In my May 16 posting I compared the most important scripture passages that gave spiritual meaning to agape. Starting with Paul’s teaching about agape in Rom. 5:5, 8:35-39, and 12:9-21; I compared them with 1 Cor. 13 and Gal. 5:14; and then with the 2 Great Commandments in Mat. 22:36-40 and the extension from that in Mat. 5:44-45; and the conclusion in 1 Jn. 4:9-12.
Not only was that spiritual teaching, but it was also practical advice. In Romans 12:2-21 Paul gave practical results from letting God’s agape fill our daily living. He said it can help us “be patient in affliction, be faithful in prayer.” The next verse may be what led the earliest French translators to use “charity” to translate “agape” -- “Share with God’s people; extend hospitality to strangers.” Then he talked about not being conceited or proud, but living in harmony and peace with everyone, even to the point of blessing those who persecute you.
To show that a complete transformation happens when living by God’s agape, Paul ended by talking about not repaying evil for evil, and not taking revenge. Of course, he learned what a radical change in human perspective happens because God then makes it possible to show agape even to enemies. Paul wrote: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.” He circled back to the beginning of this section by saying: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
All of this unusual teaching is what has led modern writers to conclude by defining God’s agape with words similar to Rollo May’s when he defined it as “the concern for the other’s welfare beyond any gain that one can get out of it” or as “selfless giving.” [Love and Will, p. 319] Obviously, such action does not come about by just blindly following along where society tells us we must go.
For those people today who are not sure how to know if God’s agape is truly active in their lives, I refer to what Paul described in Romans. So if you are not living the way he described -- by being kind, compassionate, and charitable with everyone around you, but instead you want to take revenge against enemies and overcome evil with evil (such as using warfare to try solving problems, either in your community or around the world) -- then you can know that God’s agape is not transforming you as should be happening. And of course, both Jesus and Paul warned that it is not easy to live by God’s agape. The pressure to conform to the pattern of the world is very strong.
That's why people in every civilization on the planet are falsely indoctrinated to think there is nothing evil about taking revenge against enemies. That has been the sad state of affairs for thousands of years. But Jesus came to bring us the power to change all that. If we don’t put the spiritual power of agape to work, then Jesus died in vain. It is up to each of us.
That’s what I found when I started with the first place ‘agape’ appears in Romans (5:5), then followed Paul’s thinking right on through to the way God’s agape fulfills our lives -- God’s agape as a spiritual power that flows into us and through us when we open up to the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in our relationships with others. Paul implies that such is the way God’s agape makes us “be aglow with the Spirit” and “be joyful in hope” as we “serve the Lord” through LIVING by God’s agape. By truly living this way, the Holy Spirit uses agape to transform us through the renewal of our minds. That transformation brings us the ability to keep from being conformed to the selfish, egotistical, violent pattern of the human world.
It is God's agape that gives us the strength to be able to be transformed to live the non-violent lifestyle that Paul pointed out was basic to being Christian. And we can take heart because God’s spiritual power in our lives is stronger than the pressure of the world. That is the hope talked about by Paul (Romans 5:4-5). That is the hope upon which the whole future of the human race hinges.
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