Love the Author, and you will love his Word

“We love because he first loved us.” —1 John 4:19

I ran across a quote this week that I wanted to share with all of you. Dr. William Mounce is a well-known theologian who was chosen to serve on the teams for both the NIV and ESV translations of the Bible. Bill Mounce is brilliant in the Greek language and has taught at some of the finest seminaries. His website, BiblicalTraining.org, is an important biblical site. His dad was also a brilliant theologian, and his grandparents were ministers too. God has used his family to teach the Bible as truth for a very long time.

Dr. Mounce was interviewed by Jonathan Peterson at BibleGateway.com, who asked the theologian, “Why do you love the Bible?” His response made me smile, then think. Dr. Mounce answered, “I love the Bible because I love its Author.”

I’ve taught the Bible for many years, but have I taught people what the Bible says and taught them to love the Author? That was food for thought, and I imagine I will think about that often in the days to come.

It’s natural to care about what our loved ones think and say. Maybe the best way to teach people to trust God’s word is to help them learn to love the Author.

Do you love Jesus as God?

My favorite definition of Jesus is that he is God with skin on. I cannot accurately explain or teach the Trinity. There are thousands of volumes of theology on the subject. If there were a perfect explanation of the Trinity, then we would all have memorized it. In fact, the Trinity is one of the reasons the Muslim faith considers Christianity a false religion. We teach that God became a man. To them, that is heresy. 

We shouldn’t be frustrated that we can’t explain the Trinity. If we could define God in human terms, we would have reduced him to less than the supernatural Creator that he is. I wonder if one of the main reasons God became man was to help us truly learn to love him. It’s hard to love what cannot be known or experienced in this world. God so loved everyone that he became Jesus so that it would be easier for the human mind to comprehend and experience his love. If we know Jesus as our Savior, we have only begun to know our eternal God. Human beings cannot fully know God this side of heaven. That’s why Paul wrote, “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).

Jesus taught us how to love God

Our hearts and our souls learn to love God through faith. Love occurs when we place our faith in a person and trust them. We love people even though we know they are imperfect and will, at some point, let us down. How much more should we love God! We can trust him, and all that he allows in our lives, because we know our God is incapable of imperfection. Our faith in God’s perfection is the basis for our trust in his word. 

The Bible is the inspired word of God. When Jesus spoke, he was speaking God’s word, God’s thoughts, to those around him. When others like the apostles and the prophets wrote the books in our Bible, their words were inspired. We often study the people behind the words when what matters most is that their words were given by God’s Holy Spirit to teach us. The words are not their own thoughts; they are God’s. We call the Bible “God’s Word” for a reason.

Jesus taught that the most important commandment was to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). Then Jesus said, “This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:38–40).

Jesus taught you to love the Lord your God “with all your mind.” Dr. Mounce said, “I love the Bible because I love its Author.” Do we echo those words in our own hearts and lives? 

The next time you pick up your Bible, take a moment to love the One who wrote it to you. Our first and most important “commandment” is to love our God. It is that love that enables us to love others as we should.

Our legacy of faith and love

I’ve often hoped that when people remember me at my funeral someday, they will say, “She taught me to love the Bible.” Now I have another hope. I also want them to say, “She taught me to love God more deeply.”

I want to close this blog post with Dr. William Mounce’s words. Dr. Mounce’s father lived to be ninety-seven and was a brilliant theologian, like his son. Bill Mounce wrote a blog post after his father died that is simply profound. I hope you will take a minute to read the entire message. Dr. Mounce closed his post saying, “As my grandma used to quote, ‘Only one life will soon be past, and only what’s done for Jesus will last.’ If my legacy is a family and group of friends who love Jesus more because I was in their life, then that is enough.”

I doubt many of us will achieve Dr. Mounce’s level of theological expertise and cultural impact. Each of us will create a unique legacy for others. We all have an individual calling and gifting, and we are accountable only to God for our obedience to what he assigns us. As Mounce wrote, if our legacy is a group of people who love Jesus more because of us, that is enough. We need to love the Author, and we need to love his Word. That is our daily witness to others.

Who will know and love God more because they knew you? If that is the purpose of this day and each day that follows, we will have spent our lives well.

What does a disciple look like?

I’ve been blogging this month about Christian priorities. I could probably spend the rest of the year on that subject, but I won’t. 

I wanted to close this month with one final perspective. That perspective comes from an often undermentioned portion of a well-known passage. I’ve quoted this passage many times, but I don’t think I will ever speak of it again without placing the emphasis on Jesus’ last few words.

Those important words say it all. We will miss the point if we miss that verse. 

