In my last posting I talked about noticing many different understandings I started getting when I read the agape versions of NT passages. After that reflection on the “new” commandment, another example came to me when I took very seriously the word “whole” in the Great Commandment (especially in the Common English Bible translation).
I saw the word ‘whole’ as a clue that something is required that goes beyond what a separated ego identity can do.
When we are commanded to give our whole being into our agape relationship with God, that has a profound impact on our sense of identity. But all ego identities (that people in the modern world think they have to form) cannot act as whole beings. Even though people think an ego is the best defense and protection against the sheer craziness of modern society, there is something wrong with putting that much faith in production that is based on separating from the wholeness of Life. So it just cannot work for a person to “love God with an ego identity” -- because there is no wholeness there. Any ego identity is merely too fragmented. Something else is needed.
An ego identity is so dependent on being separate, that no ego identity can do anything as a whole being. Of course, that’s the main problem with all ego identities in the modern world -- the very act of trying to develop an identity in life by forming a separate entity causes a terrible fracturing in the identity, because it is a false effort. In reality we are actually all connected, not separated.
That all-important sense of wholeness, which is necessary for faith development, cannot happen for a person who tries to identify mainly with that false impression of being separated from God. A person has to get beyond any type of ego identity in order to realize the wholeness of a relationship with God.
When I read through all those verses with ‘agape’ left in its originally intended form, I was able to realize how agape brings wholeness to a person’s life. So it is from the wholeness of an agape relationship with God that a person is able to be fully and completely alive with God. A person’s true identity in life brings that spiritual sense of wholeness when it is developed from the agape relationship.
Showing posts with label ego-centric behavior. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ego-centric behavior. Show all posts
Monday, September 12, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Agape helps us get beyond ego-centric behavior
In previous postings when I explored 1 Corinthians and Romans, I discovered that Paul was saying that agape is not only a gift from God to help us, but it is also a witness. Agape witnesses that true spiritual power is on the side of patience, kindness, justice and truth -- and that it helps people overcome envy, conceit, self-righteousness, judgmentalness, and all other results of ego-centric behavior.
So when we put those two together, we see that the spiritual gift of agape is God’s way of helping us turn away from selfish, ego-centric actions. Paul was showing a new way for Christians to develop spiritually. When we read how Paul explained agape in 1 Corinthians 13, then we know we are dealing with the basis for a new faith discipline that motivates us to look for a spiritual training that will help us live fully through the power of God.
I think Paul was comparing selfish, ego-centric behavior with childishness. That's what he meant when he said, “When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, reason like a child, think like a child. But now that I have become a man, I’ve put an end to childish things.” (1 Cor. 13:11 Common English Bible) So in our struggle to get beyond being controlled by our egos, we need agape to help us become fully mature in our faith development; otherwise, we remain childishly stunted in our growth in faith. That’s why I concluded my last posting by realizing that a follower of Jesus needs to stop identifying with her or his ego; and instead, we need to do as Jesus did by building our identity from the eternal essence we find within.
If we don’t do that, then we are challenged by Paul’s warning that we remain childishly stunted. So the first step in faith growth is to admit that we have to get beyond all forms of envy, conceit, self-righteousness and behavior that is judgmental toward all other people. Otherwise, we get stuck in a faith that is childishly stunted as long as we wrongly think that it's good to feel self-righteous and judgmental toward anyone. That’s why the attitudes that Jesus criticized the most were self-righteousness and judgmentalness.
Of course, those attitudes persist as such a major problem among people claiming to be Christian because it's so easy to deny being self-righteous and judgmental. It's so easy to fall into the trap of thinking religion is suppose to make people feel self-righteous and give them the right to be judgmental. We fool ourselves when we suffer under the illusion that our opinions have to be right and anyone who disagrees with us has to be completely wrong (maybe even evil). That's the great temptation that Jesus was trying to get people to overcome.
But unfortunately, we see that happening all over America during these sad days when Christianity is so strongly divided. So as long as Christians keep thinking they have to protect Christianity by struggling against Christians with different opinions, then we will continue to function with childishly stunted faith. Especially when these struggles get dragged into politics, all of that is terribly destructive.
