...Against Such Things There Is No Law: What I Know About Love (pt. 2)

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7 ESV)

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
(Galatians 5:22-23 ESV)

But, are we truly free to marry whoever we love?

“Love is not a legal category. Love has never been a legal category. If you think that love makes a family, then what does it mean when a man decides he no longer loves his wife, he no longer loves his children, and he wants to walk out and never pay child support again? After all, ‘It’s love that makes a family’; why should he be forced to pay child support? It doesn’t make any sense to use love as a binding legal category. Besides, would you really want the government inquiring about who loves who? And also, there are plenty of loving relationships that are based on love that we would never even think about having marriage around…so you love your child, you love your sister, you love your best friend. But that’s not a marriage; nobody believes for a moment that that’s a fitting relationship for a marriage. So, what kind of love are we talking about, and in the end, what is the social purpose of marriage? If all marriage is supposed to do is affirm people who love one another, then we need to ask ourselves why do we need marriage in the first place? And the answer is we don’t need marriage if that’s its only purpose! We need marriage for completely different purposes that the advocates of same-sex marriage never want to even think about.” – Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse

In short, what we need to remember this: Marriage is the safeguard for love, not the other way around...

Soli Deo Gloria,

Shon

Posted via email from THE CENTER (ROOM 116)

What I "Know" About Love

"For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known." - 1 Corinthians 13:12

The "know" here is not speaking of mere head-knowledge or intellectual ascent ; in fact, it is a different word in the greek ('epignosimai' rather than 'ginosko') - here, Paul is speaking of "know" in the most intimate of context (much like Adam "knew" Eve - Genesis 4:1). So the literal translation would actually read more, "...we will love intimately as we have fully been loved intimately". When understood in context, it sheds much needed light on this passage; everything that we do now, including love, is done "in part" (incomplete). It is this way until the maturation process is completed in the return of Christ. At that point, all other things, save love (1 Corinthians 13:8), will cease because the culmination of God's love for his creation will be fully comprehended. The reason for the ceasing of things like prophecy and tongues is because their purpose will be terminated by the presence of the One in whom they point to...all that will be left is Love unsurpassed and unhindered in the ultimate of intimacy: face to face fellowship everlasting with the Godhead.

Talk about a Valentine's Day...


Soli Deo Gloria,
Shon

Posted via email from THE CENTER (ROOM 116)