THE VERSE

You have heard the Golden Rule many times. Jesus was being harassed by people who wanted to be right more than they wanted to do what was right. 

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?  

The Pharisees and Sadducees didn’t even like each other. But, they were united in their dislike of this man, Jesus, who was causing people to question their teaching. 

Jesus had already silenced the Sadducees who asked him an inane question about which brother a woman would be married to in heaven. After that, the Pharisees met with the Sadducees to come up with a new way to set up this man they believed was an imposter. They approached Jesus and asked, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” (Matthew 22:36). 

Matthew 22:37–39 is the answer Jesus gave and has been called the “Golden Rule.” Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 

But, the next verse, verse 40 is the reasoning behind Jesus’ words. It isn’t usually quoted, however, when we recite the “Golden Rule.”  

Why is loving God and others the most important commandment? 

Jesus said, “On these two commandments depend all the Law and Prophets” (Matthew 22:40).

A FIRST-CENTURY INTERPRETATION FOR 2021

The Law and the Prophets were the only first-century Scripture. Jesus said that all of Scripture depended on loving God and others. To translate that verse for 2021, we might say, “We can’t be obedient to our Bibles unless we love God and love others.” 

All of Scripture depends on the Golden Rule.  

Later, Jesus was with his disciples in the Upper Room when he clarified this point even further. He told his followers, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34–35). Notice Jesus said the same thing but in three different ways. That was a rabbi’s way of saying this was the highest truth. 

Jesus taught them that all of Scripture depended on their love for God and their neighbor. Later, he said if they wanted people to know they were his disciples, they needed to love each other like Jesus loved them. 

Jesus didn’t encourage us to love like him. 

Jesus didn’t suggest we try to love others. 

Jesus said he was giving them a new commandment. 

I’m in some trouble here. 

Are you? 

WHY DO WE THINK SOMEONE IS A DISCIPLE?

  • Is it because they vote a certain way?
  • Is it because they give God their time and money?
  • Is it because they do or don’t do certain things?
  • Is it because they are faithful church attenders?

Those are a lot of the reasons Christians measure a disciple, and they are all decent priorities. They just aren’t the most important priority. 

If you are like me, it is a humbling thought. It is a LOT easier to do the types of things in the list above than it is to obey the most important commandment. 

And Jesus said everything else depends on us loving God and loving one another—like he loves.

HOW WOULD THE WORLD CHANGE IF WE LOVED LIKE JESUS?

Most of the surveys and polls that are being taken right now don’t indicate that people see Christian disciples as people who love them. It is hard to love like Jesus. Yet, it is also his commandment.  

How did Jesus love? 

He sat with the woman at the well and talked to her. He told her how she could have “living water.” She must have known Jesus cared about her because she went back and told others about him. But, Jesus told her to “go and sin no more.” If we love like Jesus, we won’t want people to believe their sins are acceptable. We will want them to know all of their sin is forgivable. We will want them to stop doing the things that separate them from God and his blessings. 

Jesus ate with Zacchaeus, a tax collector. Tax collectors were considered the lowest of the low, and Jesus went to his home for dinner! Jesus cared about him and wanted him to know how to be right with God. As a result, Zacchaeus gave back what he had taken and then some. If we love like Jesus, we will see people’s lives changed as a result. Then they will want to make choices that please God. 

Jesus appeared to Saul of Tarsus on the Road to Damascus. I’ve often described the Apostle Paul as the most notorious terrorist in the New Testament. But, Jesus loved him, forgave him, and called him to serve. And Paul wrote almost half of the New Testament. 

If we love like Jesus, the gospel message will prosper in the world because of the power of Christ’s love.

THE GOSPEL WILL PROSPER IF WE LOVE LIKE JESUS

The only time I ever love another person like Jesus is when his Holy Spirit loves them through me. I can’t love like Jesus any other way. Our world needs the love of Christ, through his disciples. Jesus needs us to obey his commandment. 

I want to close by offering you an old favorite, “Oh, I Want To Know You More” by Steve Green. It was popular in the mid-nineties. I still remember the first time I heard this song because the words made me cry. I hope you will listen to it again if you haven’t heard it in a while. I think of this song as a prayer I should “pray without ceasing.” 

I hope it will bless you, then others through you today, as you live and pray these words. I hope this song will help you spend time with Jesus right now as you listen and worship the One who loves you. I hope people will know we are his disciples because we have prayed this song to God.  

If there is one prayer I would offer for all of us who are the Lord’s disciples, it would be this: The more we know Christ, the more we will love others as Christ loves them. 

How much do we yearn to know Jesus in the deepest, most profound way?