Paul’s point was faith development must help us be patient, kind, just, and truthful. That is why we need to let agape open us up and work in our life. He was also pointing out that the reverse is just as true: people prove they are not open to agape working in their life -- if they remain so controlled by ego identity as to be self-righteous, judgmental, mean-spirited, and bigoted.
That realization is why I went back to the Gospel of John and looked anew at the teachings of Jesus about agape in chapters 13-17. There I found Jesus instructing his disciples to share the power of agape with each other, just as he had showed them what that spiritual power could do in human life and in relationships. To give the strongest meaning possible to this sharing, he told them that everyone will know they are his disciples because they live by the power of agape (John 13:35). That is why he even put it in the form of a new commandment (13:34). He identified so strongly with the spiritual presence of agape that he could refer to it as “my agape” -- as when he said, “Remain in my agape. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my agape, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his agape. … No one has greater agape than to give up one’s life for one’s friends.” (15:9-13)
(The meaning is so much clearer when “agape” is not translated into some weak English word, but is left “agape” in the original Greek, as it was meant to be.) Then we see that Jesus was talking about a special spiritual power that he was making sure they could receive as a gift from God to help them.
So when we put those two together, we see that the spiritual gift of agape is God’s way of helping us turn away from selfish, ego-centric actions. Paul was showing a new way for Christians to develop spiritually. When we read how Paul explained agape in 1 Corinthians 13, then we know we are dealing with the basis for a new faith discipline that motivates us to look for a spiritual training that will help us live fully through the power of God.
I think Paul was comparing selfish, ego-centric behavior with childishness. That's what he meant when he said, “When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, reason like a child, think like a child. But now that I have become a man, I’ve put an end to childish things.” (1 Cor. 13:11 Common English Bible) So in our struggle to get beyond being controlled by our egos, we need agape to help us become fully mature in our faith development; otherwise, we remain childishly stunted in our growth in faith. That’s why I concluded my last posting by realizing that a follower of Jesus needs to stop identifying with her or his ego; and instead, we need to do as Jesus did by building our identity from the eternal essence we find within.
If we don’t do that, then we are challenged by Paul’s warning that we remain childishly stunted. So the first step in faith growth is to admit that we have to get beyond all forms of envy, conceit, self-righteousness and behavior that is judgmental toward all other people. Otherwise, we get stuck in a faith that is childishly stunted as long as we wrongly think that it's good to feel self-righteous and judgmental toward anyone. That’s why the attitudes that Jesus criticized the most were self-righteousness and judgmentalness.
Of course, those attitudes persist as such a major problem among people claiming to be Christian because it's so easy to deny being self-righteous and judgmental. It's so easy to fall into the trap of thinking religion is suppose to make people feel self-righteous and give them the right to be judgmental. We fool ourselves when we suffer under the illusion that our opinions have to be right and anyone who disagrees with us has to be completely wrong (maybe even evil). That's the great temptation that Jesus was trying to get people to overcome.
But unfortunately, we see that happening all over America during these sad days when Christianity is so strongly divided. So as long as Christians keep thinking they have to protect Christianity by struggling against Christians with different opinions, then we will continue to function with childishly stunted faith. Especially when these struggles get dragged into politics, all of that is terribly destructive.
Paul’s point was faith development must help us be patient, kind, just, and truthful. That is why we need to let agape open us up and work in our life. He was also pointing out that the reverse is just as true: people prove they are not open to agape working in their life -- if they remain so controlled by ego identity as to be self-righteous, judgmental, mean-spirited, and bigoted.
That realization is why I went back to the Gospel of John and looked anew at the teachings of Jesus about agape in chapters 13-17. There I found Jesus instructing his disciples to share the power of agape with each other, just as he had showed them what that spiritual power could do in human life and in relationships. To give the strongest meaning possible to this sharing, he told them that everyone will know they are his disciples because they live by the power of agape (John 13:35). That is why he even put it in the form of a new commandment (13:34). He identified so strongly with the spiritual presence of agape that he could refer to it as “my agape” -- as when he said, “Remain in my agape. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my agape, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his agape. … No one has greater agape than to give up one’s life for one’s friends.” (15:9-13)
(The meaning is so much clearer when “agape” is not translated into some weak English word, but is left “agape” in the original Greek, as it was meant to be.) Then we see that Jesus was talking about a special spiritual power that he was making sure they could receive as a gift from God to help them.
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