Love Defined

Today I was sitting in Caffe Buono located in the heart of Jonesboro, Arkansas, to enjoy a cup of coffee and fellowship among friends. I began to people watch and was struck at the comparisons of love expressed between those of a marriage and those in a courtship (dating). I saw two sets of couples- I assumed they were because of their physical contact- embracing one another differently but in a particular pattern. The "courters" (those in a courtship; dating relationship) sat close, would touch each other on the face and shoulders, and they held hands. The married couples seemed to be more into the mix of fellowship, saying hello to acquaintances while the "courters" conversed amongst themselves. It hit me as I soaked in this that we each define love so incredibly different. I started to wonder if love could be objectively defined.

Webster's dictionary establishes love as "unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another" and "strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties; attraction based on sexual desire; affection and tenderness felt by lovers; affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests." While these are all valid, I believe more can come from love than one expects. Love is not defined by man since our abilities to comprehend its mysteries are limited. We are not necessary objective rational beings but rather beings who try to rationalize objectivity's. Love is an subjective item, or in other words, it is a truth experienced different among individuals.

All of human kindness, compassion, and joy can be defined within love. Kindness is a state of affection through action. Compassion means literally "to suffer with" and joy is a state of happiness or felicity. Love is so broad it cannot be defined by a small definition. The couples sitting in the coffee shop all had there different expressions of love. The young boyfriend and girlfriend expressed their kindness through physical touch while the love expressed by the married couple was seen joy as they appeared content and well.

As for me, it reflected on my hopes for a Christian marriage. Considering what my last blog essayed, I say it played out in life at the coffee shop.I may be criticized for what I hope for but so be it. I seek not the type of love that is given so cheaply that one merely "thinks" they have love for me; no, rather, I would aspire for such kinship that Christ unites me with a Christian woman with the same compassions for serving God. God will deliver me a girl that I doubt knows now, as me the same, that one day our friendship will blossom into courtship the same way a small seed with some rain and sunshine blooms to a beautiful root to then a flower. She and I will both understand our friendship and aspire for more, as we both understand that one must befriend before courting.I do not know the name of my destined wife, nor her location. I don't know whether she likes italian food or enjoys golf games. I know her faith. I know she will be, as I am, fearful of a decision of courtship. But I know the Lord is sovereign and we are not. I know her longings for the Lord. I will know she is a woman that has such the beauty of Christ, her soul longs for the word of the Lord. Her purity and her love exists through her that one can see the love of God flow through her attributes. Oh, how peaceful the day shall be when I am able to tell this woman my love and hers in return. How joyful the day we realize that our friendship should be that growing seed! Christ gave himself as a fragrant offering (Esphesians 5:2) and did this as an act of love. It was defined as a sacrifice of oneself. So shall I emphasize, marrying this woman as uniting with her as a sacrifice of my adolescence into adulthood. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh according to Esphesians 5:31. Scripture is so profoundly mysterious yet so definite in explaining love. I shall love my wife the way Christ loved his people and his church. My defined love should be without blemish, the same way Christ had no spots when he sacrificed himself for us. Both male and female God created as equals; we shall submit to one another out of reverence to Christ (Esp. 5:21). How glorious the day God presents me with the knowledge of who I will have this with!

Sound to good to be true some may afford to me. I think it would be a miracle worth waiting for. I will admit, I fear the courting world. I must take a leap of faith on the grounds that I will not hinder my cause. Worldly relationships have destroyed the foundation of human love. We somehow believe that we date for fun and for pleasure; this idea, I will not be persuaded to follow. I do believe in love through the miracle of God's divine work. Yes, we can believe in miracles. I believe when two strangers are united together in Christian friendship, courtship, then marriage, the miracle and mysterious will of God is developed to such an definition of the love only He can deliver through His almighty, gracious, and merciful love.

(For a good read about love, relationships, and similar topics read "Boy Meets Girl" by Joshua Harris)

Dilemma's of Human Relationships

There is nothing more profound in human existence than the process of social interaction creating relationships. In each one of us, there is a foundation of want for relationships. I am not directly essaying the initimate, heteroerotic consanguinities, but rather our connections with other people. Most people (I say most as there are those with desire for very little human contact) desire to have others in their life. Hence we have marriages, boyfriends and girlfriends, best friends, accountability partners, roommates, counselors, pastors, rabbis, doctors, lawyers, et al, that have people in such positions for others. There is no career that is made independently. In other words, no jobs in the world are created for the better good of the person doing the job; we create some type of relationship with people through our jobs.

What then can we call these relationships 'dilemmas'? What creates a dilemma with people? Let me break these down into two points:

1. Pride Dilemma
Typically, our (American) social world pushes for independence. This occasionally leaves some to feel they need no others. Some are joyed to call ourselves "non-conformists." However, there is no such. When one trys not to conform the social expectations and means neccesary to goal acheivement in any society, they believe they have started a revolution within themselves when actually, these types of behaviors have been done before. This 'pride dilemma' exhorts that man should live his life to fulfill his wants. This is okay to an extent in that man has no will to freely choose everything for himself. He must, to survive, rely on others.

