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.
No comments:
Post a Comment