WHAT IS “THE MORE EXCELLENT WAY?”
1 CORINTHIANS 13
By John Romaine
In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, chapters 12 and 14
teach the church how to properly use spiritual gifts. Even though the Holy Spirit gave these gifts to edify the church, Paul tells them there is a “more excellent way”.
That is, there is something from God that will edify the church even more than spiritual gifts. He explains the “more
excellent way” in chapter 13, the much loved revelation of God’s love. This word love was translated from
the Greek word, agape.
The New Testament was written in Greek and many years later translated into English.
There were four different Greek words for four different kinds of love, but each was translated into the single English word,
love. Why did this happen? Translators were given the task of translating by using the least amount of English words possible.
This made translations easy to read but robbed the reader of wonderful insights into what these Greek words actually meant.
God’s agape love is one-of-a-kind love. Agape is what God is. It is His nature.
“God IS love”. This is how God naturally behaves. It is the normal way God reacts toward all His creation.
Agape is the reason why God sent His Son to die for all man-kind. To understand some of the characteristics of agape we look
at verses 4-7 of 1 Corinthians 13.
JESUS CREATES THE WORD "AGAPE":
UNDERSTANDING THE CHRISTIAN GOD
I believe in the Christian God because the world needs a God who is perfect love. I
need a God like that. Other world religions do not come remotely close to the mighty power of the Christian’s revelation
of our God of love. The Bible documents the progressive unfolding of this salvation for man and the scope and depth of that
unfolding is beyond our wildest imagination. Its beauty is unparallel in all human writings. The story of Christian redemption
is Divine fine art. It is well documented in history and carries the message which remains supreme to hopeful, faith filled
people around the world.
The dynamic expression of God’s love through His Son Jesus Christ swept around the
world in such a way that Christianity is the largest religion among the religions of the world. The hope of the future of
man-kind can only be found in the discovery of more truth about the love of God as found in His Son Jesus.
JESUS QUESTIONS PETER’S LOVE:
The Gospel of John, chapter 21
The setting in this chapter is Jesus appearing to His disciples after His resurrection. He
begins to question Peter about his love for Him. Jesus asked Peter if he loved him and Peter answered that he did love
Him. Many do not know that the word Jesus used when He asked if Peter loved Him is a different word Peter used when
he answered that he did love Him. The word Jesus used is the Greek word agapa. The word Peter used was the Greek
word phileo. Jesus asked Peter “do you agape me” and Peter answered “I phileo you”. Jesus
asked a second time, “Do you agape me” and Peter answered that he phileo Him. Then Jesus asked the third time
if Peter phileo Him. When Jesus asked Peter this, the Bible says Peter ‘was grieved in his heart’ and answered
that His Lord knew all things and Peter said “You know I phileo you."
What is the significance of this? Some commentators say these two words are interchangeable
and there is no significance. Greek scholars say that this is a perfect example of our need to understand the original
language of the New Testament, Greek or we will not correctly understand God’s Word.
It has also been pointed out that most translators of the Bible did their translations by
using a rule to use as few words as possible in order to keep their translations easily understood.
However, when we understand the difference in the meaning of these two words a world of deep
understanding is discovered.
Both these words can simply be translated love. But there are different kinds of love.
And it is commonly agreed among all Christians that love is the most important idea when we talk about the supreme attribute
of our Christian God; the fact that He IS love. This separates and elevates the Christian revelation of our true
God above all who claim to worship other true gods. So to better understand this word’ love’ is to see right
into the heart of what we believe as Christians. The more we understand this idea of God’s agape love the more
power we find to know God and to walk in His truth.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AGAPE AND PHILEO
Let me start with phileo. It is the word for “fondness”. It is emotional
and means that “I like you”. We have friends and they are special people to us. For various reasons we feel
a closeness to them. We may have grown up with them, worked, worshiped, or had fun with them. It is human in nature.
Most of us have and enjoy friendships. But the word Jesus used is an entirely different word, agape.
Agape is a giving love. It is not in a relationship with others in order to receive
something from the others. Its nature is to give. This is the nature of our Christian God, our God of the Bible.
