Scott Wiley here, the executive director of Wisdom International. We're celebrating our 25th anniversary this year. What began as a radio program in a single city has grown into a global ministry now in 16 languages. We're hosting a banquet to celebrate all that the Lord has done, and you're invited. Please visit wisdomonline.
org slash twenty five. That's wisdomonline. org slash twenty five. There's a link in the show notes. And now here's Stephen with today's message from Wisdom for the Heart.
Paul adds now, verse four: Agape does not boast. You could translate it: Love does not brag. I wonder if social media is perhaps one of the most popular ways or forms of bragging in our generation today. Be careful! Envy—that just came before this word—envy is wanting the life someone else has.
Bragging is wanting people to envy the life you have. May not be helping people with what you post. Over the past few months, we've been on a shopping spree. We have been filling our cart, so to speak, with seven supplements that guarantee the best spiritual health possible.
Now the apostle Peter has been our trainer, and here in Second Peter chapter one, where I return your attention, he's given us a list of seven supplements, and he tagged at the bottom of that list this incredible guarantee that life, if you pursue these, will not be wasted, will not be ineffective or unfruitful.
Now today we arrive at the seventh. Supplement the final one. This is, I guess, you could call it the cherry on top, the final ingredient. This is the finishing touch for life and godliness. If you're new, we'll get a running start back here at verse five, where Peter begins this section.
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith. That is, add to the fact that you've been saved by faith in Christ. That's the context.
Now add to that virtue. Add to your walk with Christ, virtue, and then add knowledge. And to knowledge, self control, and self control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection.
Now for today, brotherly affection and love. This is the original word, agape. One Greek scholar calls it the crown of Christian development in his wonderful commentary on this list. In Second Peter, Douglas Moo calls agape the glue that holds all these supplements together. That's a good thought.
I also like to think that it keeps all these supplements heading in the right direction. Think about it. Without love, steadfastness would become self-preservation. Without love, knowledge would become pride. Without love, virtue would become legalism, and so forth.
So, love is sort of the guardrail that keeps you on the road, on the highway of Christian. Christ honoring life and growth.
Now, keep in mind again that all seven of these supplements are to be pursued at the same time for the growing Christian. You don't master the first one, then move to the second one. You don't. You don't. You know, master virtue and then move to mastering self control, and then and then start or knowledge, and then start working on self control.
This is the work of the Spirit of God. In the life of a committed, surrendered believer, now he might point out certain areas in your life at different times, and you can tell he's focusing on that one. But he's after all of them because they all guarantee spiritual growth and maturity, a life worth living. And so Peter says, as we've learned, give it all you've got, go after it, don't hold back. Don't give yourself a free pass.
Don't don't shrug any of them off when you fail at one of them, and we will daily.
Well, confess it quickly to Christ, and then get back up and on the trail.
Now, if you think that this agape love would be easier to pursue in the first century than it is in this. Confused twenty first century.
Well, you need to think again. This supplement of agape was overlooked entirely in the world of Peter, in the generation of the Greeks and the Romans. They ignored this. Philosophers would call agape "quote colorless," end quote, uninteresting. It would be unusual to find agape even used or mentioned as a noun in secular Greek literature.
Gerhard Kittel, in his comprehensive, massive tome that every seminary student tries to afford to get, where he surveys all the language of the New Testament, he actually made the point that you will not find one illustration of agape. Outside of Scripture, nowhere in Greek writing will you find an illustration of agape, and I say that not to prove I purchased that set, but I say that to let you know that when Peter writes to his readers. That what you need to do is add to your life agape. You need to know they would be scratching their heads and wondering what in the world is that? What is agape?
Now for them, they would be very familiar with other words that would be used besides agape. One of them would be storge. That was a popular word. This was family love. This is.
You could call it natural love, a legitimate form of love. By the way, this is the love. Though this would be the word you'd use when you said that you loved Uncle Henry and and Grandma Mabel and your cousins. This was that natural love. You saw them once a year.
That was probably enough, perhaps. But you loved each other. You use that word, store gay. You could leap over every obstacle. You never dealt a stranger.
You love them, but you could. First time you met your cousin, it's natural. What author wrote in the New Testament? This is sort of like the law of gravitational love. It's deeper, though.
This is a word used for the affection of a mother for her child. To endure the sacrifice of providing for the life of her child. This is the word used where a man will sacrifice his body, his energy to provide for his family. Peter's audience would immediately understand. Storge.
Another common word would be philia. We looked at that word in our last study. It's translated brotherly love. Again, a A biblical term, it can be deep and warm and affectionate. It can also be shallow and self-serving.
In his book on New Testament love, Leon Morris called philia a love based on common insight, or or common interests, or common tastes. You you love somebody because they have the same tastes. The same interests. You love something, and you might use the word "falia" for that. Like, I love apple pie, or I love that outfit, or I love that song.
