Tag Archives: hates a brother or sister

WHAT IS HATRED?

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WHAT IS HATRED?

Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. And He has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must love their brother and sister (1 John 4: 20-21).

What comes to mind when you read the word “hate”? Do you think of actions like insulting, swearing, ignoring or deliberately harming the person you hate? Hatred may include treating someone cruelly, for example, but the Bible’s version of hatred is more explicit than that.

Jesus connected anger with murder.

You have heard that it was said to people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment (Matt. 5: 21-22a).

Hatred, like anger, begins in the heart. When one is angry with someone, for whatever reason, one has an underlying attitude of contempt. It is impossible for one person to make another angry. “You make me angry!” is not true. A person chooses to respond in anger when another provokes him.  If he dwells on the offence long enough, he will begin to hate the offender.

However, hatred is more than an attitude towards another person. One does not have to hold malice in the heart to hate. Hatred is as much indifference to another’s need as ill-will is towards that person.

Jesus told a parable in Matt. 25, which illustrates this point. At the end of the age, when He gathers the nations for judgment, He will measure righteousness by an unexpected standard. How did the individual treat his brother? God recognises that people express their love for Him by the way they treat one another. If someone sees a brother in need and does nothing about it, He interprets their neglect as hatred.

“But isn’t that a bit harsh?” you may ask. In what way can we show our love for God? We cannot do anything for God to express our love for Him except love His people. How can we love His people? We can do whatever we can to make their lives comfortable. Jesus said that we ought to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, visit the sick and the prisoner and relieve suffering wherever possible. He does not expect us to save the world. However, there are simple things we can do meet people’s need where we are.

Assisting people in need does not mean that we must only give them money or goods. There are many ways to show God’s love to those who cross our path every day. A kind word or a word of encouragement goes a long way to lift the spirits of a disheartened individual. We can offer practical help in many different ways by giving our time and attention or, sometimes, just to listen. A listening ear often does wonders for a downcast soul.

What does Jesus ask of us, His children? He wants us to be aware of the people around us. We are often so self-absorbed that we are oblivious of the pain others suffer. We have much to give if we turn our attention away from ourselves. Becoming aware of others and intervening where we can is the right thing to do.

However, Jesus did not instruct us to become busybodies. We need to respect the dignity and privacy of others. We must step in and help only when people value our assistance, not when we become interfering or controlling.

We can just as easily steal from another when we withhold help from him as when we take what does not belong to us. We need to be aware that we express our love for Jesus by our obedience to His commands. He summed up every detail of His desire for our lives in the two great commandments of the New Covenant:

And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 1 John 3:23

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

LOVE IS ACTION

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LOVE IS ACTION

Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him. This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth (1 John 3: 15-18).

As I read through John’s letter, I become aware that he is steeped in the teachings of Jesus.

You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.’(Matt. 5: 21-22).

We know that these are the words of Jesus but what was He getting at? The act of murder begins far back in the mind of the perpetrator. John missed out all the in-between bits and went to the heart of the issue. Jesus taught His disciples that murder begins in the attitude of the murderer long before he commits the act.

There was something Jesus hated with a passion in the hearts of the Pharisees – contempt for another person. This is the heart of idolatry – “I am better than you.” Arrogance, according to 1 Sam. 15: 23 is idolatry.

For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.

When one person elevates himself above another, the despised person is in his way and becomes dispensable. Long before the actual act of murder, the “murderer” has done the deed in his heart. 

Once again John is identifying the root which produces the fruit. God’s love cannot exist side by side with hatred in the same person. Any ill will towards another is the fruit of selfishness which is in that has never been changed by the power of God.

What did John mean by laying down our lives for our brothers? Did he literally mean that we must die for one another? It could in the context of the vicious persecution that threatened the lives of the Christians in John’s day. Believers were the targets of both Roman and Jewish hatred. It would have been easy for believers to retaliate with hatred towards their persecutors.

However, John makes the issue of loving our brothers far more basic. During the reign of Domitian, who was nick-named “the beast”, only those who worshipped him and received a mark to identify them as worshippers, were permitted to buy and sell at the local market. That left believers who refused to worship him and had, therefore not received his mark, destitute. “Laying down their lives” for their fellow believers was as simple as sharing their meagre supply of food or goods with them.

John was adamant that true love for God was measured, not in believing the right things but in doing the right things. How tragic that there are thousands of students in Bible Schools and universities across the world who are diligently studying theology and filling their heads with knowledge about God in the abstract so that they, in turn can pass on that knowledge to congregants in thousands of churches around the world while the hungry are still hungry and the poor are still poor. I know because I was one of them! Not once in the three-and-a-half years that I was in Bible College, was I taught that my ministry was to meet the needs of others at my expense.

Of Josiah, king of Judah, God said, through the prophet Jeremiah,

‘He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?’ declares the Lord (Jer. 22: 16).

