What does it mean to love? And how can our preaching and teaching empower others to love like Christ? During this episode of the Southwesterners’ Forum, Jeffrey Bingham shows how the New Testament concept of loving in a distinctly Christian manner is based in distinctly biblical theology.
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
D. Jeffrey Bingham 0:00
Good afternoon. It’s a pleasure to be with you here this afternoon. And I’m Jeff Bingham, Professor of historical theology, and Jesse Hendley Chair of Biblical Theology, and I’m so pleased to be with you. I’m here and joined by a dear friend who will introduce himself.
Mandimby Ranaivoarisoa 0:26
Thank you. My name is Mandimby Ranaivoarisoa, and I’m a student of Dr. Bingham for many years now. I’m an international student from Madagascar, and I had my MDiv degree from Southwestern. So I’m an alumnus, but also a doctoral student of Dr. Bingham, as well, right now. And I serve as an elder at my current church.
D. Jeffrey Bingham 0:51
It’s great to share this time with you. Mandimby, we’ve had a lot of adventures together. This will be one more. So our topic for today is the relationship between theology and life. Really, we’ve chosen to specify one aspect of life, and that is the virtue of love. But our conversation today is about how theology frames the context for love, how it frames the context for life, how it frames the context for our behaviors, and how it is we live virtuously. Modern Christianity is plagued by a desire to divide so many things, like you slice up a loaf of bread. They want to, in many ways, divide theology from practicality. They want to divide mind from body. They want to divide spirit from body and mind. They want to divide, rather than to unite. And when it comes to the human person, for instance, recognize that Scripture teaches that the Creator has put together human beings as a unity of several aspects, the spirit or the soul, the body,and the mind. As a matter of fact, Jesus himself, in Matthew 22, teaches us that we are to love the Lord our God with everything that we are: our soul, our hearts, and our minds. So that love for God is supposed to be something that we do with our minds by thinking better, cogitating better. It’s something that we’re supposed to do with our bodies by doing the right things with them, loving people, by serving them and by accommodating their needs. We are to love God with our inner parts, as well, our our spirits or our souls. But the force of Jesus teaching is that, just like we are a unity of several parts that God put together in making us, we are to use all those parts in unity as we move forward in putting to practice the teachings of Scripture.
D. Jeffrey Bingham 3:49
The same thing is true with how it is that theology (or doctrine, if you like that term better, or perhaps worse), relates to pragmatic living, in particular for us this afternoon, the virtue of loving others. The point I wish to make and develop this afternoon and to have a conversation about, is that theology is the engine that drives virtue. Theology is the engine that drives virtue. For the Christian, we are to live in accordance with how we believe. And so, I’d like to read just a couple of texts that we can meditate on together this afternoon, from Titus 2. Paul begins this chapter with these words: You, however, must teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine. And then he mentions older men and older women, younger man. He mentions the various social divisions of a regular everyday church, making this point and communicating this implication to teach sound doctrine. It’s not just to teach the theological issue, who God is, what an angel is, how it is that we are saved. What does the Bible teach about what’s going to happen in the future? What is the church? Sound doctrine clearly involves all those things. But for Paul, teaching sound doctrine doesn’t end with teaching those things. It goes on to teach the ethical implications of those doctrines. Theology has implications for virtue. Or we could put it this way, virtue and ethics are a corollary of theology and doctrine.
