Elyse M. Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson, Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus

Crossway, 2011, 213 pgs.

Summary: Mrs. Fitzpatrick and Thompson argue that most Christian parenting books and strategies tend to create moralistic Pharisees and angry rebels rather than Christians. The reason for this is our (meaning you, me, and our kid’s) tendency to trust in our own strength rather than God’s grace.

Instead of encouraging our children to rely on their own strength to please us and ultimately God, the authors suggest we speak candidly to them about God’s law and their inability to obey it from the heart and the need for God’s grace. They do this by considering parental guidance in five categories: management is teaching the basic rules of life (eat broccoli-don’t hit your brother) and outward conformity to God’s law; nurture (love them and show them how Christ loves them); train them (show them how Christ’s death resurrection answers the problem); correct them (in the context of Christ’s work); and remind them of God’s promises. All of this has to be done within a framework of gospel wisdom rather than moralism or guaranteed “biblical” principles.

Detriments: There are some minor issues: a long and wholesome Andrew Murray quote without any disclaimers about his perfectionism; a few bizarre throwaway lines like, “But Jesus wouldn’t idolize God’s approval”—I don’t even know what is intended by these words. And there’s a lack of clarity on God’s use of the law to limit evil among non-believers (cf. 43). Pastors might find Ursinus’ Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism sections on the law and the gospel of God helpful to clarify this for their congregations.

Benefits: One of the most helpful books I’ve read on parenting, because it requires parents to be wise and trust God and does not give new laws for us to follow.

A practical suggestion: Attempt to draw your children’s attention to the gospel a couple of times a day, but don’t create a new law that all your interactions with your children must include a link to the gospel. Proverbs 26:4-5 means that if and when we answer or teach is dependent on the situation.

See also, my review of J. C. Ryle’s, The Duties of Parents.

B. B. Warfield, Counterfeit Miracles

The Banner of Truth Trust, 1972, 327 pgs.

Summary: A series of lectures on counterfeit miracles given in 1917 to 1918. The book is divided up into six chapters: the cessation of the charismata, patristic and mediaeval marvels, Roman Catholic miracles, Irvingite gifts (cf. review of The Life of Edward Irving), faith-healing, and mind cure.

Warfield’s basic argument is that with the passing of the apostles and those on whom the apostles laid their hands the charismata subsided in history. He believes that the purpose of the miraculous gifts was to confirm the truthfulness of the apostles’ gospel.  Once the apostolic message was written the the miracles ceased.

Or as Warfield notes with approval, “It is unreasonable to ask miracles, says John Calvin—or to find them—where there is no new gospel. By as much as the one gospel suffices for all lands and all peoples and all times, by so much does the miraculous attestation of that one single gospel suffice for all lands and all times, and no further miracles are to be expected in connection with it” (27).

Warfield then delves into history to show that this position is supported by the data. And then reviews the claimed miracles of his day, including some cults and quacks.

He also makes the important point from Deut 13:2 that the inexplicable cannot be called a miracle of God if it somehow invalidates the revealed truth of the Bible or reason within the confines of revelation (53, 122-123):

It is at least very commonly supposed that we are bound to examine carefully into the pretensions of any alleged miracle produced in support of any propositions whatever, however intrinsically absurd; and, if these alleged miracles cannot be at once decisively invalidated, we are bound to accept as true the proposition in support of which they are alleged. No proposition clearly perceived to be false, however, can possibly be validated to us by any miracle whatever; and the perception of the proposition as clearly false relieves us at once from the duty of examining into the miraculous character of its alleged support and invalidates any claim which that support can put in to miraculous character—prior to all investigation. (53)

Benefits/Detriments

A helpful overview of the historical data. For most intents and purposes I accept Warfield’s assessment as correct. Rhetorically, however Warfield’s argument doesn’t carry a lot of punch because it’s based on the intended purpose of the gifts rather than direct scriptural testimony as to the cessation of the charismata. The argument is not directly scriptural in the sense that there is no verse stating with the passing of the last person on whom the apostles laid hands the miraculous gifts will cease, but it is biblical if Warfield has correctly identified the purpose of charismata—to directly validate the apostolic message to the first generation of Christians.

