” song after song. And we live in a world where everyone believes in love. It doesn’t matter what nation you go to; it doesn’t matter what religion you adhere to. In this world virtually everyone believes in love.
The problem is, from a biblical perspective, most people really do not understand what love means. They do not understand the love of God; they do not understand what it means to love God and they don’t understand, even, what it means to love their neighbor. So, the Apostle Peter, before leaving this world, is writing to the community of Christ, the Christian world, and he wants to make sure we understand that we have been called to some very special love. So, he uses two words, “philadelphos” and “agape,” and we’re going to look at these two words today, the final words, the famous last words of Peter.
First, we begin with “philadelphos,” brotherly love. Peter says we are to strive for brotherly love. Now, historians from time to time have tried to identify the worst people in human history. Historians on occasion will look back over the centuries and millennium and they’ll ask the question, who are the worst people? Who are the worst persons the world has ever produced? I just recently saw a list accumulated by some historians at least, in their opinion, of the ten worst people. And the tenth was Attila the Hun, the 5th century ruler of the Hunnic Empire. Attila the Hun conquered the east Roman Empire and he forced conquered people to join his vast armies or die.
The 9th worst person on this list was Maximilien Robespierre. Maximilien Robespierre was one of the leaders of the French Revolution, and very controversial. Some people demonized him, some “angelized” him, if there is such a word, and of course there’s no doubt about he was the driving force behind the reign of terror when 20,000 to 40,000 people died in a matter of 10 months.
The 8th worst person was the Ayatollah Khomeini, and of course he led Iran from 1979 to 1989. He established Sharia law, and he established death and incarceration codes and he proclaimed to the people of Iran that anyone who believes in democracy will be hanged by the order of God. In 1988 alone, he executed 30,000 people.
The 7th worst person was Idi Amin Dada. Idi Amin was the ruler of Uganda. He usurped power and seized the throne in a military coup in 1971. Idi Amin’s reign was known for human rights abuses, for governmental oppression, of ethnic cleansing. His reign was known for mass murder sanctioned judicially. 80,000 to 500,000 people died as a result of his rule and historians differ and vary in terms of the death estimate.
The 6th worst person was Leopold II. Leopold II was the King of Belgium. He died in 1909 after ruling Belgium for 44 years, but it was Leopold II who established the Congo Free State in Central Africa, which later became Belgium Congo. He established that state and it was for him his personal, private colony and he controlled it completely and he massively exported rubber and ivory from central Africa from forced labor. That forced labor under Leopold II killed 3 million people.
The 5th worst was Pol Pot. Pol Pot was the ruler of Cambodia and the infamous killing fields. Under his reign 1/3 of the population of Cambodia died.
The 4th worst was Vlad Tepes, Vlad IV, a 15th century ruler of Wallachia. He was sometimes called Vlad the Impaler and at least, according to some historians, he executed by impaling people, 20,000 persons a year.
The 3rd worst was Ivan the IV, the ruler of Russia, the first Czar of Russia known to history as Ivan the Terrible. According to some historians at least, over the years, year after year after year after year, Ivan the Terrible would have every day of every year 500 to 1,000 people executed before him, right in front of him.
The 2nd worst person on this list was Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler, who became chancellor of Germany in 1933, Führer in 1934. His insatiable quest for power led the world to war and his demonic racism led him to incarcerate and gas 6 million Jewish people.
The worst person on this list, the number 1 worst person in human history was Josef Stalin. In 1922, he became the general secretary of the Communist Party in Russia and in 1929 he became the dictator of the Soviet Union. He ruled the Soviet Union until 1953. Josef Stalin’s forced famines caused 2 ½ to 10 million people to die in his purge of undesirables. His purge of people he deemed undesirable resulted in the death of 10 to 60 million additional people.
The problem with this is manifold. I mean, one problem is it’s subjective, speculative. Another problem is God’s the judge and it’s possible that God has reserved some deepest, lowest section of hell for people like these who have devoted their lives to the slaughter of humanity and perhaps God has reserved for them a place with the devil and his angels.