D. Jeffrey Bingham 6:23
And so at the end of the chapter, Paul kind of comes back, and he doubles down on this idea, “for the grace of God.” He writes in verse 11, “For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people.” That’s a doctrinal concept. It teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, while we wait for the blessed hope. Again, a theological concept of the doctrine of the future, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for Himself, a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. And so in Titus 2, Paul is presenting this reality for Christianity, sound doctrine. And we could even say the gospel is not taught consummatively, is not taught in a full way, is not communicated in a holistic manner, until the Good News of the Gospel, until the theological components of a doctrine are extended to also indicate how one is to live in light of them. I make this emphasis this afternoon, because, again, this is one place where modern Christianity loves to divide, where it loves to take one slice of bread and divide it into two. The point that Paul is making is the point of unity between sound doctrine and a virtuous life, between sound doctrine and godly living, between sound doctrine and how the life of a godly woman or a godly man is to live in correlation with the doctrines and the theology that have been taught
D. Jeffrey Bingham 9:24
We see this also in larger scale, say, in the letters of Paul particularly. Let me just mention the Letter to the Ephesians this afternoon. Every seminary graduate knows that the book of Ephesians is divided into two parts, chapters one through three and then chapters four through six. It’s probably the first thing we learn on the first day. And in a New Testament class that is treating Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, chapters one through three are are chapters which together comprise an extended lesson on the various gospel benefits that accrue to the believer by virtue of what Christ has done and of course, will do when he returns a second time. Chapters four through six, however, feed off of chapters one through three on the basis of the doctrine, on the basis of the theology, on the basis of the gospel that Paul has taught in the first three chapters. In chapter four through chapter six, Paul then launches off as a rocket ship, fueled by theology, fueled by doctrine that then addresses the issues of family, how a man and woman in a marital relationship are to relate to each other, how they should consider raising their children, how it is that we are to live in a world in which devils and fallen angels are still a reality, helping us to understand spiritual gifts and how it is we can be ministers to each other. And so, the first three chapters, we could say, are doctrinal. The first three chapters, we could say, are evangelical, in the sense that they teach the gospel. But chapters four through six present to us how it is we are to put the gospel into our lives, into our marriages, into our child rearing, into our struggle against the forces of darkness. And so again, in terms of an entire letter, Paul makes the same point that we saw him express in a much more succinct manner in Titus two: godly living is a corollary of gospel teaching. Virtuous lifes are a corollary of sound doctrine.
D. Jeffrey Bingham 12:54
In particular, this morning, we want to focus on the reality that theology is the fuel by which we are able to bring forward a distinctly Christian type of love, a distinctly Christian type of that duration, Mandimby, would you take us further?
Mandimby Ranaivoarisoa 13:25
Yes, case in point, as you were talking about Ephesians, would be the relationship between husband and wives in chapter five. As a man, I feel personally compelled by especially verse 25, where Paul draws the analogy between our Christology and our relationship as husbands and wives, particularly as a husband, to love my wife, just as Christ loves the church. So he works the ethics of how to love my wife out of the way Christ loves the church, and the relationship between the church and Christ, based on very strong, powerful Christology. The way Christ loved the church is by giving Himself up for her. So I think that is a very clear example on how husbands, particularly, can put into practice a doctrine of Christ and a doctrine of the Church — how that translates into loving as a husband, how to love your wife. And it defines love for me and for us as husbands, as the way Christ loved the church, and in that way, not so much of a feeling, or the way we usually understand what love is, or what is commonly understood by that, but in more of a an act that he did on for the church, by giving himself up for the church. And that is how I am supposed to be […] loving my wife. I think that is very appropriate. [All that] to your point about how that particular doctrine would translate into a loving relationship.
