Love

Who will you tell that you love on Valentine’s Day? And how will you express that love?

Sadly, I’m convinced that there are too many loveless relationships in the world, and even in the church. For starters, there are many things we call love that just do not rise to the level of what love is. And then to complicate matters, we lack a clear definition of what love does.

So in the midst of all the love hype surrounding Valentine’s Day, I want to give you 24 concrete definitions of love.

These definitions don’t come from Wikipedia, Dictionary.com, or Shakespeare. We get our best standard of love from the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. His sacrifice of love is the ultimate example of what love is and what love does.

1. LOVE IS willing self-sacrifice for the good of another that does not require reciprocation or that the person being loved is deserving.

2. LOVE IS being willing to have your life complicated by the needs and struggles of others without impatience or anger.

3. LOVE IS actively fighting the temptation to be critical and judgmental toward another while looking for ways to encourage and praise.

4. LOVE IS making a daily commitment to resist the needless moments of conflict that come from pointing out and responding to minor offenses.

5. LOVE IS being lovingly honest and humbly approachable in times of misunderstanding.

6. LOVE IS being more committed to unity and understanding than you are to winning, accusing, or being right.

7. LOVE IS making a daily commitment to admit your sin, weakness, and failure and to resist the temptation to offer an excuse or shift the blame.

8. LOVE IS being willing, when confronted by another, to examine your heart rather than rising to your defense or shifting the focus.

9. LOVE IS making a daily commitment to grow in love so that the love you offer to another is increasingly selfless, mature, and patient.

10. LOVE IS being unwilling to do what is wrong when you have been wronged, but looking for concrete and specific ways to overcome evil with good.

11. LOVE IS being a good student of another, looking for their physical, emotional, and spiritual needs so that in some way you can remove the burden, support them as they carry it, or encourage them along the way.

12. LOVE IS being willing to invest the time necessary to discuss, examine, and understand the relational problems you face, staying on task until the problem is removed or you have agreed upon a strategy of response.

13. LOVE IS being willing to always ask for forgiveness and always being committed to grant forgiveness when it is requested.

14. LOVE IS recognizing the high value of trust in a relationship and being faithful to your promises and true to your word.

15. LOVE IS speaking kindly and gently, even in moments of disagreement, refusing to attack the other person’s character or assault their intelligence.

16. LOVE IS being unwilling to flatter, lie, manipulate, or deceive in any way in order to co-opt the other person into giving you what you want or doing something your way.

17. LOVE IS being unwilling to ask another person to be the source of your identity, meaning, and purpose, or inner sense of well-being, while refusing to be the source of theirs.

18. LOVE IS the willingness to have less free time, less sleep, and a busier schedule in order to be faithful to what God has called you to be and to do as a spouse, parent, neighbor, etc.

19. LOVE IS a commitment to say no to selfish instincts and to do everything that is within your ability to promote real unity, functional understanding, and active love in your relationships.

20. LOVE IS staying faithful to your commitment to treat another with appreciation, respect, and grace, even in moments when the other person doesn’t seem deserving or is unwilling to reciprocate.

21. LOVE IS the willingness to make regular and costly sacrifices for the sake of a relationship without asking for anything in return or using your sacrifices to place the other person in your debt.

22. LOVE IS being unwilling to make any personal decision or choice that would harm a relationship, hurt the other person, or weaken the bond of trust between you.

23. LOVE IS refusing to be self-focused or demanding, but instead looking for specific ways to serve, support, and encourage, even when you are busy or tired.

24. LOVE IS daily admitting to yourself, the other person, and God that you are unable to be driven by a cruciform love without God’s protecting, providing, forgiving, rescuing, and delivering grace.

God Bless,
Paul Tripp

CHRIST OUR MODEL - 1 PETER 3:18-22

Christ Our Model
3:18-22

Peter again shows that Christ is our model. He also suffered. And he suffered for righteousness. He suffered for our sins even though he was righteous, that he could bring us to God. (18) This is substitutionary atonement. Jesus died for our sins.

Jesus’ death was not a defeat, because he was resurrected. We will follow him to the same destiny. Jesus was raised from the grave and ascended to heaven. Heaven is also our destiny after physical death, so we do not need to fear it. The troubles of this life are temporary because Christ has triumphed.

Now for the difficult part. Even Martin Luther said he could not be sure what Peter meant here.

Peter said Christ was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. (18) The ESV does not capitalize the word “spirit”, interpreting the verse as meaning Christ’s spirit lived although his body was killed.

The NIV, KJV and CSB say Jesus was made alive by the Spirit, capitalizing the word “Spirit”, meaning the Holy Spirit raised Christ from the dead.