Paul wrote to the Roman church that the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. If we are truly born of God, the love of God is in us, but it is up to us to express that love by giving it away to others in need. Hatred comes from the root of selfishness. Love is the fruit of a life that has been captivated by the love of God. The fruit displays the nature of the root.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

HATRED IS DOING NOTHING

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HATRED IS DOING NOTHING

Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. Anyone who loves his brother or sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. He does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded him. (1 John 2: 9-11)

Isn’t it strange how many of us have moved the goalposts to soothe our conscience so that we don’t have to do anything about the rifts and schisms we are part of in our families or in the church family, but John is very clear about the standards within the family.

What are darkness and light and what are the implications of “walking in darkness” or “walking in the light”? Darkness is essentially the absence of light. Light reveals and makes visible what is there. When a light is turned off or a lamp extinguished in a room, everything that the light revealed is no longer visible. It is still there but it can’t be seen.

Before we came to faith in Christ, Jesus said that we were in darkness, walking in ignorance of God and His ways. Ignorance, for example, is a form of mental darkness. Our minds have not been informed. Unbelief keeps us in spiritual darkness. Everything we can know about God has been revealed but we have not received it and therefore remain ignorant about Him, His requirements for us and the life He promises us when we return to Him.

True light is to be found in God and in His Word. Paul said that what can be known about Him has been revealed through creation, but people deliberately choose to ignore what creation is telling them and choose to believe their own lies. David was conscious of the unceasing voice of creation, calling out the greatness and the glory of God in silent witness, day and night.

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the end of the world. (Psa. 19: 1-4a)

Wilful sin keeps people in darkness. Although they have the voice of creation and the voice of conscience, they choose to remain in the dark because they love their sin.

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. (John 3: 19-20)

It is easy for believers to sit back and think that we are okay because we believe in Jesus. We are not in darkness any longer. But Jesus warns us, “Not so fast!” From His perspective, walking in darkness is as much about not doing the right thing as it is about doing the wrong thing. We can congratulate ourselves because we don’t hate our brother or sister, either in our natural family or in our Christian family, but what to we do to show our love to them?

How many times did Jesus fall foul of the Pharisees because He healed people on the Sabbath? On one occasion, He released a woman from a disabling condition that kept her bend over and unable to look up for eighteen years. The synagogue leader announced to the people:

‘There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.’  The Lord answered him, ‘You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?’ (Luke 13: 15-16)

For Jesus not to do anything for her just because it was the Sabbath was as wrong as doing something wicked.  

To John, then, walking in darkness by hating one’s brother or sister was as much about ignoring their need as it was about actively holding grudges against them. In chapter 3 of his letter, he spells it out quite clearly.

If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. (1 John 3: 17-18)

When we choose to ignore a need we can do something about, we are as much in darkness as the pagan who bows down to an idol and calls it “God”.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Hatred Is doing Nothing

Bible Study, , , ,

HATRED IS DOING NOTHING

Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. Anyone who loves his brother or sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. He does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded him. (1 John 2: 9-11)

Isn’t it strange how many of us have moved the goalposts to soothe our conscience so that we don’t have to do anything about the rifts and schisms we are part of in our families or in the church family. But John is very clear about the standards within the family.

What are darkness and light and what are the implications of “walking in darkness” or “walking in the light”? Darkness is essentially the absence of light. Light reveals and makes visible what is there. When a light is turned off or a lamp extinguished in a room, everything that the light revealed is no longer visible. It is still there but it can’t be seen.

Before we came to faith in Christ, Jesus said that we were in darkness, walking in ignorance of God and His ways. Ignorance, for example, is a form of mental darkness. Our minds have not been informed. Unbelief keeps us in spiritual darkness. Everything we can know about God has been revealed but we have not received it and therefore remain ignorant about Him, His requirements for us and the life He promises us when we return to Him.

True light is to be found in God and in His Word. Paul said that what can be known about Him has been revealed through creation, but people deliberately choose to ignore what creation is telling them and choose to believe their own lies. David was conscious of the unceasing voice of creation, calling out the greatness and the glory of God in silent witness, day and night.

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the end of the world. (Psa. 19: 1-4a)

Wilful sin keeps people in darkness. Although they have the voice of creation and the voice of conscience, they choose to remain in the dark because they love their sin.

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. (John 3: 19-20)

It is easy for believers to sit back and think that we are okay because we believe in Jesus. We are not in darkness any longer. But Jesus warns us, “Not so fast!” From His perspective, walking in darkness is as much about not doing the right thing as it is about doing the wrong thing. We can congratulate ourselves because we don’t hate our brother or sister, either in our natural family or in our Christian family.

How many times did He fall foul of the Pharisees because He healed people on the Sabbath? On one occasion He released a woman from a disabling condition that kept her bend over and unable to look up for eighteen years. The synagogue leader announced to the people:

‘There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.’  The Lord answered him, ‘You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?’ (Luke 13: 15-16)

For Jesus not to do anything for her just because it was the Sabbath was as wrong as doing something really wicked.

To John, then, walking in darkness by hating one’s brother or sister was as much about ignoring their need as it was about actively holding grudges against them. In chapter 3 of his letter, he spells it out quite clearly.

If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. (1 John 3: 17-18)

When we choose to ignore a need we can do something about, we are as much in darkness as the pagan who bows down to an idol and calls it “God”.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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