A proper theology (does not ) cover a multitude of sins

I used to be of the opinion that if you had the “right” theology, you could get away with being a jerk. I wouldn’t have couched it in those terms of course (beating you over the head with the Bible to prove a theological point is loving!) but that was the gist of it. A proper theological framework to operate within was the defining characteristic of a Christian. I of course defined that as being a Reformed Baptist. Unless I could convince you of a) a reformed soteriology and b) believers baptism, everything else could wait.

I got to thinking about this again based on another blog post and the response from a member of a well known watchblogger team that has declared any criticism of their tone to be off limits, which is interesting because it comes up over and over again. You would think that “smoke” often implies the presence of “fire”…but I digress.

The New Testament minces no words when it comes to the importance of good doctrine. The early church devoted itself to the Apostles’ teaching (Acts 2:42). Paul often wrote the church to urge them to hold fast to sound doctrine, a charge for all of us and not just “leaders”. So doctrine is important. On the other hand, maybe good doctrine is more than affirming the right points in a confessional statement?

What does the Bible have to say about this? Well Paul and Peter and John had something to say about it….

No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. (1 John 4:12)

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. (1 Peter 4:8)

Turns out Jesus had a thing or two to say about this thing we call love. Jesus said that if we love Him, we will keep His commandments. What are those commandments? Which ones got the most “play” in His teachings?

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:34-40)

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:34-35)

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you…. These things I command you, so that you will love one another. (John 15: 12, 17)

On and on and on. Could it be that loving one another is not an optional feature in the life of a Christian but rather is the defining characteristic? In fact if you do not love your brothers and sisters and you do not love your neighbor, by definition your theology is faulty because your theology (i.e. the study of God) misses the most important thing for us to remember and the hardest thing for us to live out, i.e. loving others more than ourselves.

Surely if someone is in the throes of open sin or if they are espousing a Gospel contrary to the Gospel of Christ they need to be rebuked and corrected in love but there are seriously very few things that we argue about in the church that rise to that level. Certainly there are far fewer issues that rise to that level than I used to think. It seems quite apparent that most of the things we argue about don’t even show up in the New Testament but the thing that does show up, loving one another, gets precious little attention in the church. It also seems that as I slowly and painfully mature in Christ that I find that there are many people who I would have considered to be theological midgets who love people far more than the learned theologians I used to look up to and those who love others better are actually the greatest among us even though no one invites them to conferences or publishes their books.

Jesus loved us, His sheep, so much that He laid His life down for us. In fact He loved His sheep in a wide variety of ways: healing the sick, raising the dead, feeding the hungry, washing their feet. His ministry was far more than teaching, it was doing and doing in love. Love should be the basis for everything we do: gathering as the church, evangelism, missions, mercy ministries, theology, apologetics. If we don’t have love, our theology will be wrong even when we are right. That has been a hard lesson for me to learn but until I learn to love more like He loved, the rest of my theology is going to be flawed.