I believe the NIV is correct here. The contrast is between Jesus’ death and his resurrection. It is not about some interim period between death and resurrection. The resurrection is where the victory is. And, Jesus was raised bodily, not just in the spirit. The Holy Spirit was the agent of the Christ’s resurrection.

Jesus’ spirit did not need to made alive. His spirit, like ours, would continue alive after death of the body regardless of the work of the Holy Spirit. It is that Christ’s body that must be “made alive”, just as ours will be made alive at the Resurrection.

This is why it is a hope for us to anticipate. Paul made this same statement in 1 Corinthians 15:45-49 when he contrasted our “natural” bodied with our “spiritual” bodies. Natural bodies are the bodies we live in now. Spiritual bodies are those we have after the Resurrection.

We may be persecuted, tortured, or even killed in the body. But we will be raised with a new, glorified body for eternity, as Jesus was.

There is a similar thought in 1 Timothy 3:16. It says Jesus was “manifested in the flesh”. He took on human flesh at his incarnation, his birth as a human being. And, he was vindicated by the Spirit (and the ESV capitalizes here). How was he vindicated? He was resurrected (“taken up to glory”).

Peter then says that Christ, in the Holy Spirit, went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison. (19) They were in prison because they did not obey in the days before the flood. So, the question is, who are these spirits in prison? There are several views.

Here is the one I think is best. The spirits in prison are fallen angels. The word “spirits” in the New Testament refers to angelic beings in almost all cases. (Matthew 8:16; Luke 10:20; Acts 19:12; Hebrews 1:14)

The “time of Noah” seems to refer another difficult passage, Genesis 6:1-4, which describes corrupt behavior of the sons of God with the daughters of men. The Hebrew word translated “Nephilim” literally means “fallen ones”. This interpretation of Genesis 6 was the standard interpretation in Peter’s day.

We see a similar thought in Jude 6, which refers to angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling. These angels God kept in eternal chains (bound) in gloomy darkness (prison) until the the day of judgment. Jude also compared them to the residents of Sodom who “likewise” indulged in sexual immorality. And, finally, Revelation 20:7 speaks of Satan being released from his prison after the thousand years are ended. The word “prison” is never used as a place where human beings reside after death.

Peter himself used this terminology in 2 Peter 2:4 when he wrote “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment…”

So, the resurrected Christ proclaimed his victory over Satan and his fallen angels. We see this proclamation of victory in verse 22, which says Jesus Christ is the one who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.

Knowing Christ’s victory over persecution and death gives us the strength and hope to face persecution. 

My Prayer For You

I pray that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.

May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

Colossians 1:9-12

RIGHTEOUS SUFFERING - 1 PETER 3:13-20

Righteous Suffering
3:13-17

Peter now turns to the subject of suffering. Generally speaking, the government, or other people, do not seek to harm you for doing what is good. It does happen, however, when people or governments are opposed to Christ and Christians. Still, although persecution may cause you physical or emotional pain, the persecutors cannot take away your salvation or your relationship to God. As verse 12 said, quoting a Psalm, the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their prayers. He sees us and hears us and is with us.

If we do suffer for the sake of righteousness, we will be blessed. We will have the favor of the Lord and reward in heaven. We must remember that suffering is not the opposite of blessing, as the prosperity gospel would have us believe. Jesus said “blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5:11-12)

Paul and Silas demonstrated this rejoicing when, being attacked and beaten and thrown in the Phillipian jail, they stayed up until midnight praying and singing hymns to God while their feet were bound in stocks. (Acts 16:16-25)

Suffering has generally been the lot of Christianity. Indeed, Jesus told his disciples to expect it. He said “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33) And the disciples did suffer persecution. In Acts, we saw Peter and John brought before the Sanhedrin and jailed. We know that Peter was eventually martyred and John exiled.

Again we see Peter taking the long view, looking at what we are able to do on earth because of who we are in Christ and what we have in eternity. Therefore, we should not fear the persecutors or be troubled by them. (13)

Instead of fearing the persecutors, we are to honor Christ as holy. (15) We exchange fear of men for fear of the Lord. And who knew that exchange better than Peter? Peter, in the courtyard outside the house of the high priest, denied Christ to a lowly servant girl. But, after Pentecost, he refused to back down to the Sanhedrin, the very same group that put Jesus to trial in the house of the high priest, and proclaimed he must obey God and not men. (Acts 5:29) Peter had exchanged his fear of men with the fear of the Lord, honoring Christ as Lord in his heart.

In giving this instruction, Peter was reflecting the word of the Lord in Isaiah 8:12. The Lord spoke to Isaiah and told him “do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.”

