What You Claim to Believe is Worthless Without Love

 "And if I possess prophecy and know all the mysteries and all the knowledge and if I possess all trust so as to translocate mountains, yet don't possess love, I am nothing." - 1 Corinthians 13:2, my own translation

     What difference does what we claim to believe, what teachings we hold dear, or what hills we will die on if we don't possess agape, the love being described here? What difference does what we know or claim to know make if we are responding to anything and everything out of fear, aggression, or bodily cravings? As Paul wrote in the previous sentence to this one, we become crashing cymbals and noisemakers, but that's it. If the God who is love, as John writes at least twice in his first letter that "God is love," is not manifest, is not the One who is speaking, acting, and responding through us, what's the point? What difference does all that knowledge or theological correctness make?

     Not one shred or speck.

     If what we believe does not reflect Jesus Christ, and by extension the Father, and the love which He taught then it is worthless. If it does not lead us to treat others as we want to be treated, if it does not lead us to love God, our brothers and sisters, our neighbors, or our enemies than it is an empty and powerless doctrine, interesting speculation at best but nothing which should be focused on much less fought over. If what we say we believe, or what we practice does not produce the reflection of Jesus Christ within us that interacts with those around us, then it is useless. And if it only engenders or supports our fear and aggression responses then it is to be avoided completely as it is triggering the very malfunctioning biology which the Spirit of Christ is meant to override and bypass, and causing us to operate from it rather than the Spirit of Christ.

     As disciples of Jesus Christ, we cannot afford to ignore both Paul's and John's teachings on the primacy of love, agape, because they are merely echoing and expounding on Jesus' own teachings on the absolute primacy of love in our practice of following His Way.