The second weakness is definitional; he makes a careful distinction between special providences and miracles (162), but he doesn’t explain the difference or define them systematically. From the context he seems to define miracle as something that does not use physical means and which confirms God’s revelation, and special providence seems to be defined as events orchestrated by God in response to prayer yet using physical means. If I’ve understood these definitions aright, this leads to the possibility that the crossing of the Red Sea was not a miracle but a special providence, because the natural cause was a blowing wind (Exod. 14:21).

The final issue is that it is not clear to me from Warfield’s review of Christian history that we can discount the occasional miracle. Occasional miracles would not validate the unscriptural claims to charismata in the modern church, but would allow for some events to be miraculous rather than merely providential.

D. A. Carson, The Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: The Life and Reflections of Tom Carson

Crossway, 2008, 160 pgs, $15.99.

Summary: One of the most brilliant-evangelical theologians in the United States writes of the life and efforts of his father, Tom Carson. Tom Carson for about fifteen years (1948-1963) struggled to pastor a small English speaking Baptist church while simultaneously working as a missionary to the French speaking population of Quebec. He then became a civil servant, but remained in French speaking Quebec to continue serving as a lay pastor. After mandatory retirement from the civil service, he again returned to fulltime ministry until his wife’s battle with Alzheimer’s.

Tom Carson and the other pioneer Baptist missionaries to French speaking and Catholic Canada laid the groundwork for the revival of the 1970s. By God’s grace Pastor Carson was able to participate in those momentous events from the early work of the ‘40s to the late ‘80s. Pastor Carson’s godliness, sobriety and industry are exemplary, and his son does not hide his weakness, confusion, and sin. I would be greatly blessed to live, preach, and die as Tom Carson did.

Benefits/Determents:

There are a very few false notes in the book, and I was edified, deeply moved, sobered, challenged, and encouraged by it. Highly recommended for all, but especially pastors.

Charles Williams, The Image of the City and Other Essays; War in Heaven

The Image of the City and Other Essays, Reprint: The Aporcyphile Press, 2007; Oxford University Press, 1958, 199 pgs.

War in Heaven, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1982, 256 pgs.

Summary: The philosophical, theological, and poetic musings of a moderately brilliant poet who wrote histories, popular journal articles, fiction novels (War in Heaven), and gave lectures to the developing middle class on art and culture to pay the bills. Williams apparently wandered in and then out of genteel British occult (The Image, xxiii) practice and decided to stick with an eccentric but mostly orthodox Anglicanism.  He was a member of the Inklings.

As a poet his imagery is more powerful than his ability for the nuanced logic necessary for theological and philosophical reflection. The reader gets the feeling that the argument is more the mental aroma, or perhaps the colors in the shades of the word pictures. Williams might be right in the end, but the difference between the smell of burnt banana peels and dirty socks is too fine a distinction for most readers to live by or to organize a church around.

His theology is framed by creedal orthodoxy, but he brings interesting quirks to bear; he’s radically neo-Platonic and a hyper-something. I’d like to say he’s hyper-Calvinist, but that would be unfair to Calvin and Duns Scotus (The Image, 76) and Julian of Norwich (War, 239). Perhaps, it would be best to say that he’s neo-Platonic with a heady stream of mysticism as channeled through polite English literary society by a fellow who got schorched playing with “white magic.”

My sense is that he believes the Platonic form of man is the Son of God incarnate. (Apparently, Duns Scotus taught this or something like it.) Thus even fallen man draws his formal existence from the Son incarnate in a way similar to Plato’s scheme. To will in conformity with one’s formal nature is to unify the self with Christ and to act against the form is to move away from unity. All humanity is to a greater or lesser degree in Christ, based on their agreement with the form. Those that are traveling towards unity with Christ can then “share each other burdens” (Gal. 6:2) in a literal sense just as “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases” (Matt. 8:17), because they are participating in the unity of the Son of God form. Because the Son of God incarnate was in the mind of God prior to the Fall as the form of Adam or perhaps the Son was incarnate prior to the Fall in history, the essence of physical and spiritual man is drawn from the Son.

Williams’ ideas leads to all sorts of interesting theological shards, but the reader is never told what will be created if all these pieces were assembled into a coherent system rather than word pictures and protestations that the glittering fragment fits into orthodoxy. It’s not clear to me that his theology is coherent or if made coherent would be orthodox.

