Here’s something I wrote a while back. Sorry, it’s kinda long. I like to make up for my long absences from the blog by posting long things.

Love is patient. It is not impatient. It is shown in the attitude of waiting. A patient person harbors no resentment or bitterness towards anybody, but joyfully waits on God’s timing. This means valuing people above situations. This means I care for why someone is late instead of getting angry because MY schedule is thrown off. This means bearing up with others’ weaknesses with a desire to see God change them, not me. This means looking for the best in people, rather than caring about how others respect me.

Love is kind. It is not unkind. It seeks to bring out the best in people. It speaks gently to people; it never uses harsh words or tones or actions. It treats others as he would want to be treated. This means building others up with encouraging words rather than critically pointing out their faults. This means responding to a harsh word with grace and humility, rather than retaliating in anger. This means helping others when they are in need. This means being observant of others’ needs and taking initiative to meet those needs as best as I can. This means caring for others, giving my life away and trusting God to care for my needs.

Love does not envy. It is content. It rejoices with others’ successes without bitterness or resentment. It mourns with others’ losses without gloating about their misfortune. This means finding my needs met in the person of Jesus Christ. This means that I am satisfied with where I am and with what God has given me. This means I don’t compare myself with others in any aspect – not grades, not abilities, not prayer lives, not Scripture memory, not wisdom, not character, NOTHING.

Love does not boast. It promotes others above self. It does not exalt himself. It speaks in humility. This means accepting the grace of God in every aspect of my life. This means speaking in ways that make others look good, without putting myself down or shortchanging myself. This means having a tender attitude towards others, seeking to benefit all who listen.

Love is not proud. It is humble. A loving man is aware of who he is, how God has blessed him, but does not desire to lord those blessings over anyone. He recognizes that he is not God. He is teachable, able to learn from any situation and anyone. He does not hesitate to do the right thing, even if it hurts himself. He does not consider himself better than others, but offers his strengths to help others’ weaknesses. This means I look past myself and my hurts to the struggles and hurts that others may have. This means giving everything I have to others, even my life. This means asking questions to understand, rather than asking questions to challenge disrespectfully or to instruct. This means listening more and lecturing less. This means graciously accepting correction and rebuke, while being slow to presume authority over others. This means being open and honest with people, sincerely sharing my heart instead of hiding from others. This means having compassion for others, seeing them as God sees them.

Love is not rude. It is polite. It is considerate. It esteems other people’s feelings higher than being funny or making a point. A loving man asks the question, “Is this going to encourage?” before speaking. This means thinking before I speak. This means being tactful and attentive to others, rather than being concerned with my own agenda.

Love is not self-seeking. It looks to the interests of others. It places others’ interests ahead of my own. It causes me to put my desires to death, in favor of helping to fulfill others’ desires. This means choosing to look at others in the best possible light. This means admitting fault rather than justifying myself. This means letting others choose what they want first, and that I choose last or take what is left. This means making others look good. This means doing whatever I can to make other people’s jobs easier.

Love is not easily angered. It is self-controlled. It does not let issues and situations damage relationships. It gives grace to others and forgives quickly. It seeks to understand others first, then to be understood. It does not harbor grudges, nor does it allow frustration to build up. This means communicating my heart without accusation. This means guarding my heart from lies. This means listening and asking questions, rather than assuming the worst in others. This means being gracious at receiving correction and rebuke, instead of taking offense. This means realizing that I am covered by grace, so that I do not need to criticize my faults as much as I do. This means caring about how others feel, and caring less about how I feel.

Love keeps no record of wrongs. It forgives and chooses not to remember the offense. It never brings up the past in a conflict. It pays the price for others and says, “No strings attached.” It does not manipulate. This means honestly forgiving others. This means seeking to right wrongs I have done. This means that I don’t play the “blame game.” This means taking responsibility for the wrongs I have done to others. This means moving past my hurts/wounds/scars to serve others.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Love doesn’t seek to harm others or pursue personal satisfaction. It doesn’t hide sins in darkness, nor does it parade sins in the light. It longs for true repentance, a changed heart. It desires truth and despises falsehood. It is sincere; it is pure. This means becoming a “safe” person with whom to talk – one who encourages open, honest talk without judgment. This means fleeing all forms of temptation, resisting the devil, and standing firm in the knowledge of Scripture. This means seeing beyond the brief ecstasy of sin and having faith in the promises of God, which never fail. This means speaking the truth in love, rather than lying or speaking harshly.

