Week 1: The Rule of Love

Recommended Reading: 

Introduction-Chapter 1 (26 pages)

Key Quotes: Introduction 

"When [the Bible] says, 'God is love' (1 John 4:8), it's not saying there is a thing out there called love and that God measures up to it…Rather, God in himself provides the definition, the reality, of what love is." (13- Author's emphasis)

"The world presumes to understand love and authority, like it presumes to understand God. Yet it understands these things only in their fallen forms, not in their created or redeemed forms…The local church serves, therefore, as a three-dimensional display of God's love and God's authority." (20-21)

Chapter 1 

Speaking on how individuals are portrayed in many of the Romantic writings-- "What matters is who they are in themselves- what they want, what they feel. Every relationship is a contract that can be ripped up. What's nonnegotiable is whatever my individual heart tells me is true." (27)

Speaking on Consumeristic love and its effect on the church--"We rate our experience rather than search our hearts. We judge the church rather than letting God's Word judge us…Preaching becomes personal counseling on a group basis…We won't admit this to ourselves, but what we really want from the preacher and small group leader isn't a God who asks us to make much of him, but a God who makes much of us."

"Like all the best idols, our culture's understanding of love isolates one or two true things and makes those things ultimate, thereby distorting even the good in this view of love." (36-37)

"In the final analysis, you cannot separate love and rule. It's only a question of which love will rule: the love of God, or the love of self?" (40)

Engagement Questions: 

Introduction

1. What four assumptions does the author pull from The Scarlet Letter that are forgone conclusions today as it relates to love and authority?
2. What are the implications for each of the above assumptions?

Chapter 1 

1. How does Individualism, Consumerism, and Tribalism affect our understanding on love and authority?
2. Reflecting on the books you read, movies you watch, and songs you sing, how have they shaped rightly/wrongly your view on morality? For example, have you ever found yourself rooting for the mistress because she "deserved" the man therefore affirming adultery, divorce, and the breaking of a family and marriage?

Summary:

Introduction

While there are many battles that are being fought against the kingdom of God, two of those challenges concern how we define love and who is given authority. And though we may think of those two attributes of God as mutually exclusive, Jonathan Leeman will demonstrate how they actually inform the other. But before we dive deeper into that, the introductory chapter reminds us of the glorious truth that God is love. The danger in even rejecting this principle is to reject God, who is love, and to shift from loving love towards loving something else, an idol. When a person, nation, church, etc, does that, then whatever is the object of their love, their idol, is used to justify any sort of action they want. As an example, if we say that love is not from/of God but means not judging others and letting people love who they want to love with unconditional acceptance, then it is illogical and wrong for a person to say that fornication, adultery, pedophilia, homosexuality, etc. is wrong. Worse, the result of this misdefinition is that we remove God as the source of authority and replace the authority figure with ourselves. We become the ones who make rights to moral claims and we remove His right to rule with authority over our lives. So the purpose of this book is two-fold, 1) to remind ourselves of what love and authority truly are and how they relate to each other and 2) show how the church should embody them. In this journey, Dr. Leeman will also include literary illustrations in each chapter to reinforce the points that he is making and make this a more entertaining read.

Chapter 1

As we saw in the Introductory chapter, when we separate God from any definition that we have for love we affirm what John Calvin calls each of us, idol factories. But before he right the ship in our minds about love, we first explore our idols of love by looking at three different philosophies: Individualism, Consumerism, and Tribalism. Each one of those worldviews will significantly redefine love and authority and in this chapter summary let's consider the latter of the three, Tribalism. Here tribalism is defined as a group of people who organize themselves around a common, shared attribute, such as race, political or social philosophy, or power disparity. These tend to form when an injustice occurs against a specific "tribe" or group and while injustices must be exposed, the danger is that it becomes expected that everyone must show love to a person, not as an individual, but with that person's group which has been affected by some sort of injustice. The danger in this is that when we think in terms of group identity, we forget that each person was wonderfully and beautifully created in the image of God. In tribalism, a lot of effort and voice is given to bringing power to X people, and "wants the group to be its own lord-the lord of its life and loves", and a person can quickly forget that God is lord of life and loves. In each of the three idolatrous philosophies, the question essentially comes down to who will be the ruler of life and love? It will either be ourselves, our passions, our group, or God; only one will win out.

Grace and Peace,

Alex Galvez

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