But the problem with a list like this, apart from the fact that it’s not a pleasant thing to think about such people, is it gets most people off the hook. It gets us off the hook. You can read a list like that and you can think, I’m a pretty good person. You know, you can read a list like that and you can think I’m relatively righteous and you can read a list like that and you can think, man, I’m bound for heaven. And if I’m not bound for heaven, something’s wrong. But you see, the Bible tells us that before a Holy God, all of our righteousness is like filthy rags. All of my righteousness is like filthy rags and I’m a sinner in desperate need of grace. There’s none righteous, no, not one. All we like sheep have gone astray. And if you’re a Christian, you had a moment where, in humility, you knelt before the cross and you acknowledged your sin and you cried out for grace and mercy and forgiveness by the shed blood of Jesus Christ and he saved you and now he’s called you to love.
He’s called you to love and we look at these two words from the Apostle Peter, the follower of Jesus, and the first is “philadelphos.” We need to understand its meaning because we are called to “philadelphos.” We are to strive for “philadelphos.” This word literally means brotherly affection. It’s generic, it can mean sisterly affection, and in the ancient biblical world there was a city in Asia Minor called Philadelphia. In the book of Revelation, chapters 2 and 3, you see the letters to the seven churches and one of those was the Church at Philadelphia. It received a special message from Jesus. Here in America, we have a city named Philadelphia, the city established by William Penn and the Quakers, but William Penn knew the original and true meaning of “philadelphos.” And I think the problem is that many today do not.
What do you think of when you think of brotherly affection? What do you think of when you think of “philadelphus,” brotherly love? I think most people think of the love of humanity. The love of human beings and my guess is if you consulted most dictionaries they would take you there, that “philadelphos” refers to the love of humanity. But really that’s “philanthropos.” That’s the love of mankind, the love of humanity. “Philadelphos” is far more focused than that, and in the Bible “philadelphos” is a very focused word. It’s only used seven times in the New Testament. Four of those seven times it is used in the writings of Peter, 1 or 2 Peter, and when you look at it contextually, every single time the word “philadelphos” refers to the love of Christians. Love for Christians. Love for the church. Love for brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ. And so, before Peter leaves this world, he wants to make sure that the community of Christ understands that they are called to have a very special love for their brothers and sisters in Christ.
So how are you doing? Do you love Christians? How do you feel about your brothers and sisters all over the world? Do you know, and do you care, that millions of your brothers and sisters in Christ are being persecuted all over the world? In some of the nations of the former Soviet bloc, in much of the Muslim world, Christians are being incarcerated. They are denied their jobs and the right to make a living, and some are whipped and scourged and some executed. Millions of people are acknowledged by Freedom House, Amnesty House, Amnesty International, even the United States Congress. And do you care? Do you spend one moment, do you spend a second, thinking about your brothers and sisters in other parts of the world who are literally dying just for their faith in Jesus Christ?
How about your brothers and sisters here in our nation? In our culture, in which there is growing darkness, brothers and sisters who share the same call of seeking to live for Christ in hard times: do you have affection for them? And have you found a group of Christians with whom you share this affection? Have you befriended them? Have you come together? And you see, this is the plan of Christ. “I will build my church, and the gates of Hades, the powers of Hell, the powers of death will never prevail against it.”
His purpose was that we would come into the church and learn to love. That we would come into the church and learn to love, that’s his purpose. That’s part of the call of the gospel. The gospel’s not simply a call to salvation, but to the church of Jesus Christ that we might now learn to love, that this would be a classroom to learn what it means to love. Jesus knew that in the church there would be all kinds of people. Some are easy to love, some kind of hard to love. Jesus knew that there’d be everything you’d need in order for this to be a classroom in order to learn what it really means to care about one another.
So, he’s called us to the church for the sake of love and if you just come and you sit in a pew or a chair and then you go home, you don’t understand. We’re called into relationship. So, in this church we have 600 small groups. We have 600 small groups, and most of them have about 10 people and the reason you join one of those is to be love and be loved under Christ and to learn what that means and what that requires. And if you’ve not made that choice, you need to. These are the famous last words of Peter, and this is the call of Jesus Christ upon us. So, because of “philadelphus” you go to church. Because of “philadelphos,” you join a small group. Because of “philadelphos,” you sing in the choir. Because of “philadelphos,” you go and teach in a Sunday School class and care for children. Because of “philadelphos,” you go to one of our inner-city churches, the six churches that we’re linked with, and you enter a mentoring program to help inner city kids.
