Interpreting Scripture from Agapé Awareness

One of the problems with the way blogs are constructed comes from trying to develop a progression of thinking from page to page. The problem is blogs are organized in reverse order. So when someone would stumble onto this blog, this top page is the last of 10 years worth of pages, with the comments here resulting from 10 years of research and reasoning.

That means this page may not make much sense unless you’ve read the 142 pages that have come below it. But anyway, now I’ll use the 10 years when I have experienced the development of Agapé Awareness to reinterpret the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians. Finally I reached the conclusion that this chapter is about the spiritual power of agapé.

Slowly I came to realize that a major mistake was made in biblical translation in the 1800s when ‘agapé’ first started being translated into English as ‘love.’ That gave the impression that chapter 13 was merely advice about relationships. But that misses the meaning of the chapter. Instead, we should interpret the verses from the viewpoint of spiritual development. That’s why the author started by talking about spiritual gifts. So the point of those introductory verses was to show that agapé is not only the most important spiritual gift but all other spiritual gifts amount to nothing without agapé.

From that viewpoint, we need to see the rest of the verses as explaining how the spiritual power of agapé works. That leads me to think that this chapter is a summary of a training manual for working with agapé in the process of spiritual development. So now I’ll imagine how it could be a training manual. 

First, each Greek word would be read from spiritual awareness. The first word describing how agapé works is ‘makrothymeo,’ which viewed spiritually is the ability to remain tranquil while accepting all things that happen as merely things that happen, without getting upset by what happens, without having expectations about the time that is involved.

The second Greek word, “chresteuomai,” appears only in this place in all scripture. So it is not the common word for kindness. Viewed spiritually it expresses the power of openness to others to share the flow from the heart-center. We can think of agapé as like a seed planted in our heart-center, and as it grows up into our surface, it gives life to our actions. So trainees would need to work with agapé in a way that at the same time it opens them up spiritually it draws them into divine Presence.

Second, the middle verses show what agapé helps to overcome. Taken together those negative images show what can be overcome by this different kind of spiritual power that flows through human relationships. So trainees must learn to disassociate themselves from ego-centric pressures. Trainees must learn to have agapé help overcome ego-identity. That’s how they learn to live by trust instead of living from fear and defensiveness.

Then they learn to work with the power of agapé — giving of themselves in helping others and in working for justice — that way it gives the energy to keep from getting burned out. Agapé flow is continuous and does not depend on us or on others but gives the power to deal with all beings equally. It is the power of openness to and acceptance of others.

The following six verses demonstrate the power of agapé to strengthen the spiritual development of people. And the verse about hoping all things reminds us of Romans 5:5 that says we are sustained by hope “because God’s agapé has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” So trainees learn to let God’s agapé flow through their heart-centers into power for their living.

Agapé and Spiritual Development

In the blog page that follows this I returned to study First Corinthians 13. So now I want to reflect on what that means for the full spiritual development of the human race. 

That means I don’t think of St. Paul as confined to merely the little groups (that we today call ‘churches’) who responded to his message and gathered together. I think he meant for his message to be universal, extending far beyond those gathering groups. For as St. Paul started the very next chapter by advising: “Put agapé first.” (New English Bible translation, with ‘agapé’ left in its original Greek) Both chapters are mainly about agapé.

As he explained in the middle section of Chapter 13, agapé can help all people move beyond any ego-centric behavior. He seems to be saying that agapé is our very witness that true spiritual power is on the side of patience, kindness, justice and truth -- and that it is against envy, conceit, self-righteousness, and judgmental attitude and action — in other words against all other results of ego-centric behavior. 

Then he concluded that we need agapé to become fully mature in our spiritual development; otherwise, we remain childishly stunted in our growth in faith. And finally, even though we know that faith, hope, and agapé abide to sustain us spiritually -- “the greatest of these is agapé.” (vs. 13) Greater than faith and hope?!