Love always protects. It defends others, it does not attack them. It cares for the defenseless, the helpless, the weak. It engages in battle on behalf of another. It prays for others’ weaknesses rather than blow off their struggles just because “I don’t deal with that.” It seeks to create a safe environment for people to share their hearts. It guards fiercely. It shelters and invites, rather than tearing down and destroying. This means showing grace to others. This means shielding others from attacks. This means giving up my life for the sake of others.

Love always trusts. It is not skeptical. It seeks to know the character of a person, and believe that God is molding them. It is fully aware of the possible worst (at least somewhat aware), but chooses to assume the possible best. It empowers others by supporting them. This means knowing someone for who they really are without passing judgment. This means placing confidence in people, that I can say that they will honor their word.

Love always hopes. It does not despair. It looks for how God is working out every situation for the best. It is confident in God’s faithfulness. It tries to see the potential in others and works to encourage and foster growth. This means I should look for the truth in everything. This means seeing beyond situations and moving past myself. This means putting my pain and sorrow before God and trusting His comfort, then letting those wounds heal, rather than dwelling on those pains. This means being joyful in the Lord. This means being bold in my witness. This means doing everything without grumbling or complaining. This means being passionate about God.

Love always perseveres. It never gives up or surrenders when things become difficult. It stays true and stands firm, even when everyone else has fallen away. It sticks through the hard times. It is committed; it is dedicated to working through the tough stuff. This means not allowing any thing, person, or situation come between my relationships. This means I choose to continue showing love and loving others, regardless of what happens.

Love never fails. It is 100% faithful. It does not wane in commitment. It lasts forever. It forgives and does not withhold itself from others. This means becoming like Jesus. This means NO ABANDONMENT. This means devoting myself to others completely, not hoarding some away for myself, “just in case.” This means that I can rest in confidence, because the love of Christ will always win out.

Love is patient. It is not impatient. It is shown in the attitude of waiting. A patient person harbors no resentment or bitterness towards anybody, but joyfully waits on God’s timing. This means valuing people above situations. This means I care for why someone is late instead of getting angry because MY schedule is thrown off. This means bearing up with others’ weaknesses with a desire to see God change them, not me. This means looking for the best in people, rather than caring about how others respect me.

Love is kind. It is not unkind. It seeks to bring out the best in people. It speaks gently to people; it never uses harsh words or tones or actions. It treats others as he would want to be treated. This means building others up with encouraging words rather than critically pointing out their faults. This means responding to a harsh word with grace and humility, rather than retaliating in anger. This means helping others when they are in need. This means being observant of others’ needs and taking initiative to meet those needs as best as I can. This means caring for others, giving my life away and trusting God to care for my needs.

Love does not envy. It is content. It rejoices with others’ successes without bitterness or resentment. It mourns with others’ losses without gloating about their misfortune. This means finding my needs met in the person of Jesus Christ. This means that I am satisfied with where I am and with what God has given me. This means I don’t compare myself with others in any aspect – not grades, not abilities, not prayer lives, not Scripture memory, not wisdom, not character, NOTHING.

Love does not boast. It promotes others above self. It does not exalt himself. It speaks in humility. This means accepting the grace of God in every aspect of my life. This means speaking in ways that make others look good, without putting myself down or shortchanging myself. This means having a tender attitude towards others, seeking to benefit all who listen.