D. Jeffrey Bingham 15:31
So the sound doctrine of the crucifixion, the sound doctrine of Christ willingly allowing himself to be nailed to the cross. The sound doctrine of Christ, enduring the the pounding of the nails. The sound doctrine of Christ allowing a spear to be thrust up under his rib cage so that it pierces both heart and lungs and blood and water gushes out. The entire Passion of Christ, the sound doctrine of Christ’s bloody crucifixion and self-denial becomes the model for Christian marriage, particularly for the husband’s relationship to his wife. He is to love his wife as Christ loved the church, and the language is “by giving Himself for her,” right? So that here is a wonderful example that Mandimby has pointed out: sound doctrine, Christology, the the doctrine of Christ’s death is the doctrine, it’s the theological beginning point for Christian marriages, particularly from the husband’s standpoint. That may not sound like a very romantic wedding manual, but it is the biblical model that we are given. Husbands are to love their wives as they are informed by the passion and the bloody crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
D. Jeffrey Bingham 17:27
We can back up, of course, Mandimby, and go to a more general passage, like Philippians 2, where it’s not just a husband’s relationship to loving his wife. But rather, Philippians 2 is a passage that teaches that Christians within a community of Christians, that Christians within their church, are to be oriented and consumed with the interests of their brothers and sisters, rather than their own interests. And of course, the sound doctrine that is taught there by Paul is the doctrine of Jesus’ incarnation, whereby he humiliates himself by taking not only humanity, but by taking mortal humanity, a humanity that can die, and that he leaves his prized glory in heaven, and he condescends to add to his deity, full mortal humanity. And so, this great act of humility, this great act of self-giving, this great act of self-denial, this great act of taking last place in line. And in that language, you, of course, can hear Jesus teaching to the disciples in Mark chapters 8, 9, and 10, that we are to take last place, that we are to become a servant, that we are to to deny ourselves. For the Christian in relationship to brothers and sisters within a community, our model for living a life of self-denial and fulfillment and service of others is, of course, the incarnation of Christ. And Christ goes on also to talk about your point in Ephesians, also his bloody crucifixion, his utter and complete death. So that the main point that we wanted to set before you, so that we might have a discussion this afternoon, is this claim: Christian love, a self-denying, Christian orientation towards others, rather than to self, sacrificing of oneself for the improvement and betterment and fulfillment of someone else is a virtue. It is the virtue of love that for Christians, finds its model in distinctly sound Christian doctrine, the Christian doctrine of Christ’s incarnation, the humiliation of taking mortal human flesh when you had a position of glory, and the bloody, self-sacrificing utterly, and complete emptying of himself in order so that the world may experience, through faith, atonement and forgiveness of sins. In short, here’s the claim this afternoon, sound doctrine underscores and enables distinctly Christian love. So, I’m ready to open it up for some questions.
Moderator 21:40
Dan says, Jesus has set the bar impossibly high for me as a husband, I can always find room for improvement in the manner in which I love my wife. So along those lines, I would love to hear you talk about how our imitation of Christ will always be imperfect, because we are limited and he is limitless, and we are fallen, and he is obviously perfect. But how might that actually be an exciting and rewarding prospect instead of a daunting prospect?
D. Jeffrey Bingham 22:08
Dan, thanks for your question. There is the best witness in the world to the reality that you point out at my house right now, with my dog, Sophie. And her name is Pamela. Many of you simply know her as my wife. She would absolutely say Amen to everything that you’ve said, that I am a work in progress, and that some days are better than others, and that she would like more better days. Because, yeah, I am definitely imperfect as a husband at this point in my life. And so the ethic, the virtue that the New Testament sets before us, and the Old Testament on this issue, is an ideal toward which you and I are always working, you and I are always depending upon God for. And so prior to Christ’s return, Pamela is never going to experience a perfect,Christ-like love from me. There will always be some way in which I fall short, because I will always be struggling with my imperfections. I’ll always be struggling with my flesh prior to the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, when I am resurrected from the dead, when I am completely sanctified and when I am completely glorified. And so absolutely, but that doesn’t need to be a type of discouragement that puts us on the floor. It’s good if we’re discouraged when we failed, because that’s an opportunity for me to go to Pamela and to say, Sweetheart, I apologize for doing this. I apologize that I wasn’t sensitive enough. I apologize that I didn’t do what I told you I would do. And Honey, would you please forgive me? By the way, that’s something that we hang onto, not just the apology, but the request for forgiveness. And so disappointment with ourselves is healthy. And when we fall short, if it leads us to repentance and to seek our wife’s forgiveness, the good news is that, just because disappointment and failure may be part of our goal in loving our wives, it doesn’t discount the reality that the Holy Spirit every day is continually working within us to bring us to that point where one day we will be consummatively sanctified and consummatively glorified. We can be encouraged by, perhaps not every day, by our experience. There are plenty of examples in Scripture where godly men and women felt quite low at times. And even in Psalm 22, David cries out to the Lord, Why have you forsaken me? Why have you abandoned me? Which are the same words that Jesus himself cries out on the cross. So Christians are going to experience some really blue days, but we take it by faith that despite the blueness, despite the failure, despite not measuring up to the ideal of Christ by faith, we know that Christ still loves us by faith. We know that the spirit still indwells us and is sanctifying us. We also know how we failed this time, and that can be a lesson to us to put up guard rails in our lives so that we don’t duplicate the same mistake again. Or at least our duplications begin to bleed off, and they don’t become as frequent. And so the Christian, because he or she can be confident that God, through Christ, by the Holy Spirit, is taking us towards consummative sanctification, that although some days, we may not necessarily feel it, by faith, we can count on the progressive truth or the truth of progressive and certain sanctification.