As a side note, Peter made a statement of the divinity of Jesus here, equating him with the Lord of hosts in the Old Testament.)

Jesus had also instructed Peter and the other disciples not be afraid of those who can destroy the body, but to fear the one who could destroy both the soul and body in hell. (Matthew 10:28)

As believers, we are not afraid God will destroy us, for he will keep his promise of eternal life to us. But we know we are exempt from judgment because of his mercy and grace, and we honor him for that. We would not dishonor him in fear of men.

Additionally, we are to see persecution as an opportunity to witness. We are always ready to explain our hope of eternity because Jesus saved us. (15) This is a part of honoring him. Paul’s proclamation of the gospel to the governors and kings who put him on trial are an example of this.

We also honor him in the way we do it, in gentleness and respect. And, if we keep a good conscience, those who revile our good behavior are put to shame. They may disagree with our theology, but they should have to admit that we are good people who do good deeds.

Although most of our institutions in America have lost their original identities, they were once testimonies to the culture of the good deeds of Christians. Christians founded colleges, built hospitals, and funded orphanages. Even non-believers had to acknowledge these good works.

Peter makes it clear that all suffering is not equal. Suffering for righteousness sake brings blessing. Suffering for doing evil is justice.


Christ Our Model
3:18-22

Peter again shows that Christ is our model. He also suffered. And he suffered for righteousness. He suffered for our sins even though he was righteous, that he could bring us to God. (18) This is substitutionary atonement. Jesus died for our sins.

Jesus’ death was not a defeat, because he was resurrected. We will follow him to the same destiny. Jesus was raised from the grave and ascended to heaven. Heaven is also our destiny after physical death, so we do not need to fear it. The troubles of this life are temporary because Christ has triumphed.

Now for the difficult part. Even Martin Luther said he could not be sure what Peter meant here.

Peter said Christ was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. (18) The ESV does not capitalize the word “spirit”, interpreting the verse as meaning Christ’s spirit lived although his body was killed.

The NIV, KJV and CSB say Jesus was made alive by the Spirit, capitalizing the word “Spirit”, meaning the Holy Spirit raised Christ from the dead.

I believe the NIV is correct here. The contrast is between Jesus’ death and his resurrection. It is not about some interim period between death and resurrection. The resurrection is where the victory is. And, Jesus was raised bodily, not just in the spirit. The Holy Spirit was the agent of the Christ’s resurrection. His spirit, like ours, would continue alive after death of the body regardless of the work of the Holy Spirit. It is that Christ’s body that must be “made alive”, just as ours will be made alive at the Resurrection.

This is why it is a path for us to look to. Paul made this same statement in 1 Corinthians 15:45-49 when he contrasted our “natural” bodied with our “spiritual” bodies. Natural bodies are the bodies we live in now. Spiritual bodies are those we have after the Resurrection.

We may be persecuted, tortured, or even killed in the body. But we will be raised with a new, glorified body for eternity, as Jesus was.

There is a similar thought in 1 Timothy 3:16. It says Jesus was “manifested in the flesh”. He took on human flesh at his incarnation, his birth as a human being. And, he was vindicated by the Spirit (and the ESV capitalizes here). How was he vindicated? He was resurrected (“taken up to glory”).

Peter then says that Christ, in the Holy Spirit, went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison. (19) They were in prison because they did not obey in the days before the flood. So, the question is, who are these spirits in prison? There are several views.

Here is the one I think is best. The spirits in prison are fallen angels. The word “spirits” in the New Testament refers to angelic beings in almost all cases. (Matthew 8:16; Luke 10:20; Acts 19:12; Hebrews 1:14)

The “time of Noah” seems to refer another difficult passage, Genesis 6:1-4, which describes corrupt behavior of the sons of God with the daughters of men. The Hebrew word translated “Nephilim” literally means “fallen ones”. This interpretation of Genesis 6 was the standard interpretation in Peter’s day.

We see a similar thought in Jude 6, which refers to angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling. These angels God kept in eternal chains (bound) in gloomy darkness (prison) until the the day of judgment. Jude also compared them to the residents of Sodom who “likewise” indulged in sexual immorality. And, finally, Revelation 20:7 speaks of Satan being released from his prison after the thousand years are ended. The word “prison” is never used as a place where human beings reside after death.

Peter himself used this terminology in 2 Peter 2:4 when he wrote “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment…”

So, the resurrected Christ proclaimed his victory over Satan and his fallen angels. We see this proclamation of victory in verse 22, which says Jesus Christ is the one who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.

Knowing Christ’s victory over persecution and death gives us the strength and hope to face persecution.