Whatever happened to loving one another?

Beige rope, loosely looped into the shape of a heart - on boards of weathered wood against a dark green background

When Jesus birthed his church, he created a place where “whosoever will” can belong, where we can grow up in him, and relate to each other deeply and well.

When we create church systems, we may think our churches will do for us what Jesus had in mind. But trying to build relationships in such systems can be like trying to put two magnets together the wrong way around.

Every time you move the magnets toward each other, they push apart. But also, as they jump back and you press in, the magnets offset one from the other, leaving one up; and the other, down.

As we sincerely try to comply with our systems, they separate us and sort us. Thus, they foster a kind of belonging that requires, not love, but rather, knowing our place.¹

While we keep struggling to make our way work, Jesus is quietly building his church. He is transforming those who say yes to him. He is growing us up. He is growing us together. He is the Way where there was none.

This is new and key

On the eve of his death and resurrection, our Lord said one thing five times:

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. (John 13:34-35)

My command is this – to love one another just as I have loved you … This I command you – to love one another. (John 15:12, 17 NET)

God has always called his people to love. He has counted love crucial to everything else. In Moses’ day, God told his people:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. (Deut. 6:5)

Love your neighbor as yourself. (Lev. 19:18)

Jesus called those the two greatest commandments. He told the story of the Good Samaritan to clarify the second one. In short: Face down self-centeredness, resentment and fear – and spend yourself for people.

So how is Jesus’ command to “love one another” a new command? How does living it out look different from what we may have thought? And why is it so often absent in the church?

LOVE! (agapao)

Love with Jesus’ agapé love. He said:

As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

Good news! Jesus also said:

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever – the Spirit of truth … he lives with you and will be in you. (John 14:16-17)

Then Jesus prayed:

Righteous Father … I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them. (John 17:25, 26)

Because of all that, we’re no longer limited by our own notions of what is and isn’t love. We’re no longer limited by our own ability (and inability) to love.

By the Spirit of Christ within us,
we can love with his love.

ONE ANOTHER! (allelon)

Also crucial and often overlooked, this love involves both giving and receiving.

The Greek word allelon appears 100 times in the New Testament. Typically, it is translated “one another,” or “each other.” Wherever we see this term, it indicates that the action taken is reciprocal, mutual. It doesn’t just flow one way!

Here are a few examples:²

Accept one another. (Rom. 15:7)
Honor one another. (Rom. 12:10)
Live in harmony with one another. (Rom. 12:16)
Admonish and counsel and instruct one another. (Rom. 15:14 AMP)
Encourage one another. (2 Cor. 13:11)
Serve one another. (Gal. 5:13)
Carry one another’s burdens. (Gal. 6:2)
Bear with one another. (Eph. 4:2)
Be kind to one another.³ (Eph. 4:32)
Submit to one another. (Eph. 5:21)
Offer hospitality to one another. (1 Peter 4:9)
Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another. (James 5:16)
Spur one another on toward love and good deeds. (Heb. 10:24)

Together, the New Testament’s one-anothering commands show us how the Lord’s love looks as his people live it out. And every one of these commands insists:

As we relate to others who know Christ,
all that embodies his love
is to flow both ways.

Wise counsel is not to flow from one party only; and submission, only from the other. Teaching is not to flow from one party only; and serving, only from the other. Rather, in Christ, we serve and teach one another. We yield to and challenge one another. We offer hospitality and speak truth to one another. We pray for and confess to one another.

A different dynamic entirely

Loving one another shows us to be God’s people, for it cannot be done apart from him.

The Father, Son and Holy Spirit operate in beautiful mutual submission, mutual honor, mutual love. What’s more, this Triune Lord has made it possible for his people to relate to one another the same way.

As each of us yields to Jesus as Lord, his Spirit fills us. He produces a new capacity in us to reflect his character, to walk in his ways. As we press in to know our Lord, he nurtures and strengthens that capacity. As we relate to each other in him, he teaches us to seek together to hear him clearly and follow him fully. He empowers the one-anothering he commands.

Loving one another creates a different dynamic entirely from the one that human systems use.

In our organizations, some people are in charge. They call the shots. They enforce the rules. The people “under” them are to follow. Otherwise, chaos ensues.

In our organizations, the order is fixed; the rules, weighted; the roles, prescribed. People are there for the organization, not the other way around. Those who do not control the system are expected to comply (and even contort) as needed, to fit into the system.

God’s kingdom has a higher order, a living order. It has leaders. It has rules. But none of that looks or works like our human organizations.

Our Lord makes rules for people, not people for the rules.⁴ By his grace, leaders lay down their lives – and call everyone up to maturity. By his Spirit, his people learn to reflect his holiness (his “entirely otherness”). And thus, his Body breathes with his life, yields to his touch, pulses with his love.

Where “lording it over” has no place

Jesus said:

You know that the rulers of the nations lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.

It will not be that way among you.