Mandimby Ranaivoarisoa 27:46
That’s very encouraging, especially focusing our minds upon the fact that it’s God who carries us, as you said. The Holy Spirit is doing the work in us. That reminded me of the words of the dear theologian Augustine saying, Lord, give what you command, and command what you will. The bar is incredibly high. We’rejust unfit for for anything that the Lord commands, right? We grow into it, but there’s no way we can achieve it. It’s a lifelong process, as you said. And Paul, in that regard, says in Philippians 1:6, that (I really like this verse): “I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it into completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Such good news, yes, will keep us from despair when we fail, when we make mistakes and errors and we are down because of our sin. And knowing that we’ll get there, not by ourselves, but the Spirit will bring it to completion. So I think that’s very encouraging.
D. Jeffrey Bingham 29:05
I was telling my Sunday school class on on Sunday that there are three or four men in my life with whom I am in extremely close relationships, and we are obligated to each other in order to keep an eye on each other and to regularly check in on each other as to how we are progressing in our relationships with our wives, how we’re maturing in relationships with our wives, and how we’re doing in all other aspects of our lives, as well. And so I found it extremely helpful to find three or four other guys where we have a commitment to each other of utter and complete privacy. Where I can tell them anything and know that it will be held confidently, and that they are always watching me. And one of the things that you can go through in a group like this, as as we progressively seek to be better husbands (and of course, also for the women who are joining us, more godly wives), is to to be challenged regularly to give a narrative of how things have been for you the past few weeks. And then to follow up on that with a question, because we have a tendency sometimes to make things sound too rosy. We like to use the phrase, Oh, everything’s going fine. Everything’s going well. Sometimes we think that’s what a Christian is supposed to say, when in reality, what a Christian should do is to find a confidant with whom they can be honest about the times and the ways in which things are not going well, and to be challenged. As in the narrative you just gave me, was there any place that you didn’t tell me the truth? So that gives the person who is talking the opportunity to come forth with integrity and to recognize that the Christian life is never a perfect life. It’s never a life that checks all the boxes. It is a life in which we can expect struggle and pain, agony and failure, improvement, and sometimes taking one step forward and two steps back. And so for husbands and wives that want to grow towards the ideal, it’s better to do it in community.
D. Jeffrey Bingham 32:41
Mandimby, you bring a particular insight to this. As a non-American, would you care to get off the answer?
Mandimby Ranaivoarisoa 32:50
I think the principle that Peter gives us in in 1 Peter applies so much to this. When he even commands the wife who is married to an unbelieving husband, who is not submitted to the Word of God, to still submit and live with him. Even without words, through her living through her life, so that the person, the husband, may be won to the gospel. So sometimes, we need a very strong attestation of the truth that we speak through the way we live. I say “sometimes,” but there’s no time that we don’t need that, actually. People will actually be won to what we say through how they see us living out what we say, the truth we speak, the way we speak that truth, and the way we live that out, eventually will have an effect on them. That’s why Jesus’s paradigm is so different, right? When he says, “Bless those who curse you, pray for those who persecute you.” It’s such a such an upside-down reality that nobody knows, right? Unless you are in Christ […] only a Christian can do that. And that will eventually raise questions and attract those people who may hate us […] to the truth of Christianity.