It’s about learning to love, learning to love the body of Christ. Understand Jesus didn’t say, “The world will know you are Christians because you love everybody.” Jesus said (and I’m not saying we shouldn’t love everybody, we should), “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” They will know we are Christians by our love for each other. And there’s this special… what’s supposed to happen is the world would look at us and see the way we love each other and be sucked in like a magnet, that the world would say, “I want to experience some of that. I want to be in a family like that. I want to be in a community like that,” because they’d see the way we love each other. This is the plan of God. It’s not working so well because all over the world, the church of Jesus Christ has so often failed to love, and to even love each other, brothers and sisters in Christ.
There’s a higher word and a final word from Peter and that is the word “agape.” And you look at this building block from Peter where he talks about all the things we should strive for, we who are in the household of faith, and he says, “Supplement your faith with virtue—“arete,” excellence—and supplement your virtue with knowledge—”gnosis”—supplement your knowledge with self-control—”enkratos”—supplement yourself control with steadfastness—“hupomone”—supplement your steadfastness with godliness—”eusebeia”—and supplement your godliness with brotherly affection—”philadelphus”—and supplement your brotherly affection with love—“agape.””
This is the final word. This is where it’s all heading, and this is what Peter wants us to understand before he leaves this world, that we are called to love and it’s agape love and this is a very, very special word. It’s not like other Greek words in the Hellenized world. It’s not like “eros,” it’s not like “phileo,” it’s not like “storgeo.” I mean, “eros” is romantic love, “phileo” is friendship love, “storgeos” family love and these are reciprocal loves, where we love and they love us. And these are emotional and these are loves that are very much related to feelings.
But no, “agape” love is a higher love. The Christian world extracted it from the Hellenized world and used it biblically in a very special way so that “agape” is divine love and it’s a choice—it’s not a feeling, it’s a choice. You’ve got to wake up every day and choose love. You’ve got to wake up every day and choose to love. It doesn’t matter how you feel. This is agape love, and it doesn’t have to do with whether or not the person you choose to love loves you. They might even hate you. They might even be your enemy, but you choose to love them. That’s agape love. It doesn’t matter whether or not they are lovely. There might not be anything in them that moves you, but you choose to love them. This is divine love. This is the call of God, the highest call upon the people of Jesus Christ.
Now, in Mark, chapter 9, you have the beautiful story of the transfiguration and there’s a lot of scholarly debate as to where it took place because the Bible simply tells us in Mark, chapter 9, that Jesus in his inner circle of disciples, Peter, James and John, that the four of them went up on the top of a high mountain. Traditionally it’s Mount Tabor, and you can travel to Israel today, as many of us have, and you can see the beautiful shrine built on the top of Mount Tabor in commemoration of the transfiguration of Jesus Christ. But we really don’t know that it even happened there, and when you look at the passage in Mark chapter 9 contextually, it was probably further north, maybe even Mount Herman. We don’t know. But we do know that Jesus took Peter, James, and John. There was something he didn’t want all of the disciples to see, but he did want Peter, James, and John to see it.
He took them with him to the top of this high mountain and there the power of God was unleashed and by the will of God Moses and Elijah appeared. And then Jesus was acknowledged as the Son of God by the voice of God and his body transfigured and he radiated pure light and he was unveiled. You see, the Bible says that when Jesus comes a second time, it will be the “apokalupsis.” And that word means “the unveiling.” In his first coming he was mostly veiled, the carpenter son of the village of Nazareth. There were moments of unveiling, and the greatest moment was the transfiguration, when he was manifested as the Son of God.
Now, they left the mountain—Jesus, Peter, James and John—and they came down the mountain slope and when they came to the bottom, they met the nine. Now, they meet the nine, and we’re still in Mark, chapter 9, And when they meet the nine, the nine are frustrated because there was a tragically sick little boy and his father was desperate, and this boy was demon possessed and his behavior and conduct unimaginable. And the disciples, the nine, had sought to heal him and could not. And Jesus comes with Peter, James, and John and Jesus goes up to this family and this little boy and Jesus unleashes healing power, casts out the demons and heals the little boy.
And the nine disciples say to Jesus, “Why could we not do this? You have granted us power and authority to heal. Why could we not do this?” And Jesus makes this very important statement. He said, “Sometimes it’s a matter of prayer and fasting. Sometimes there must be much prayer and fasting.” Now, there’s some manuscript debate as to whether or not the word fasting is in that original text. It doesn’t matter. There are many passages in the Bible where prayer and fasting are linked.