One good example of Paul’s use of this word is when he tells husbands to love (agape) their wives. It is not enough
for them to have phileo for their wives. God wants them also to be self-sacrificing for them. To treat them as
well as they treat themselves. People may think that wives want them to be more romantic, but women really want men to give
up their time and pride for them.
Jesus was asking Peter to move up from friendship with Him into a place of relationship where
he would be giving up more of himself. The root cause of Peter’s lack of agape was that he had not yet learned
how to receive that kind of love from Jesus. Peter treated Jesus like a hero but Peter needed someone more than a friend
and hero. Peter needed a forgiving, merciful Savior. Peter was a self-centered and self-sufficient man.
He told the Lord: “See all these disciples here Lord? I will always be more loyal and faithful to you.
I will never deny you!” And he did do just that before Jesus went to His cross.
Now, after the resurrection Jesus asks Peter if he loves Him out of agape but Peter can only
answer that he loves Him with phileo. This is the root cause for Peter’s failure of denying the Lord three times.
This meeting Jesus had with Peter was to teach Peter what was lacking in him that was not strong enough to keep Peter from
denying his Lord three times on His way to the cross. It is not that Peter did not love His Lord; but that Peter did
not love his Lord in the right way. He loved Him with fondness (phileo), not with selflessness (agape). Having agape
is us only happens when we admit our failures, weaknesses and sins and allow the Lord to forgive us.
The idea of loving and serving the Lord out of agape requires that we walk with Him in humility,
constantly leaning on His goodness and mercy. Peter had bragged to the Lord that he loved Him more than the others disciples.
He was basing his love for Jesus on his own strength and his own will power; his own ability to be pleasing to the Lord. And
he compared himself to the other disciples, which is the work of our broken nature, broken by Adam and Eve’s disobedience
to God.
The only way Peter could walk with the Lord was to live in the Lord’s constant goodness
and mercy toward him. King David declared that the Lord was his Shepherd and that “surely goodness and mercy will
follow me all the days of his life”. That’s the only way we descendants of Adam are able to walk in fellowship
with our God of compassion. We must learn to walk every minute of every day in God’s merciful, forgiving love.
SCIENCE AND RELIGION
Just as the various fields of science did not create what they study, Christians did not
create what we study, the Holy Scriptures. I like to compare science and religion to show how both groups discover truth.
First some thoughts about why I believe in the sanctity of the Old and New Testaments.
Why I believe they are the grounds for our faith and remain the hope for all the future salvation which God wants to come
into our world.
CREATION, ISRAEL, THE GOSPLES AND THE EPISTLES
The insights scientist have unlocked from their many of fields:
It’s only fair to remember the great amount of good the Roman Church has done down
through the centuries. Education, helping the poor and sick. Spreading the truth of God in revealing His Son to
providing salvation to all who believe. The building of great churches. The Godly example of many great
men and women of faith. In all the things that have harmed and misled people, there is also the truth of the mighty
good that was accomplished. It is too easy just to ridicule and denounce and not give praise where it is due.
So much of Christianity was built on the Roman Catholic Church. To deny this would be dishonest and misleading.
Before the Reformation which challenged the false doctrines of the church, it must be remembered
that at that time there was little outside of the Catholic Church that was Christian.
The gathering of the Gospels and the Epistles was accomplished by the church.
Great intellectuals such as Jerome who translated the whole Old and New Testament into Latin
were accomplished in Bethlehem 400 AD. The early Roman Church safe-guarded the Holy Scriptures.
Augustine, a Roman Catholic bishop wrote some of the most beautiful personal spiritual experiences
ever written. His great scholarship is still revered by all theologians to this day.
There are countless persons of great Christian character who personified the lovely idea
of all we think about when we use the word ‘Christian’.
Many Catholic organizations such as were formed by Catholic monks showed to the world God’s
love and compassion. Dominicans, Franciscans etc. who worked in the fields and taught school in the evenings.
Celibate and devote in prayer and study.
The various orders of nuns who took the lowly place of never marrying and serving Christ
with humble hearts of servants from day to day in cheerful devotion known only to God.