St. Paul was telling his generation, and all generations since then, to expect that when we open ourselves to the power of agapé flowing from deep within us, we will find it to be patient, kind, non-judgmental, and not ego-boosting. I take that to mean that God will not force us to open to the flow of agapé, so each of has to be completely willing to open up then use what comes from our spiritual-heart-center -- but also that agapé will eternally be there for us. Even though agapé is the most important power that God has for us, we have to freely accept the gift or else it will mean nothing to us -- and the deep purpose of our lives will not fully develop for us until we are willing to work with that all-important spiritual power.

Later on, near the end of that epistle, St. Paul said, “Stay awake, stand firm in your faith, be brave, be strong. Everything should be done in agapé.” (16:13-14 Common English Bible) That’s how he thought of the total influence of agapé -- that we should use it to do everything that brings ultimate meaning to Life.

It is that spiritual power that brings from the center of our being the peace that is the spiritual basis of patience itself; the spiritual strength of kindness; the wise rejoicing in the truth; and the basis of such a profound compassion that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

The Importance of Agapé

During the 10 years that I’ve been keeping this blog, I’ve posted before about the NT book’s chapter First Corinthians 13. The original Greek is central to understanding why agapé was so important to the first Christians. St. Paul used those verses to explain to his Greek readers why he started using the word ‘agapé’ and why he thought it pointed to something so powerful for everyone. (So of course, we must remember he was writing about agapé.)

Now, in summarizing my study of 1 Cor. 13, I’m keeping in mind the important point he eventually made in his letter to the Romans. There he talked about the spiritual power of divine agapé having been poured into human hearts by the Holy Spirit. So I was able to interpret St. Paul’s description of agapé in terms of its spiritual power.

When St. Paul started showing the power of agapé, his first readers would have been surprised. Over the years, my work with agapé power has led me to even deeper insights into the radical message that he gave there. I’ve come to understand more profoundly why he warned his readers that what he was going to show them was unusual by saying, “Now I shall show you a still more excellent way.” So what was this innovation that he brought to the early development of Christianity?

What we call the 13th chapter began by continuing his list of spiritual gifts that he started talking about in chapter 12. He did that to show that he considered agapé to be the greatest of all spiritual gifts. In Galatians, Paul called it the fruit of the Spirit. He was pointing out how that deep spiritual sense allows us to accept other people in a life-affirming way that we become neither agitated with them nor attach any degree of importance to anything they may to do us.

For example, agapé was so important to deep spiritual awareness that any attempt to gain divine inspiration without using the power of agapé would amount to nothing. When he got into what we today mean by charity, he said that if we give away all our possessions and even are willing to sacrifice our own bodies for the cause -- but don’t do it through the power of agapé -- we gain nothing. At that point he had his readers’ attention in a shocking way with that list of comparisons between agapé and all the other spiritual gifts that most people would find wonderful to have. So he was ready to lay out the details showing what agapé power could do. 

His readers would have understood that whatever that strange spiritual power is, patience and kindness are of the very essence of what it is. He seems to be saying this: the way that spiritual power works in a person and between persons in a faith community, agapé is patient and kind. What does that mean?

He summarized that meaning by saying that agapé “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” What an amazing spiritual power! He was pointing out that agapé power helps us not be envious or boastful or arrogant or rude or insist on our own way, and not be irritable or resentful. Then he hit the self-righteous religious people right between the eyes when he said that agapé will help them not rejoice in the wrongdoing of those they like to judge as less religiously worthy. Because everyone knows how difficult it is to live that way, we are able to see how extremely important it is for agapé power to bring about an inner transformation.

So we need agapé to become fully mature in our spiritual development; otherwise, we remain childish in our understanding of the spiritual dimension of Life. And finally, even though we know that faith, hope, and agapé abide to sustain us spiritually -- “the greatest of these is agapé.”

When we know it is agapé that is used in that chapter, then we know we are dealing with the basis for a new spiritual discipline that motivates us to look for a spiritual training that will help us live fully through the power of God.