Love is not proud. It is humble. A loving man is aware of who he is, how God has blessed him, but does not desire to lord those blessings over anyone. He recognizes that he is not God. He is teachable, able to learn from any situation and anyone. He does not hesitate to do the right thing, even if it hurts himself. He does not consider himself better than others, but offers his strengths to help others’ weaknesses. This means I look past myself and my hurts to the struggles and hurts that others may have. This means giving everything I have to others, even my life. This means asking questions to understand, rather than asking questions to challenge disrespectfully or to instruct. This means listening more and lecturing less. This means graciously accepting correction and rebuke, while being slow to presume authority over others. This means being open and honest with people, sincerely sharing my heart instead of hiding from others. This means having compassion for others, seeing them as God sees them.

“His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness. Through these He has given us His very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness; knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.

Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

—2 Peter 1:3-11 (NIV)

“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’”
—Romans 1:16-17 (NIV)

This passage is probably one of the more memorized parts of the Bible. But as much as it’s memorized and recited, does it really make sense? What is this gospel that Paul so eagerly desires to preach to Greeks and non-Greeks alike (Romans 1:14-15), and what is the fuss about?

Well, from reading those two verses I can see these things:

• Paul is not ashamed of the gospel. Duh, it says it right there. But I wonder if this declaration goes deeper than the simple identification with whatever message this gospel brings.
  
  “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.”—Luke 9:26 (NIV)
  
  Sounds like heavy stuff to me. I could have this mixed up, though. Being ashamed makes me think of embarrassment, or the mortification that comes from being put on the spot for something incredibly inappropriate. Usually when I’m ashamed of something or someone I don’t want to look at them or even be around them. To some extent it’s even the type of embarrassment that kids have with their parents in public. We want to project an image that we think people will like, and if anyone or anything in our lives conflicts with that image, we are ashamed. So I see the boldness of Paul’s statement in openly identifying with this gospel. But what is this gospel? If it is inherently appealing, then why would he even bother to say that he’s not ashamed of it? And if it’s inherently repulsive, why would he not be ashamed of it?
  
  
• The gospel is the power of God for salvation of everyone who believes. I want to break down this statement some, since it’s quite a mouthful. I confess, I often rattle this phrase off without even pausing to reflect on what this means, and how it applies to my life now. But this is such an important point of theology…it explains why Paul is not ashamed of the gospel, and gives us a better idea of the nature of this gospel. The Greek word for gospel in this passage, euaggelion, is the idea of “glad tidings,” or good news, most often in the context of the salvation that comes in Jesus Christ. It is described as the “word of truth” (Colossians 1:5), as “glorious” (1 Timothy 1:11), as “eternal” (Revelation 14:6), as containing hope (Colossians 1:23), as a mystery (Ephesians 6:19), and so forth.
  
  That was a slight diversion from where I was going in my thought process, but I thought that was pretty neat. Anyways, Paul says this gospel is the power of God. That definitely puts a challenge to me – do I consider the message that Jesus Christ died and rose again to free us from the bondage of sin and death the power of God? Probably not as much as I should. But I think this definitely gives legitimacy to Paul’s reasoning for not being ashamed – after all, why should anyone be ashamed of God’s power? Furthermore, God’s power in the gospel is for the salvation of everyone who believes. From what I see in this passage, Paul’s not saying that the words are sufficient for salvation. I see him saying that for everyone who believes the gospel, their salvation by the power of God is manifested through the gospel. This correlates with what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1:18 – “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” The words themselves, in whatever form you might choose to think of them, aren’t powerful in themselves. Because for someone to hear the gospel doesn’t save them, but for that person to believe the gospel and be transformed, the power of God is visible in the gospel. I’m having a hard time trying to put this into words that make sense – the gospel does have the power to change lives, not an intrinsic power, but because it is the vehicle for salvation to be offered to a person. And because it is powerful and full of good news, Paul is not ashamed of it, to the point of eagerly desiring to preach it. Hopefully that made sense; I don’t even know if I understand what I wrote.
  
  
• In the gospel there is a righteousness from God that is revealed. Paul explains this statement later on in Romans, so I’ll leave that for another time. But it’s good, really good.
  
  

Well, I suppose that’s all I have for today. I gotta start studying again, so until next time, stay warm, and don’t leave the gas on or else you’ll go to sleep dreaming about waking up on fire.