I was driving down Tryon Road a few days ago, and it was bitterly cold, freezing. I was wearing gloves in the van, and I passed that public golf course. On Tryon, and were guys getting out of their cars and taking their bags out of their trunks, and I looked down at my little temperature thing; it was just over thirty nine degrees, and I thought, "Man, if you ask them why, they'd say, 'Well, because we love frostbite.' I mean, we love golf. Go for it, man. Go for it." The friendships of filial love are developed along those same interests.
It's possible to say to somebody when you say "I love you" to really be saying nothing more than "I love you" because you love the same things I love, or I love you because, well, you're you're a lot like me. That can be. Good for mutual attraction in regards to friendship, but dangerous if it forms the foundation of a marriage.
Now you might not be happy with me using this illustration, and I just live to make you happy. You know that, but I think of all of the dating apps. And I've had a lot of people in the church. That's how we met. That's great.
In fact, they've come a long way. Christian sites now demand a testimony. I think that's super helpful. Very important. Back in the old days, it was just a survey.
You kind of filled it out, and to find your match, it's all based on philia, love, based on common interests.
Well, look at that. Look at that match. He likes he likes coffee. And long conversations too. I said that guy's going to fill out what he really means.
What he really means is he's a grouchy until he's had his coffee, and he loves long conversations. If you're going to talk to him about fantasy football, that's what he really means. He's not going to fill that out. Survey. He's going to say, "I love you know long walks." In the snow, I I love holding hands in the in the rain.
I love I love newborn kittens. He's either lying or he's weird. Run from that guy! Run! I've had several couples tell me over the years, "Yeah, that's how we met," but boy, are we ever different!
Than we thought we were, and I would smile and say, "That's right." God calls that balance. A more popular Greek word for love was the word eros. This gives us the word erotic. It's a sexual love. Nothing wrong.
This is a legitimate word, so long as it's guarded by marital commitment. This was the most common word, and. The apostles' generation—it's the most common word today. Without the commitment of agape, self-giving, self-sacrificing, eros becomes a egotistical, pleasure-hunting, self-seeking pursuit. It will conquer, and then discard.
For a new a new model, it'll run out of gas. That's what we're seeing today, of course. In one interview, an actress I read said that her relationships were good for about six months. Why? She didn't know.
Here it is. It was based on Philea or Aras. What's interesting is that the Holy Spirit never uses the word eros in any New Testament passage describing love. It will use a word the world ignores, agape. Agape will show up over three hundred times in the New Testament, which is a way of saying God is going to teach us.
That He loves us in a way we can't imagine. We we don't know much about it. He's going to teach us how to love Him in a way we have to learn to love one another in marriage, in the relationship of a church, in family. Again, the average Christian in Peter's day would say, "We're going to need more help here to explain this supplement." Perhaps that's why there's more commentary in the New Testament on agape than any other supplement in Peter's list. Let's look at one of those commentaries.
Go over to one Corinthians chapter thirteen. There's an entire chapter on agape.
Now you might say, "Well, I know about that because that's that's you know hallmark, and that's where it gets all its material." Well, has it ever occurred to you that First Corinthians thirteen was not written to couples; it was written to Christians. Couples could use it, but it's written to Christians—single, married, young, and old alike.
Now, before we dive in, let's let's notice the introduction he writes here in verse one. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not agape, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol.
Now, in other words, what he's saying is, if I know all the languages on the planet, glossa is the word used here for tongue, if I glossary, if I know all of the vocabulary of every language on Earth, and I am as fluent as an angel. Who, by the way, have you ever noticed? Whenever they appear in the Old Testament or New Testament, and they address a human being, they speak in that human being's language.
So Paul is saying, if I'm as fluent as an angel, I know every language on the planet. Yet I don't care about the people to whom I'm talking. I'm just making noise. I'm just a clanging symbol. We had some incredible music this weekend.
If you're visiting today, we actually get to enjoy this every Sunday, and it's wonderful. And you know those cymbals—they they are crashing this morning at just the right crescendo, aren't they? But have you ever thought about the fact that you've never heard a cymbal solo? There are no symphonies written for cymbals. It doesn't mean we don't like them.
We love it—a percussion. I sit right behind it. I know it's coming, and man, is that a wonderful crescendo! They're perfect when they crash at the right time. Paul is saying here that if you speak with eloquence and you don't care about people, all they're going to hear is noise.
It's kind of like that Charlie Brown Christmas special that'll be on TV. You know, the teacher. All it is is that—that's kind of what he's talking about. Just noise.
Now, somebody in his audience might say, "Well, wait, Paul. If you're delivering God's word, who cares how you feel about the people? If you're telling the truth to someone." And you're delivering the scripture. Who cares if you care? It's almost like he's expecting that response.
He adds another qualifier, verse two. If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and have all knowledge, now wait a second. What is he saying? Even if I notice how he uses himself as the example, an apostle. The person you're supposed to listen to, even if I, as an apostle, deliver God's truth.