Exemplar quotes:

“The name of the City is Union: the operation of the Infamy is by outrage on that union. The process of that union is by the method of free exchange. The methods of that exchange range from childbirth to the Eucharist—the two primal activities of the earth and the Church. There is, in the first case, a mutual willingness between the father and mother which results in the transference of seed. That it is so common does not lessen the trust implied; that one should abandon his seed to another, that one should receive the seed of another, is an exhibition of trust; it is almost the chief natural exhibition of that supernatural quality known as ‘faith’. . .” (The Image, 102).

“The Mother of God was not an apostle, yet the apostles were—only apostles. Do you suppose she and they wrangled over equality?” (Ibid., 129).

“‘But,’ [the Satanist] said doubtfully, ‘had Judas himself no delight? There is an old story that there is rapture in the worship of treachery and malice and cruelty and sin.’ ‘Pooh,’ Lionel said contemptuously; ‘it is the ordinary religion disguised; it is the church-going clerk’s religion. Satanism is the clerk at the brothel. Audacious little middle-class cock-sparrow.’” (War, 168).

Benefits/Detriments: An incredibly helpful resource for understanding Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew and the space trilogy. Likely, a good source for pastors to grapple with the experience of those coming out of the occult, as long as the pastor has read and understood the esoteric teaching of C. S. Lewis’s fiction canon. But if a little wine is good for the stomach, Williams is literary whiskey. Physical, spiritual, and mental sobriety is commanded by Scripture (1 Thes. 5:5-8). There is much good to take from Williams, but much that might mislead, confuse and drunken, and I suspect he’s more tipsy then exuberant.

Michael P. V. Barrett, Beginning at Moses: A Guide to Finding Christ in the Old Testament

Ambassador Internal, Greenville, 2001.

Summary: A solid, scholarly, and conservative introduction to interpreting the Old Testament from a Christocentric perspective:

From Final Thoughts: “My contention is that there is a relevant message in the Old Testament that is discernible and discoverable by sound and sensible methods of interpretation that consider the full, not just the surface, meaning of the text. Although not in every line and perhaps not on every page, the message of Christ overshadows the entire Old Testament. Finding Christ is the key that both unlocks and locks in the message of the whole Word of God. Jesus Christ is God’s final, perfect, incomparable Word. In the final analysis, it is safe to say that Jesus is God’s only Word for man” (327).

Benefits/Detriments: The book should serve two purposes: it is an incredibly helpful model for those with an academic bent on how to introduce others to finding Christ in the Old Testament: and the book is a solid introduction to the interpretive framework necessary to rightly divide the word of truth.

It is not an academic book in the sense that there is no bibliography or footnotes. It is scholarly, in that the author is obviously aware of the current academic debates and questions, but the book is intended for a thoughtful and conservative layman. I highly recommend it.

Richard Bauckham, The Bible in Politics: How to Read the Bible Politically

Louisville, Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989.

Summary: A thoughtful establishment of a hermeneutical process for developing biblical application of the Bible to modern politics and ethics.

The process looks like this:

1. Identify what the text meant to the initial audience.

2. Determine the differences between the initial audience and believers today.

3. Develop universal principles from the text.

4. Correlate the principle with New Testament teaching.

5. Apply the modified universal principle to life today.

(The process summary is drawn from Tidball, The Message of Leviticus, 29).

Bauckham exhibits the outcome of this system in meditations on, Leviticus 19, Proverbs 31:1-9, Psalm 10 and 126, Jesus on taxes (Matt. 17, Mark 11-12), Exodus Revelation 18, the Book of Esther, and the Genesis Flood.

The risen Jesus is our future. He beckons us forward to the goal of creation and gives all Christian activity the character of hopeful movement into the future which God has promised. Not that we ourselves can achieve that future. Resurrection makes that clear: we who ourselves end in death cannot achieve the new creation out of death. The Kingdom in its final glory lies beyond the reach of our history, in the hand of the God who interrupted our history by raising Jesus from death. This transcendence of the Kingdom beyond our achievement must be remembered. But in Jesus God has given us the Kingdom not only as hope for the final future but also to anticipate in the present. As the vision of God’s perfect will for his creation it is the inspiration of all Christian efforts to change the world for the better. In relation to our political activity, it is a double-edged sword, cutting through both our pretensions and our excuses. On the one hand, as the goal we do not reach, it passes judgment on all our political projects and achievements, forbids us the dangerous utopian illusions of having paradise within our grasp, keeps us human, realistic, humble and dissatisfied. On the other hand, as the goal we anticipate, it lures us on beyond all our political achievements, forbids us disillusioned resignation to the status quo, keeps us dissatisfied, hopeful, imaginative, and open to new possibilities (150).

