Gary Pollard
I Cor 13.1-3 steps on toes. A person could be truly exceptional in qualities most of us would love to have, if just barely. Without love even the most exceptional person is doomed.
Here are some the powerhouse-qualities that mean nothing without love:
1. The ability to speak multiple languages, with a working knowledge of the language of cosmic beings.
This is a person intellectually talented in an extremely difficult discipline, one that requires unlimited dedication. This is someone so dedicated to transcendent words that they pursue even the language of God’s holy ones.
This is a person who wants to know God’s word so badly that they learn Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic to get an unadulterated look at the scriptures. They may even feel an obligation to spread this knowledge to others, so they learn multiple modern languages to accomplish this.
If not done because of selfless love, if they don’t care for their enemies, and if they don’t feed and clothe the poor, they’ve wasted their time.
2. The ability to masterfully teach, understand the times, and give accurate social predictions, all with a genius-level IQ.
This is a handy person to have around! They can give targeted lessons based on where their culture is and where it’s likely to go. They have an excellent grasp of first principles, and they can give just the right message at just the right time.
This person might trust in God so completely that they place their lives wholly in his hands. They trust him to take care of them. They trust him to remove all obstacles in their path.
But they don’t like people — ουθεν ειμι. They are nobody, they are meaningless. Their faith is pointless, their intellectual powers are useless.
3. The portfolio and conscience compelling them to liquidate all of their assets and distribute them to anyone who needs anything. This is coupled with a martyr’s spirit, so after draining their earthly goods they willingly die gruesome, painful, slow deaths for God’s sake.
But they don’t like people — so they threw it all away and gained absolutely nothing in return. Still doomed.
This is difficult! We want to be like this, and we want to emulate these qualities so badly. They’re good qualities, and we can’t be good Christians without them.
But if love isn’t what drives us to do all of those things, we might as well put our time and energy into something else. Love isn’t necessarily an emotion — we don’t always feel warm and fuzzies about other people. Love is a decision to do good things for all people, to forgive automatically, to put other peoples’ needs and feelings above our own, and to view all people (including our enemies) as being more important than self. The two most important commands are about love: for God and for other people. Without those two supporting everything we do, nothing we do matters. We’ll not get it right all the time. It’s a process that we’ll probably spend the rest of our lives trying to master! God expects us to aim at growth, and his grace takes care of the gaps.
If God allows, we’ll start looking at the behavioral symptoms of a loving spirit starting next week.
I was very happy to learn about some of your children. I am happy that they are following the way of truth, just as the Father commanded us. And now, dear lady, I tell you: We should all love each other. This is not a new command. It is the same command we had from the beginning (II Jn 4-5).
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