Instead whoever wants to become great among you will be your servant. (Matt. 20:25-26 EHV)

The apostle Paul identified many facets of loving one another. He also named key enemies of loving one another. Again and again, Paul warned of one enemy in particular:

Self-importance,
A “me first” attitude.⁵

Western church culture has done an interesting thing with Jesus’ words – and with Paul’s. It has turned them inside out. Overtly or covertly, we’re often taught:

Lording it over is actually servant leadership.
Celebrity and power and wealth are going to usher in Christ’s kingdom.
And we need to make sure we get in on it.

What’s more, our church cultures may frustrate us, and even hurt us, but they don’t demand nearly as much from us as our Lord’s messier way, his more excellent way, of learning to love each other as he loves us all.

Thing is, the systems that puff us up and put us down actively hinder God’s people from functioning as his church.

Meanwhile, Jesus embraces everyone whose lips and life declare him Lord. He is growing up and building together all those who, from a human view, are way too diverse to be “a people” – but now are the people of God.⁶

Loving one another in marriage

Repeatedly, the Lord stresses:

The two-way flow
of truly loving attitudes, words, acts
is key to Christlike relationships
among my people.

Does he then instruct husbands and wives to throw away that key? Does he order? “Husband, you alone lead and instruct. Wife, you alone serve and obey.”

Does the God who is love impose onto the most intimate of human relationships “roles” governed by a set of one-up, one-down rules?

Or does he intend that each marriage of two people who love him reflect the lifelong journey of learning also to love one another? Have we superimposed our views onto his call for mutual submission, mutual honor, mutual love?

Consider the passage in Ephesians 5 that addresses husbands and wives. It is set into a letter that urges us all to “be filled with the Spirit” and to “walk in the way of love.”⁷

What’s more, the entire passage we’ve used to teach marital hierarchy is designed to help both spouses flesh out this key aspect of loving one another:

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. (Eph. 5:21)

The instructions to wives and husbands in Colossians 3 also occur after a series of commands calling us to love one another in specific ways that include this:

Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. (Col. 3:16 NLT; see vv. 9–19)

There too, the calls, “wives, submit,” and “husbands, love,” do not imply: “Wives, you can ignore God’s command to love.” Or: “Husbands, you can ignore God’s command to submit.”

What beauty and joy we’ve missed!

Whether in the home or the church, any view of submission that requires us to abandon loving one-anothering is badly askew.

Bewildering, and potentially eye-opening

Emphatically, the Lord has told his people, “Love one another.” He equips us, Spirit-to-spirit, to build relationships in which his multifaceted love flows both ways.

So what if you or I begin to realize what loving one another encompasses, and its importance to our Lord and our lives? What if we start trying to grow truly loving relationships with other people in Christ … and the magnets just keep jumping apart?

So discouraging. So bewildering. And potentially, so eye-opening, to realize: Other people in the church – good Christians that we thought knew how to love – don’t either.

Oh, we’ve read the love verses. We’ve thought that “being committed Christians” equals “loving.” Meanwhile, our church culture – ours – has taught us a different dynamic entirely.

And honestly? Most of us do not want to know how superficially and hierarchically we’ve been trained to relate. Most of us are terrified of rocking that boat. For a very long time, I was.

Turning the magnets around

Loving one another
requires mutual choice
and reciprocal give-and-take.
No one person can accomplish it.

So what can one person do?

→ First: Let God show you where “loving one another” can happen – and where you thought it could, but it cannot.

→ Then: See what you’re seeing. And lay down the false responsibility (and fruitless task) of trying to practice loving one another with others who are not making the same choice.

→ Ah, but also: Continue learning to walk in love.

Remember! Jesus has also told us,“Love your neighbor.” And, walking this earth, he showed us how such love does, and does not, look. By his grace, we too can walk in love even when others do not reciprocate.

→ Above all: Keep your eyes on the One who is quietly building his church. In his way.

Keep loving and trusting the Lord Jesus Christ, waiting for him and moving with him, as he begins to connect each of us with an astonishing array of others who are learning to love one another with his love.

It’s like turning the magnets around, and finding: Yes, we can fit together beautifully.

The original version of this renovated repost was published July 31, 2021. Parts of this post are adapted from chapters 12 and 14 in What About Women? A Spirit-to-spirit Exposé, updated 2021.

Image by congerdesign from Pixabay

More about loving with God’s love

More about hindrances to loving one another

Footnotes

You may certainly have friends at church. Yet in that context, even our closest relationships may not be what we think. Here’s a tell whether a Christian friendship hinges on the system or on love: If this friend ever begins to see you as not loyal to the system, what happens? Note to those who have not experienced this: What you think would happen, what you may in fact be sure would happen, is not what usually happens. See my post, Recognizing the world in church clothing. ↩︎
The one-anothering Scriptures referenced here are just the tip of the iceberg! ↩︎
Beware the counterfeit of kindness: People who want to control others – and to appear godly – can use feigned kindness as a tool to abuse and fool. See the post, Killing with kindness – the lie that binds. ↩︎
Note Jesus’ words to the Pharisees about Sabbath rules in Mark 2:23-27. ↩︎
See Romans 12:16; 1 Corinthians 11:17-34; Galatians 5:25-26; Philippians 2:3. ↩︎
See 1 Peter 2:9-10. ↩︎
Ephesians 5:18, 2. See all Ephesians 4–5. ↩︎

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