This thought occurs to me: do we ever pray and fast? My assumption is that you all pray. I know I have a prayer time every day. But do you link your prayer with fasting? And do you love enough to do that? I think in the church of Jesus Christ in the 21st century we don’t love enough. I think it takes a lot of love to enter into a time of prayer and fasting. It takes a lot of love. Is there anything you love enough that you would enter into a time of prayer and fasting? Do you love your country enough that you would do such a thing? Do you love your family, your kids enough? Do you love the person down the street who has cancer enough that you would consider prayer and fasting? Now, I acknowledge, it’s a matter of the leading and prompting of the Holy Spirit. I can’t dictate a prayer and a fast, but if the Holy Spirit were to lead you, would you do it? And are you listening to the Holy Spirit? Do you love that way? Do you have that much love? Because I think love is very pale and weak in most of our lives.
Every year at our church we have Easter Services. It starts with Palm Sunday and it’s a wonderful week as we go to Easter Sunday. And Easter Sunday we celebrate as a whole church at what once was Fiddler’s Green and now, rather unfortunately, is Comfort Dental Amphitheatre. In any event, it’s a wonderful week and in the middle of the week we have a Holy Week service, an evening mid-week service. We call it Holy Week service. Now, we used to call it Maundy Thursday service. We had this service, normally, on Thursday night. We used to call it Maundy Thursday and we’ve changed it to Holy Week service because most of you said, “What does Maundy mean?” and we never seemed to be able to communicate in such a way that it’s sunk in. So, we just call it Holy Week service, but it is on Thursday, and it is Maundy Thursday.
And what does Maundy mean? If you want to know all about Maundy Thursday, turn to the Gospel of John, read chapters 13, 14, 15, 16, 17—all 5 chapters—because they all happen on Maundy Thursday of Holy Week. All 5 chapters describe things that took place on Maundy Thursday of Holy Week. The 13th chapter begins with Jesus washing the feet of the disciples; the 17th chapter ends with the High Priestly Prayer. It all took place in the upper room in the city of Jerusalem on Maundy Thursday.
But the word Maundy comes from the Latin “mandatum,” which means mandate. It means commandment. So Maundy Thursday is Commandment Thursday, and we see in John 13 that that night Jesus said to his disciples, a new commandment, a new maundy, a new mandatum, “A new mandate I give unto you, that you love one another.” And in John 15, Jesus brings the commandment up again, “This is my commandment,” and he explains it more. It’s all about love.
Now, here’s the scholarly question often asked: Why does he call it new? Why does Jesus say to his disciples, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another,” when these are Jewish men who had lived under the Torah and in the Torah you have the Shema, Deuteronomy 16, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind”? They’d had this commandment for over a thousand years and in this room of Jewish men and in the Torah you have this understanding of Leviticus 19:18, that you shall love your neighbor as yourself. So why did Jesus say, “A new commandment”?
Well, there is scholarly debate. Some scholars say, “Well, it has to do with example.” It’s a new commandment because now there’s a new example and that new example is Jesus Christ. And there’s truth in that. Jesus is a new example of what it means to love and even in the upper room on Maundy Thursday as he girded himself with a towel and he washed his disciple’s feet, he was providing them an example. He said, “You call me Lord and Master and you are right, for so I am. And if I then your Lord and Master has washed your feet, how much more ought you to wash one another’s feet. Behold, I have given you an example that you should follow in my steps.” Yes, there is a new example here. And the cross, which we commemorate today, is the supreme example of love, as Jesus poured out his life for us: a new commandment with a new example.
Other scholars say, “Well, it’s a new power.” The commandment is old but there’s a new power that accompanies it. And that’s true because if you gave your life to Jesus and you embraced him as Lord and Savior, the Bible says that the moment you believe, he sent his Spirit to tabernacle within you and to indwell you. He has sent his Spirit to live within you, his Holy Spirit, and the power of the Holy Spirit he has sent within you and you are now a temple of God, all you who believe.
Of course, the problem is we don’t access that indwelling presence with all of his power. We do not access the power of the Holy Spirit. But there is power. Power to love. Everyone who has accepted Jesus Christ has been regenerated and born anew. There is power to love in ways the world cannot understand because of the presence of Christ within you.
