We started yesterday on part 3 of the 1 Timothy 4.12 pattern: “Set the believers an example…in love” by quoting from Andy Stanley’s book Irresistible. Here’s the John 13.34, 35 principle as condensed by Andy:

WHEN UNSURE OF WHAT TO SAY OR DO, ASK WHAT LOVE REQUIRES OF YOU.

Here are the applications I promised yesterday:

With respect to abortion, the pagans in the days of the early church just abandoned unwanted babies without thinking anything about it. What does love require? Andy writes:

Rescuing abandoned babies isn’t commanded or even commended in the New Testament. Food was scarce and expensive. Homes were small. Babies died all the time. Why would anyone put their own family in jeopardy on behalf of an abandoned child? Christian Scripture didn’t require it. Jewish Scriptures didn’t require it. First-century Jesus followers were convinced love required it. Long before there were chapters and verses, there existed an expression of sacrificial love that would eventually capture the attention of the empire. In the year AD 318, Emperor Constantine declared infanticide a crime. In AD 374, under Emperor Valentinian, exposure became a capital offense. A pitiless ritual practiced by pagan parents for hundreds of years in multiple cultures was eventually considered criminal through the influence of Christians who simply did what they were convinced love required.

“Set the believers an example…in love.” Here’s another issue: high schoolers want to know why consensual sex is off-limits. Here’s Andy’s “love” answer:

First of all, consensual is irrelevant. Consensual isn’t an argument for or against anything. Bad judgment and consensual go hand in hand all the time. I know a girl who got in a car with her drunk boyfriend, knowing he was drunk. It was consensual. She gave her consent. She’ll never walk again. Setting the bar at consensual is setting the bar low. As Christians, we’ve been called to set the bar high. Real high.

How high? This high: If it’s not good for him, it’s a sin. If it’s not good for her, defer. Serial sexual experiences aren’t good for anybody. Doing anything that might diminish someone’s potential for intimacy with a future spouse is not good for them or their future spouse. Intimacy is fueled by exclusivity, not experience. Sex before marriage robs the other person of their potential for exclusivity. It robs your future partner of the comfort that comes in knowing you are exclusively theirs sexually. Not only are you undermining the future of the person you have sex with along with their future spouse, you are undermining the joy and security of your own future spouse. Nobody wins. It’s a lose, lose, lose, lose. It’s not best for anybody. It’s sin. It’s sin because it harms people made in the image of God for whom Christ died. – All quotes are from Irresistible, chapter 19.

Here’s another word about the importance of love and today’s issues:

Rather than withdraw from the challenges around us, we continue to give whatever good we can to the world. William Wilberforce, for example, not only lobbied against the slave trade but also fought to advance moral values in a corrupt nation. Our best efforts may not succeed, but that’s not why we do it. We do it out of love for God and neighbor. – Breakpoint, May 31, 2022, emphasis mine

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

• 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.
• Love never ends. (1 Corinthians 13.1 – 8, ESV, bulleted for clarity)