D. Jeffrey Bingham 34:50
Living Christianly, loving Christianly in a context in which your faith is not common. In which Christianity may be the minority religion, whether that’s in a country off the shores of North America, or whether it’s within a subdivision of Dallas or Fort Worth, the obligations are the same: to continually live out the the example of Christ. And to constantly, I would imagine, would you agree? That every now and then our words should explain our actions? In order to point to the One that we are living in relation to and Who we are modeling. And then, of course, here a community, again, becomes important, doesn’t it? You don’t want to live such a life by yourself, right? This is another element that modern Christianity sometimes wants to emphasize, is that a relationship with God is primarily a private relationship in reality. We want to recognize that there is a private component, a personal component, to a relationship with God, but there is also a communal reality. And when we can live a distinctly Christian life of love in a context in which that is not reciprocated, the fact that we are doing so in a community can encourage us and continually model for us is.
Mandimby Ranaivoarisoa 36:42
I mean, how can we love if we are by ourselves, right? We can only love ourselves. If love involves the relationship […] we need to be in that community. A dear pastor friend of mine said, I still remember: that we are not Christians who are called to be living a life of Robinson Cruso, that famous French exploreer who lived alone, by himself, on an island. And as you said, many Christians are actually somehow attracted to that type of believing, “me and God, me and Christ.” The input and the relationship of the community that is so important.
D. Jeffrey Bingham 37:45
The apostle John actually is quite stern on this issue in his first epistle, right? He says the man who says he loves God and hates his neighbor is a liar. For, how can he love the God whom he has not seen, if he doesn’t love his brother whom he has seen? And so there is a lesson there for us: that any language that we have, any talk that we have about loving God, when we stand in a worship service and sing a song that says, “Oh God, I love you.” Any language like that becomes, in John’s point here, something that falls short of authentic, mature love for God. Because God tells us that we want to use the language “I love God” carefully if we are not in our neighborhoods, loving our neighbors as ourselves, loving the neighbors that are our enemies as we love our selves, because the one who says he loves God and hates his neighbor, John uses the very stern word, is a liar. That person is not being authentic. And no one ever said living Christianly was easy or pleasant. In early Christianity, in Nigeria, just last Christmas Eve, in a village in India, we can give examples of where Christians (both in antiquity and in the current day), have been killed or maimed or thrown out of their homes for attempting to live a life of Christian love in an environment which did not welcome the faith that they proclaimed in.
Moderator 40:03
Dr. Bingham, we have a couple more questions from J. Mixon. He asks, is there any practical difference between agape love and phileo love? He’s thinking specifically of Peter’s response to Jesus in the book of John. What would you say?
D. Jeffrey Bingham 40:18
Yeah. So, sometimes we make a big deal of this difference, and there is probably technically some difference. But in the dialog that you mentioned, there seems to be (at least in common Greek conversation) there seems to be more similarity than some of the differences that we like to to sometimes emphasize. It’s kind of like the the word for God’s love for Israel in the Old Testament, the word that is frequently used in order to emphasize the distinctive covenantal, elective love that God has for the nation Israel, the love that that he has committed himself to, the love by which God has become self obligated to Israel and to all the members of the covenant, is the Hebrew word hesed. And hesed is is frequently used as the pinnacle term in the Old Testament for the love that is clearly–forcefully, perhaps in some contexts, even uniquely–the love that God has in covenantal relationship with his people. I think that may be a helpful parallel to keep in mind when we think perhaps of the way in which a Christian should understand agape, and perhaps other ways in which we speak of love. We can, we can speak of the agape feast, even a Christian meal. And so perhaps one way that we can elevate agape a bit above phileo and its distinctiveness would be to appreciate that when Christians (this wouldn’t be the case for a non Christian in Greek society), but when Christians live with a love which is based in the “verg agapao,” that we are living it out in a manner which imitates, which is emblematic of the the covenant of mercy that we find ourselves in with Christ, by faith. And that kind of unconditional love, that kind of love which promises us everything, is the ideal with which we should be seeking to love those in the community of Christ, yes, but also others. For, we are not t love just the members of a Christian community as ourselves, but also our neighbors, who might be unbelieving. Do you have some insights into this Mandimby?
