What's Love Got to Do with It? First John

May the mumbling commence!

Yesterday, LaHaye’s book came in the mail.  I am refreshing my mind by re-reading the book, and I am a little less than halfway through it.  The basic reading plan that I have begun is to read the entire Bible in three years.  Here is the general plan that I will follow from LaHaye’s How to Study the Bible for Yourself:

Year One:

First John seven times, John twice (reading four chapters a day), Mark twice (also four chapters a day), Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, First Thessalonians, Second Thessalonians. First Timothy, Second Timothy, Titus, Philemon (each of these letters are read in a day), Luke (four chapters a day), Acts (four chapters a day), Romans (four chapters a day), and the entire New Testament (three chapters a day).

Year Two:

The Wisdom literature in the Old Testament (one chapter of Proverbs and two chapters from Psalms or Job or Ecclesiastes or the Song of Solomon each day), First John thirty times, Ephesians thirty times, Philippians thirty times, Colossians thirty times, First Thessalonians thirty times, James thirty times, Romans 5-8 thirty times, and John 14-17 thirty times.

Year Three:

Read the entire Bible in a year – Monday through Saturday read one New Testament chapter and two Old Testament chapters; Sunday read five Old Testament chapters.

Quite a regimen!  Will you make the commitment to steep yourself in Scripture with me these next three years?  LaHaye speaks about the resolution of “no Bible no breakfast” or “no devotion, no dinner” or “no Scripture, no supper” – depending on your daily rhythms. 

It means taking the words of Jesus seriously that we do not live on bread alone but on every Word that comes from the mouth of God.  We find time to eat each day, so we can find time to study Scripture every day.  The former feeds our physical bodies the latter feeds our spirit.  LaHaye bases this resolution upon Job’s statement in Job 23:12 – “I have not departed from the commands of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread.”

It is a labor of love to study God’s Word daily…  So, welcome to day three of First John.  Yesterday, I focused on the author’s statement that God is light.  Today (and the next day or so) I will focus on another image of God that is found in First John.  Read a couple of verses from First John chapter four:

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (Verse 8)

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. (Verse 16)

God is love.  Many of us have heard this before.  But, in the context of the society that we live in, love has lost almost any meaning that I would want to associate with God.  To quote a song by Tina Turner, “What’s love got to do with it?” 

We need to unpack this word – love.  We need to define it not as the world around us defines it but as God defines it.  And First John is a good a place to start as any.  I counted how many times love (and loves and loved) comes up in the five chapters of First John.  The total is forty-four times!

What is love?  Let’s study that in First John in the next couple of days or so.  It is important to understand love, because God is love.  The better we know love from God’s point of view, the better we will know God and understand what God would have us do.

Enough mumbling for now…

Peace Out