Benefits: Politics is a subcategory of the wider study of ethics, and thus Bauckham’s work is useful for all of ethics. He engagingly challenges his readers to read the Bible carefully, think rigorously, and apply the Bible wisely to politics, for the purpose of worshiping God. I know of no better example of how to do this well.

Detriments: Interpreting the Bible is dependent on the hermeneutical process and the belief policies of the reader. For example, the reader who comes to the text rejecting the possibility of divine revelation will make little effort to harmonize the different human authors’ perspectives or grant the Bible any authority outside of its agreement with “nature.”

In the case of Bauckham, he has a high view of man’s sin against man, but a low view of man’s rebellion against God. He has a lowish view of Scripture, which we might summarize with “inspired, but. . .”, and he’s got an egalitarian streak. Because ethics is the application of God’s Word to man, Bauckham’s anthropology and his understanding of God (theology proper) influences his interpretation and application of the text.

Here’s a example where his theological presuppositions are exposed: “On the contrary, [Jesus’] loving concern reached all the people around him as he hung dying, his fellow victims on the crosses beside him, his mother in her grief, even his executioners, for whom he prayed forgiveness” (148).

The problem with this statement is the criminals on the crosses with Christ were not victims (cf. Luke 23:40-41) in the same sense that Christ was. The thief that was saved admitted both his guilt and the justice of the sentence. Bauckham’s first premises of interpretation require a degree of egalitarianism that is rejected by the Bible. And a consistent application of Jesus’ identifying “himself unequivocally and finally with the victims” (148) will lead to unmitigated theological and political disaster.

Yet, I highly recommend this book because Bauckham’s egalitarian and anthropocentric tendencies are often corrected by how carefully and intelligently he handles the text and an apparent love for Christ and humanity. When the text overrules his bad theology, he’s brilliant and incredibly edifying, but he can mislead the perplexed by promoting anthropocentric and egalitarian applications and theology.

Arnold Dallimore, The Life of Edward Irving: The Fore-Runner of the Charismatic Movement

Edinburgh, The Banner of Truth Trust, 1983.

Summary: The book records and explains the rise of speaking in tongues, prophecy, and the continuation of the apostolic office under the ministry of Edward Irving (1792-1834). Irving unintentionally established the framework of both Dispensationalism and the Charismatic Movement by being a catalysis for the popularization of a variety of unique views on the end times and the work of the Holy Spirit.

Irving translated “The Coming of Christ in Glory and Majesty” by the Jesuit Lacunza and adopted his view of the end times whereby Christ’s work with the biological seed of Abraham is different than his work with the Gentile Church. Further, he clearly establishes the Charismatic explanations for inaccurate prophecy, the fact that tongues speaking is not a known language, and the failure of faith healers.

Benefits/Detriments: Essentially what we learn is that the belief that we are necessarily in the final moments before Christ’s return can lead to a spiritual intensity that is ultimately unbiblical and unedifying. (Striking the more biblical balance between Christ’s potential imminent return and the possibility of Christ continuing to tarry is difficult, but it must be maintained to avoid endless speculation or spiritual coldness.) Further, the book serves as a helpful reminder to shun worldly popularity, crucify pride, and deplore theological speculation.

I found the book fascinating, easy to read, and a bit of an “Oh that makes sense” experience.

9 Marks Book Reviews

• The Irresistible Revolution, by Shane Claiborne

• The Great Exchange, by Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington

• Turning to God, by David F. Wells

Letters of Samuel Rutherford

Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661), Letters of Samuel Rutherford

Reprint of the 1891 edition; Carlisle: Banner of Truth, 744 pgs. 