Mandimby Ranaivoarisoa 44:20
I think when we talk about Christian love—reinforcing your point that brothers and sisters are the terminology that are used for the Christian community, right? The word phileo, I don’t see that as too different from the word agape in a context of a “brother and sister” community, and we’re committed to honor brotherly love by Paul and Peter. But there’s a great overlap and interconnection there with the words that we sometimes want to make it too much of a division.
Moderator 45:14
Well, I believe we have about one more question here from Chinshop Chong. And he asked, what are some outwardly expressions of Christian love that the church, specifically the local body of Christ, is called or committed to exercise with each other within the local body of Christ? Are there specific things that Scripture makes clear that the members of a local church are to do for each other as an expression of that Christian love?
D. Jeffrey Bingham 45:42
So I immediately think of Ephesians 4 in responding to this question. And particularly Ephesians 4, where Paul is talking about the spiritual gifts that are given to the body of Christ. And that, I think, from 1 Corinthians 12 (which would be a complimentary chapter, as well as Romans 12), one of the ways that we live out a distinctly Christian love within community is by doing what Paul tells us to do: whatever gift you have received (this is a Jeff paraphrase),”knock yourself out” using that gift within the community. So that whatever gift you’ve received, whatever supernatural ability the Lord has given to you, go hog wild employing that gift for the edification of the Body of Christ in which you are a part.
D. Jeffrey Bingham 47:09
I think too, that Ephesians 4 also wants to make this point. Paul uses the language here of putting on a new set of clothes. The new set of clothes that Paul tells us to put on cannot be done if we’re locked away in a closet with ourselves, by ourselves. It can’t be done if we’re on a mountaintop with ourselves by ourselves. It can’t take place when we’re in a car singing our favorite tunes with ourselves by ourselves. The pieces of clothing that Paul tells us to put on can only be done when we’re in relationships with each other. And some of the things that Paul mentions are these: tell each other the truth, but don’t deceive. Don’t say only part of what’s true. Speak the truth to each other, be a person of integrity in relationship to other members of the Body of Christ.
D. Jeffrey Bingham 48:30
Now, in that same context, Paul says this, When you speak something to another member of the Body of Christ, make sure that the words that you’re speaking are healing and edifying rather than discouraging and critical. If you’re going to say something, do what your mom always told you to do. If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all. And so when you use your mouth, Paul teaches us, use your mouth in order to encourage, lift up, and edify another member. He also says this, if you happen to have thievery in your background, the first thing you need to do is to stop stealing. But that doesn’t quite get you to the level of the ideal Christian virtue. Stop stealing, that’s a good that’s a good start, but it’s only a start. You’re supposed to then go to work to become responsible for supplying your own needs. That’s the second step, but that doesn’t get you to the ideal, which Paul holds out as distinctly Christian. First, stop stealing. That’s a good start. Go to work and become responsible for your own needs. Good second step. But there’s a third step that Paul says: become generous to the needs of others. That’s the Christian ideal. The Christian ideal for someone who used to steal is to become generous in giving to the needs of others. And so there’s one other thing in this whole mix. It’s putting on the new human identity, putting on the new Christian identity, which is what Paul is talking about in that context of Ephesians $, requires being a new kind of person in community with others.