2. Dependance Dilemma
Independence is not a negative connection with others. Man cannot be expected to have everything afforded to him in order to grow with others. Many times people are expected continually have relationships with others so there means necessary to human growth is based on someone else. These folks rely on others to give them their means.


What portion is these of any use? How then can I say that this is of some grave importance for people to consider about how they interact with those neighbored to them? I believe these dilemmas create several problems that inheirt dangers of honesty, integrity, love, and humility, within the 5 types of relationships.

1. Familyhood
2. Acquantice
3. Friendship
4. Courtship (dating)
5. Marriage

No human will exist without these 5 types-unless one excludes themselves from the world. Man and woman alike will experience these. With these dilemmas, I believe the reasons we have items like divorce. Tackling divorce, it is likely the man and woman either became acquantices and jumped into marriage without first stepping through the line of human interactional growth. People that get into courtships that fall into these dilemmas are susceptible to poor relationships.

What does this mean for me right now?
As a Christian, God has placed me on Earth to be pure, loving, humble, and most important, a being guided by His will. God created humans different. If there were not God, all humans- if any existed- would not be unique and diverse. Animals run off instict, humans are social beings that change ideas, norms, taboos, and activities with time. I see myself having the hopeful joy of a marriage. To achieve that, I must grow in friendship with a Christian woman. Our unique differences along with God's call, will create a desire for courtship, which is only in existence to determine if marriage is proper.

I am not seeking a worldly marriage, guided by the principles and foundations of current social norms and values. Rather, I am seeking one that symbolizes God's purpose of man and woman and to show value to how Christ loves His church.

Grace and peace be with you

Top 3 Must Reads

1. The Five Dilemmas of Calvinim by Craig Brown.
Author Craig Brown takes five misconceptions of calvinism. He uses scripture to answer the top five reasons to seemingly disprove this theology. Critics of this reformed theology focus on issues that are labeled as unbiblical. Craig Brown shows that scripture supports these misunderstandings to be very biblical indeed. It is a short read but very informative.

2. The Reasons for God: Belief in the Age of Skepticism by Timothy Keller
Author and Presbyterian Pastor Timothy Keller takes issues from atheists and skeptics of Christianity such as 'how can there only be one "God"?' and 'why would a "God" allow suffering?' An excerpt from the introduction explains that "Keller uses literature, philosophy, real-life conversations, and reasoning to explain how faith in a Christian God is a soundly rational belief, held by thoughtful people of intellectual integrity with a deep compassion for those who truly want to know the truth."


3. The Cross Centered Life: Keeping the Gospel The Main Thing by CJ Mahaney
Sometimes it is easy to forget why Christians do what we do. Mahaney reminds believers to not take Christ out of Christianity. God's grace and mercy for His people should give us the joy in our salvation.

Calvinism explained by J.I. Packer

An outstanding quotation from J. I. Packer (from his book ‘Quest for Godliness’ and his preface to John Owen’s classic work ‘The Death of Death in the Death of Christ’):


“Now the real nature of Calvinistic soteriology becomes plain. It is no artificial oddity, nor a product of overbold logic. Its central confession, that God saves sinners, that Christ redeemed us by his blood is the witness both of the Bible and of the believing heart.

The Calvinist is the Christian who confesses before men in his theology just what he believes in his heart before God when he prays. He thinks and speaks at all times of the sovereign grace of God in the way that every Christian does when he pleads for the souls of others, or when he obeys the impulse of worship which rises unbidden within him, prompting him to deny himself all praise and to give all the glory of his salvation to his Savior.


Calvinism is the natural theology written on the heart of the new man in Christ, whereas Arminianism is an intellectual sin of infirmity, natural only in the sense in which all such sins are natural, even to the regenerate. Calvinistic thinking is the Christian being himself on the intellectual level; Arminian thinking is the Christian failing to be himself through the weakness of the flesh.

Calvinism is what the Christian church has always held and taught when its mind has not been distracted by controversy and false traditions from attending to what Scripture actually says; that is the significance of the patristic testimonies to the teaching of the 'five points', which can be quoted in abundance. (Owen appends a few on redemption; a much larger collection may be seen in John Gill's The Cause of God and Truth.)


So that really it is most misleading to call this soteriology 'Calvinism' at all, for it is not a peculiarity of John Calvin and the divines of Dort, but a part of the revealed truth of God and the catholic Christian faith. 'Calvinism' is one of the 'odious names' by which down the centuries prejudice has been raised against it. But the thing itself is just the biblical gospel.”


(Found through reformationtheology.com)