I get the impression that we as humans like to establish rules based on exceptions. Several examples come to mind, the two I want to address right now are medical ethics and contemporary Christian philosophy. Yeah, I know, two pretty diverse topics. While my purpose is not to be inflammatory, what I say may be controversial and arouse anger in some individuals. However, I’m not going to debate the moral absolutist right or wrong on these issues – I merely want to consider the trends I observe. With that said, I’ll dive right into this.

First, medical ethics – an issue that is no longer an issue limited to healthcare professionals. A lot of the medical practice’s dos and don’ts are now established by lawful conduct instead of by moral code. While I don’t want to focus much on that issue, I bring it up because this concept, that medical professionals only have to be compliant with legal standards, demonstrates to me that ethical rules in medicine don’t necessarily improve the quality of healthcare when those rules are determined by exception.

That’s a long thought and a lot of big words. Let me see if I can explain this more. Many of the legal codes of healthcare (Patients’ Bill of Rights, Confidentiality stuff like HIPAA) are great. They explain many of the responsibilities of the healthcare provider, as well as protect patients from bad care. However, laws can only explain so much. And personally I get kinda skeptical when judges are the ones telling healthcare providers what they can and cannot do (not to mention prescribing medical law, no pun intended). Anyways, it seems like whenever there’s some law that says that everyone has to do this (ex. all parents of minors must be notified if the minor is getting an abortion), or that this treatment is okay for everyone (ex. Plan B oral contraceptive being made an over-the-counter drug) it ends up that the arguments made by detractors and/or proponents relies on some form of “exception” that justifies it being made a rule for everyone.

For minors getting abortions, questions of “what if” scenarios pop up: what if the parents would force the minor to raise the child against her will, what if the parents don’t know about the pregnancy, etc. They’re certainly questions that require thought, for sure. At the same time, the other side argues, “what if the minor was being forced to have an abortion against her will by her boyfriend?” or “what if the minor died because of post-abortion complications without the parents’ knowledge?”, which are equally thought-provoking and troublesome. Like I said, I don’t want to get into the moral judgment of who’s right and who’s wrong, and I also don’t like appealing to majority-rules arguments, so I’ll just raise the question, which one is the exception, and which one does the rule enforce?

You see similar things asked when there were debates about whether the Plan B oral contraceptive should be made over-the-counter. There were questions about drug missuse and abuse by opponents, and questions about unexpected situations (like rape and sexual abuse) by proponents. Again, which situations are the exception, and which situations do the rule enforce?

Honestly I don’t know the answer to those questions – I think both sides have a little bit of both and also have compelling reasoning. I know that sounds kinda weak, but again, I reiterate my opening statement: I’m just considering the trends that I’m observing. I have my personal opinions on what I think is right or wrong, but that’s not what I’m trying to address. I’m merely “thinking out loud,” to borrow the expression – except that instead of speaking I’m typing. Moving on to modern Christianity.

There have been many “new” philosophies that are being introduced by people who claim to be Christian. While most of these people don’t claim to have developed a truly original perspective of the faith, they do propose some seemingly unorthodox thoughts that are suppose to “enrich” our life as a Christian (assuming that one is a Christian). What I ask myself as I’m looking at these ideas now is this: what perspectives are based on exceptions found in the Bible, and which ones are based on the prescriptive texts on those corresponding subjects? I’m running out of time to write on this (I gotta get back to studying), but I’ll just make a brief mention of some popular Christian writings, some of them probably really good, some of them probably really bad, and let you all consider them as well.

I’ll limit this to these five (some are book titles, some just a short description of their thoughts):

• John Piper’s Christian Hedonism (reference Desiring God and seen throughout his other books and messages)
• John Eldredge’s Wild At Heart (pretty much all of his books have some aspect to this idea)
• Bruce Wilkinson’s The Prayer Of Jabez
• Don Miller’s Blue Like Jazz
• Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life

Okay, back to studying. I hope I got through this post without offending everybody. But at the same time, I hope all 2 of my readers out there will find this post challenging and stimulating.

Stay tuned for the next post, which could be about Romans, making decisions, something else completely different, or not until I’m done with tests. Which one will it be? You’ll have to wait and see!