Presently, we live in a culture that champions abundance and ambition. It seems like everyone wants more and wants to be more. It is very common to hear talks on leadership, strategies on platform building, how to reach a target audience and how to pursue successful side hustles. Even in churches, we often hear messages on material blessings. So, in light of this grind mentality, how should we understand Christian abundance and Christian ambition? In today’s passage, Paul provides instructions for both; for this writing, we will focus on Christian abundance.
I Thessalonians 4:9 and 10 state the following: “Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more,” In these verses, we learn that God teaches us so that we abound in love. Paul, having been made aware of how the faith of the Thessalonian church was expressing itself throughout their affliction, did not feel the need to instruct them concerning brotherly love. However, it is useful for us to examine a couple of aspects of this biblical love that Paul is referencing. The type of love that Paul says the Thessalonians do not need instruction about is what is translated as “brotherly love”. It is a specific term for love that communicates the familial affection that one shares with the people who share the same parent. This brotherly love is the type of love that has strong emotions and a desire to care for and protect those that are in the same household. In this case, the Thessalonian church had brotherly love for and a very strong bond with each other due to the persecution they were facing from those outside of their faith family. However, as those with biological siblings know, this type of love often waxes and wanes based on relational strain due to the actions of others, distance, time and other circumstances.
In contrast to brotherly love, Paul communicates that God is Agape love, the steadfast love that is rooted in His character. This is the same love that is used to describe God and called unceasing throughout the Old Testament. This is the kind of love that flows out of God’s character in which only He can instruct. It goes beyond feelings of family loyalty to a moral obligation to seek the good of others. It is enduring, selfless, overwhelming, inexhaustible, and made visible and represented fully in the person and work of Jesus. This type of God glorifying and authenticating love is completely countercultural. It is also entirely dependent on the very character of God and His Spirit. Because the Thessalonian congregation is being taught by God, their Agape love is flowing into the surrounding community in a far greater way than brotherly love does. God was moving them beyond just a brotherly affection for one another; they were becoming evidence of God’s love to all those around them. So why does Paul push them (and us today) further? Why the command to more completely abound in agape love and to excel in what already seems to be sufficient? The answer is clearly stated in 1 John 4:7; it is because God is love! Christian, to abound in love is to abound in godliness. The more we abide in God, the more we love and the more we love the more God abides in us. Brothers and sisters, are you following the example of the Thessalonian church and abiding in God’s love more and more?….
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