Summary: The letters of the pious, devoted, lover of Christ, Samuel Rutherford. Rutherford was entranced by Christ and had a moral imagination capable of allowing him to exhaustively incorporate the language of the Song of Solomon to describe his devotion for Christ: 

I would desire no more for my heaven beneath the moon, while I am sighing in this house of clay, but daily renewed feast of love with Christ, and liberty now and then to feed my hunger with a kiss of that fairest face. . . . have no other exercise than to lie on a love-bed with Christ, and fill this hungered and famished soul with kissing, embracing, and real enjoying of the Son of God (341-342). 

Yet, the reader cannot be distracted either by our eroticized imaginations or Rutherford’s stretched allegories. He writes with devotional power:

“They lose nothing who gain Christ” (42).

“I have received many and divers dashes and heavy strokes since the Lord called me to the ministry; but indeed I esteem your departure from us the weightiest. But I perceive God will have us to be deprived of whatsoever we idolize, that He may have His own room. I see exceeding small fruit of my ministry, and would be glad to know of one soul to be my crown and rejoicing in the day of Christ” (43) 

“[T]he King of kings also hath servants in His court that for the present get little or nothing but the heavy cross of Christ, troubles without and terrors within; but they live upon hope; and when it cometh to the parting of the inheritance, they remain in the house as heirs” (86). 

“If contentment were here, heaven were not heaven. Whoever seek the world to be their bed, shall at best find it short, and ill-made, and a stone under their side to hold them waking, rather than a soft pillow to sleep upon” (129).

“Say, ‘I shall rather spill twenty prayers, than not to pray at all.’ Let my broken words go up to heaven: when they come up into the Great Angel’s golden censer, that compassionate Advocate will put together my broken prayers, and perfume them’” (590).  

“I desire to desire, and purpose by strength from above, to own that cause. . . .” (686).

The letters essentially span the convulsions in Britain as the House of Stuart under Charles I (reigned 1625-1649) and Charles II attempted to establish an absolute monarchy in the face of popular uprisings, religious dissension, and common law. 

The letters begin in the parish of Anwoth (1627), Scotland, continue into the years of exile as a “prisoner hope” in Aberdeen (1636-1638), his translation to professorship (1639) and principal at St. Andrews (1647), in London (1643) working on what will become the “Westminster Standards,” and then back to Scotland as the Proctorship collapses and Charles the II returns (1660). Rutherford was summoned back to London to stand trial for sedition by Charles, but died before his arrest (1661). His last words were, “Glory! Glory, dwellth in Emanuel’s land.” 

Detriments/Benefits: Rutherford is an example, perhaps the best, of high Presbyterianism. He taught that the national church ought to be Presbyterian and that the government and its agents must submit to the Presbytery in areas of churchly authority (cf. review of Light in the North). 

Further, Rutherford was a scholastic theologian and political theorist, writing Lex Rex for the secular realm, Plea for Presbytery for a national Presbyterianism, and A Free Disputation against the Pretended Liberty of Conscience, defending state persecution of non-Presbyterians. 

Rutherford developed a hermeneutic of Scripture that essentially allowed Scotland to become an Israel, and Presbyterian pastors to become the prophets of Scotland. He freely appropriated Old Testament passages directly to Scotland without considering the differences between the old and new covenant. Such an interpretation allowed him to publicly desire and pray for God’s judgment on other born again Christians who disagreed with him on secondary matters (651), reprobate those who disagreed with him, and to command in contradiction to Scripture, “whosover would keep their garments clean are under that command, ‘Touch not, taste not, handle not’” (703). (Rutherford’s application of Colossians 2:21 is exactly opposite the Apostle Paul.) 

The Banner of Truth reprint contains excellent notes by Andrew Bonar (1810-1892) and a glossary of Scottish and archaic terms (i.e. barins=children, horolouge=watch).   

Having said so much, his letters are a balm and succor to my soul and the majority of Christians who have read them. The overheated language must not be allowed to mask his loyalty and fervency for Christ and a holiness of enormous depth and devotion. The Letters and their historical context are also a reminder of 1 John 4:11, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”

Recommended for all. 

What Is Love?

Love in English is flexible. As a noun it can refer to a tennis score, several positive sexual meanings, a beloved, and a positive emotion towards some object. The verb form is much the same. There is also a host of synonyms and near synonyms for love that share the general meaning or have a degree of overlap: charity, delight, affection, loyalty, fondness, devotion, attraction, and so forth. It’s much the same in the Greek text of the Bible; both the Septuagint and the New Testament use a variety of words with a range of meaning limited by the context to express the idea of love. The basic issue is that love is a positive emotion towards something.