In fact, if I have all prophetic power, I can tell the future, and it's always accurate. Who wouldn't want to hear that? But I don't have agape; just noise. If I understand all mysteries, I mean, if I can understand God's ways that are not yet explained, then explain them to you. I mean, who would want to listen to that?
Without love, just noise, just noise. Even if you have all knowledge, Paul adds. There, I mean, you're a walking Bible commentary. Anybody asks you a question. You can take them right to chapter and verse.
Give them the biblical definition, the explanation, and the application. And wow, no, not at all. You don't love them? Noise, just noise. In fact, Paul writes here at the end of this: "I, without love, am nothing." That is strong language.
In other words, without love, our lives add up to one big zero. Peter says you're going to lead an ineffective and unfruitful life. This is why Jesus told his disciples, "Your world is going to identify you as belonging to the true living God. How by your agape." Your love for one another, John thirteen thirty five. Jesus did not say, "And they will know that you are my disciples by your grade point average." Thank God for that.
They're going to know you're my disciples because you are eloquent and you are so knowledgeable of the Bible. You have such deep insight. You've got an answer from Scripture for everything. No, by love. Because the world knows nothing of it, it is so distinctive.
No wonder Peter says, "Give it all diligence. Give it everything you've got to add this to your life." And we need Paul's commentary because we're not going to love. We're going to learn love from the world. The love of the world is is self centered. It's self enamored.
Even when it seems to do something good for someone else, they're doing it because it makes themselves feel better. They may be blind to it. It isn't natural. It is supernatural. Because the world will teach us how to be self enamored, how to be self promoting, how to love ourselves.
It is self love. We're all about that, and it. That's very natural. Started revealing itself at a very young age. I mean, do you think down there in the toddler room this morning, with the two-year-olds, that it is one demonstration of of sharing after another, random acts of sharing?
Hey, my mother gave me too many Cheerios for the morning. Here, everybody. Cheerios on the house. No, I've had this toy long enough. Who wants it?
No, it isn't natural. It has to be learned by the Spirit of God. And if it weren't, we're not for God's revelation. We'd be scratching our heads today to say, "I don't have any idea what you're talking about." What is it?
Well, Paul says, "Without it, I'm a zero." All right, Paul, what is it? What he does next is he gives us fifteen verbs. This is not the start of a new series, so relax. We'll cover what we can today, but he's going to give fifteen present tense verbs. I like the way David Garland writes it.
He says, "Agape can only be defined by what you see it do and what you see it not do." Nearly impossible to come up with a sentence definition. Is it a feeling? Is it a decision?
Well, frankly, it involves both. But it is observed in what you do and what you do not do.
So, here we go. He writes in verse four about twin sisters. I like to think of it this way: Paul writes, "Love is patient and kind," and that's important. They're together. Why?
Because it's possible to be patient without being kind about it. You're going to wait, but you're going to tell them you're not happy. You're waiting. You're going to tap your fingers, and you're going to huff and puff, and you're going to scowl. Agape determines to act with patience and kindness to those disappointing moments, those obstacles, those difficult people in life.
And I wonder what tests of patience and kindness. Are you going through today? Paul goes on to write, "Love does not envy; it's not envious." William Barclay writes, "There are only two classes of people in our country: those who are millionaires and those who want to be." But the verb runs deeper than just desiring to be rich. It's actually a dangerous warning. Carries the idea of boiling over.
Someone who fervently desires what someone else has, and they're not happy about it. In fact, this particular word not only refers to to wanting something that someone else has, but it wants that other person to not have what they have, and you have it instead. That destroys goodwill. I they got it. I want it.
I don't want them to have it. It's infantile, but it is destructive. Paul adds now, verse four: Agape does not boast. You could translate it: Love does not brag about oneself. The one who loves others is not the subject of their own ever-ready.
Never-ending conversations, or looking for somebody else that can begin to talk with about themselves. The one who does this is merely proving they're in love with themselves.
Solomon, in that wonderful proverb, chapter twenty-seven, verse two, says, "Let another man praise you, and not your own lips." I wonder if social media—I'm going to meddle again. Is perhaps one of the most popular ways or forms of bragging in our generation today. Be careful! Be careful! Envy that just came before this word.
Envy is wanting the life someone else has. Bragging is wanting people to envy the life you have. So be careful. May not be helping. People with what you post.
Paul moves to the end of verse four to write, "Love is not arrogant." Your translation might read, "Love is not puffed up." That's a great, a great description. It isn't full of itself. It isn't puffed up. Remember, Marcia and I sitting through our baccalaureate when I was finishing seminary in Dallas, and Chuck Smith was our speaker, and he said, "Now that you've gotten your graduation, get over it." Great advice.
Now that you've gotten that promotion at work, don't remind everybody about it.
Now that you've been honored in some way, get over it. Don't get puffed up. That was Stephen Davy, and this is Wisdom for the Heart, a production of Wisdom International. Learn more at wisdomonline.org.