It’s also new, some scholars say, rabbinically. And this is true. The commandment is new rabbinically. In the time of Jesus many rabbis recruited their disciples. They called them “talmidim,” which simply means disciples, and they bound their disciples to their yoke. Their yoke was their particular interpretation of Torah. In the time of Jesus many different rabbis had many different interpretations of Torah. Some said, “It’s all about truth. Torah is all about truth.” Others said, “No, Torah is all about blessing. Blessing and cursing.” There were many different interpretations of Torah, but as far as we can tell the first who said, “No, it’s all about love,” was Jesus. So, he took the Shema, Deuteronomy 6, and he took Leviticus 19 and he said, “This sums up all the law and the prophets. This sums it all up. This sums up Torah.” So, it’s new rabbinically. And that’s true.
Other scholars have said, “It’s new in scope because the old commandment to love was to love the Lord your God and to love your neighbor as yourself. But Leviticus 19:18 where it says to love your neighbor as yourself refers to fellow Jews.” This is the meaning of the Hebrew, and indeed, most scholars agree with this, that love your neighbor as yourself does not just mean all the people, it means your fellow Jew. Love your fellow Jew as you love yourself. Or perhaps it was extended to sojourners living amongst you, but it did not refer to the nations. So, there is new scope in Jesus. So now in Jesus we love first of all the body of Christ, and it is global. It’s not nationalistic. The body of Christ consists of Jew and Gentile, red, yellow, black and white. We have brothers and sisters of every race, every ethnicity, all over the world, a huge scope.
But furthermore, because of agape love, we’re called to amazing scope because we’re called even to love our enemies. This is new. I mean, the Jews said, love your neighbor, hate your enemies. This is new. This is a new commandment and that’s why in Luke, chapter 6, the sermon on the plain, you have these amazing words of Jesus, “I say to all who hear, love your enemy. Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. From him who strikes you on the cheek, offer him the other as well. He who takes away your coat, let him have your shirt. Give to everyone who begs of you and from him who takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. But as you would have others do to you, do so to them.
“For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you, for even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much again. But I say to you, love your enemies. Do good. Lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great and you will be called children of the Most High, for your Father is merciful even to the selfish and the ungrateful. So be merciful as your Father in heaven is merciful. Judge not and you’ll not be judged. Condemn not, and you’ll not be condemned. Give and it will be given to you.”
This is an amazing sermon he gave, and it’s radical. It’s oh-so radical. It’s misunderstood. Jesus was not talking to governments. The Bible acknowledges in Romans 13 that government has been established by God and God has given earthly governments the sword with the command to use it to deter evil on the earth. Jesus is not denying that, but he’s talking to his people, to the body of Christ, and to our relationships. And we’re to operate in a whole different way, a way the world doesn’t understand. And it’s oh-so hard. You’ve got to make the choice every day. You got to wake up every day. This isn’t like family love or romantic love. It’s not even like friendship love. Those are just feelings, and you have them, but agape love you’ve got to choose it every day. You’ve got to wake up every morning and just choose to love. And it might be somebody who hates you, somebody who’s hurt you, somebody who’s done something horrible and you just choose, in the name of Christ, to love them. You begin to pray for them. You seek ways to bless their life.
This is a radical, radical call. It’s on the church of Jesus Christ, and Peter, before leaving the world, wants us to understand. And he ties it to fruitfulness. He says you’ve got to strive for it. The word is “spoude.” You’ve got to strive for it. And then he says, “If these things are yours and abound, they will keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Why is the church so impotent in so many parts of the world? We don’t love. We don’t love.
So, would you like to be fruitful? Would you like for your life to count? Jesus says, “You follow me. You’ve got to love, and you will bear fruit. You haven’t chosen me, but I’ve chosen you and I will appoint unto you to go and bear fruit.” He said that, by the way, in John 15, right after he said, “This is my commandment, that you love one another.” The two are bound. Fruit bearing and love. That’s all bound up. So, we come to the table. We come to the Lord’s Table. We remember the greatest act of love the world has ever seen. Our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, the God-man who came and shared our humanity, taking our humanity upon himself and allowed his body to be broken and his blood shed for us. Let’s look to the Lord in prayer.