Sometimes among Christians, we conceptualize love with the Greek terms of agape (self-giving love), philia (friend love), and eros (sexual love). These may be somewhat helpful distinctions in conversations with other Christians, but it breaks down very quickly in doctrine, practice, and meaning. From a merely lexical perspective, John uses the Greek agape love and philia love to describe God the Father’s love for Jesus (John 3:35; John 5:20): the intended meaning of both agape and philia is identical. Paul requires that self-giving among married couples include erotic love (1 Cor. 7:2-3), but eros does not appear in the Septuagint or the New Testament. Further, we find agape love for both Christian and non-Christian love for instance in Luke 6:32, “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.” Love is then varied and diverse. Stand alone Greek words representing Christian or non-Christian love are no help to us, because love must be enframed.

Having cleared away the issue of Christian talk about love, we must now deal with the issue of the human experience of love.  We can love something for use—a good steak which is destroyed by love; we can love something for enjoyment without diminishing it, but with benefits to us—Bach’s Oboe Concerto in D minor, a sunset, God.  And then there is a love of enjoyment and use combined together—drawing out the beauty of wood grain on a board for a table top and the physical changes and threats attendant to carrying, delivering, and nurturing a child. The wood and our spouse, and ourselves are transformed—increased and decreased—by love.

The issue of using and diminishing our beloveds sounds terrible doesn’t it? But the problem is implicitly commented on in Scripture (Prov. 5:18; Isa. 54:6). At the same time Scripture teaches the increase within married love that is a benefit of for both spouses. We will consider this more closely in a latter article. But the point to be grasped is that human love functions within an order that includes physical and spiritual decay and death and physical and spiritual improvement within interdependent relationships.

One of the great tensions of love between men and God’s love is this issue of enjoyment and use. God as the all-sufficient being and the source of all that is good can love a creature without benefit to himself. God loves creatures out of magnanimity and charity. As a human being we cannot love without expecting and hoping for a benefit because we are absolutely dependent on God for our existence and in a secondary sense dependent on the larger creation and web of relationships within the world. To love God is to recognize God as God. Human absolute dependence means that all human love includes dependence—godward always and toward neighbor to a greater or lesser degree. We cannot love that which we believe is not good for us in some sense. God’s freedom to love his creation is not a dependent love. God’s love is free indeed.

This theory of love, or perhaps I should say fact of love, requires that the human default be what is called eudaemonism. We love and we act on what makes us happy. Before you draw up in arms against me on this, as creatures dependant on God the thing that ought to make us happy is pleasing God. In other words, Christian love, agape love if you wish, is the desire to please God and to order our lesser loves around pleasing God. Christian eudaemonism is the recognition that what ought to make us happy is to please God. True felicity comes from pleasing God. Non-Christian eudaemonism is to make your belly your god, but Christianity is to recognize God as the source of all that is truly good.  The perverse disorder of our current life is that it is possible to love in a way which displeases God. We may love in a way that rebels against, rejects, despises, tramples on our actual dependence on God. To love as if we are not contingent on God or to love as if we ought not love God is sin. Most importantly sin is the hatred of God.

We’ve worked out a definition of love: Godly love is the desire to please God as God and to order all our other loves around pleasing God. The logic of this definition is our absolute dependence on God and our secondary dependence on others.  So let us turn to God’s word and attempt to prove it.

I’ve already shown above that love as love is a positive affection towards something and that the Bible allows for good love and wicked love. At the same time how love is to be ordered is explicitly commanded in the law (Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18), confirmed by our Lord Jesus Christ and then repeated by the Apostles in the epistles in the two great commandments—love God with all your being and to love your neighbor as yourself. There is no limit on our godward love—heart, soul, and mind; but there is a limit to our love of neighbor—love of self. We are only required to love our neighbor as ourself, and we are certainly forbidden to love our neighbor as God. The Bible then places two limits on love: all love must flow through our love of God.  Our love of God then orders our love of self, and our ordered love of self creates the contours of our love of neighbor. The two great commandments, the summary of God’s moral, not only agrees with our definition, it requires this definition.

In our next articles we will explore, the love of God, love of self, and the love neighbor more carefully with an especial focus on Son of God Jesus Christ and his love.