The love in view here is “agape” love – the crown and climax of all virtues. Our English Bible translates “agape” 115 times in the New Testament. Twenty-two times it translates it as “charity.” Peter lists “love” last because it goes beyond “brotherly kindness” in that it embraces all men.
This love is the love of God Himself. It is not so much an emotion as love “in motion,” love in action. It is “godliness on a mission” because it manifests the same kind of love as God, Who sent His Son “on a mission” to redeem man. It is interesting that Christians first coined this term.
We need to think clearly and biblically on this vital subject because so much of what passes for “love” around us – even in professedly Christian circles – is “sloppy agape.”
|Love is the greatest virtue in the Christian life (1 Cor. 13:13). True “agape” love comprehends all the other virtues. We don't have to balance love with something else. We just need to have God's love “perfected” in us. Love is the “end” [aim] of God's law (1 Tim. 1:15). Love is the “fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:10). We can afford to love others – even the most unlovable – because God has unconditionally and freely loved us.
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Bob Vradenburgh is the senior pastor of Friendship Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. He has spent 40 years in full-time Christian service: the first 20 years as a missionary and the past 20 years in the pastorate. Bob’s passion is the expository preaching of God’s Word,...