Thought Exercise on Loving Other Christians

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We Christians Are Awfully Hard on Each Other, and Ourselves Too

Author

Keywords

In a class that I was in once, I saw a man with his well-worn, heavily marked Bible open before him, playing a game of “trap the teacher.” He should have known better than to try to trap this particul...

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Waking People up to Christ

Author

Bruce Larson

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 55:8-9, Jonah 4:1-11, Numbers 22:21-34, Matthew 9:10-13, Mark 2:23-28, Psalm 19:12-14

It takes a great deal of freedom and love to be therapeutic with a group. Many years ago when Emil Brunner, the great Swiss theologian, was lecturing in this country, it was reported that when he prea...

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The Evangelist Wasting his Time

Author

Richard J. Mouw

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 25:11, Ecclesiastes 3:7, Isaiah 50:4, 1 Peter 3:15, Colossians 4:5–6, Psalm 19:14

As a college student, I was returning to school one year on a Greyhound bus. One of the other passengers was a middle-aged man who seemed to be making the rounds, engaging various people in quiet conv...

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The Faithfulness of a Few

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 28:20, Revelation 2:10, Matthew 5:10-12, Matthew 10:22, 2 Corinthians 4:8-10, 1 Peter 4:12-14, Romans 8:35-37, John 15:18-20, Psalm 31:23, Matthew 25:21, 1 Corinthians 4:2, 1 Timothy 6:12, Matthew 24:45-46

Pliny, a Roman Governor serving around 112 AD, faced a challenging situation regarding Christianity. Many Church historians believe that by his time, it had become illegal to profess the Christian fai...

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Do Christians Live Differently?

Author

Christopher H. J. Wright

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 50:20, Leviticus 19:18, Ruth 1:16–17 , John 13:34–35, Acts 2:44–47 , Psalm 133:1

Now of course, none of us is perfect, and all of us fail in all kinds of ways. That is why we often protect ourselves a bit when we say things like, “Don’t look at me, or don’t look at Christians; loo...

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The Bruderhof: A Radical Christian Community

Author

Fleming Rutledge

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 16:1-36 , Isaiah 58:6-12, Micah 4:1-4, Acts 4:32-37, Matthew 5:7, Psalm 72:

The Bruderhof is one such Christian community with many locations around the world. Unlike most such attempts to build radical communities, the Bruderhof has not only survived, it is thriving. In 2021...

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A Field of Chaff & Wheat Growing up Together

Author

John F. X. Harriott

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 32:1–14 , 1 Kings 19:9–18, Isaiah 6:1–8, Matthew 13:24–30 , 1 Corinthians 1:26–29 , Psalm 51:17

The Church is not a clean, well-lit place where everything runs smoothly and actions automatically match ideals. It is, in the words of the Gospel, a field of chaff and wheat growing up together and b...

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The Two Sides of Forgiveness

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 50:15-21, Exodus 34:6-7, Micah 7:18-19, Luke 7:36-50 , Matthew 18:21-35, Psalm 103:10-12

There are two sides to forgiveness: giving and receiving. Although at first sight giving seems to be harder, it often appears that we are not able to offer forgiveness to others because we have not be...

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Two Wrong-Headed Views of the Body

Author

Tish Harrison Warren

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:31, 1 Timothy 4:4-5, Colossians 1:16, Romans 1:20, 1 Corinthians 15:42-44, 2 Corinthians 5:1

Christians are often accused of two wrong-headed views of the body. One is that we ignore the body in favor of a disembodied, spirits-floating-on-clouds spirituality. The other is that we are obsessed...

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Loving Your Enemies & Costly Love

Author

Brett McCracken

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 5:44

One of the costliest requirements of Christlike love is Jesus’s call to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5: 44). What does this look like for Christians in today’s world...

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Cruciform Love

Author

Brett McCracken

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 22:51, 1 Corinthians 16:null, 2 Corinthians 8:null, Galatians 2:null

Cruciform love is welcoming the immigrant simply because they bear the image of God, even if the only thing they bring to us is hassle and possible harm. Cruciform love is praying for those who persec...

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The Unique Quality of Christians

Author

James Bryan Smith

Keywords

Scripture

Galatians 6:10, Hebrews 11:13-16, 2 Corinthians 6:9-10, Matthew 5:44, 1 Peter 2:11-12, John 17:15-16

In an early Christian document known as the Epistle to Diognetus (c. A.D. 120-200), the author wrote a response to some propaganda circulating in the Roman Empire. People had spread false rumors about...

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“Christians:” Worshiping God in Equality

Author

John M. Perkins

Keywords

Scripture

Acts 13:1, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Galatians 3:28

Christ followers were first called Christians at Antioch—about fifteen years after the birth of the church at Pentecost. There must have been something remarkable about this particular group of believ...

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Love Self, Brethren, and Strangers

Author

Terry A. Smith

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 14:12-14, Deuteronomy 10:19, Titus 1:8, Matthew 25:35, 1 Peter 4:9

Scripture calls us to offer a radical welcome to strangers, but we are not able to give what we do not have. Before we can love our neighbor, we must love and care for ourselves so we can have somethi...

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Never an Only Child

Author

Eugene Peterson

Keywords

Whether we like it or not, the moment we confess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, that is, from the time we become a Christian, we are at the same time a member of the Christian church … Our membe...

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Christian Love: The Antithesis of Envy

Author

Robert C. Roberts

Keywords

Scripture

1 Peter 2:1, Galatians 5:26, 1 Corinthians 13:4, 1 Corinthians 12:12-13, Philippians 2:3-4

The Christian’s self-understanding is that she is precious before God—however much a sinner, however much a failure (or success) she may be by the standards of worldly comparisons—and that every other...

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People or Programs?

Author

Rebecca Manley Pippert

Keywords

Evangelism

I remember being with a Christian student on a beach during an evangelism training week. Bob and I met several religious skeptics and began talking about all sorts of things. Eventually the conversati...

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We Cannot be Closed to Others and Open to God

Author

Mia Levetan

Keywords

Scripture

John 4:20-21, John 13:34-35, 1 John 3:17, Matthew 5:23-24, Hebrews 10:24-25

We cannot be closed off to one another and be open to God. That’s not how this works. Do you remember the commercial when the woman says “that’s not how this works, that's not how any of this work...

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Loving Others

Author

Scot McKnight

Keywords

Scripture

Colossians 3:12-14, Luke 10:25-37, John 4:1-26, Galatians 5:13-14, Matthew 22:37-39, Philippians 2:3-4, 1 John 4:7-8

Let me tell you the story of a great missionary named Frank C. Laubach (1884–1970). He grew up in the farming community of Benton, PA, and served as a Congregationalist missionary in the Philippines. ...

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Reaching the Unchurched

Author

Carl Medeiras

Keywords

Here is my grid for how I think of what to say when given the platform by a friend out of trust – a friend who is not following Jesus: I want to honor the friendship by doing exactly what he’s asked ...

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Christians & The Church

Author

Eugene Peterson

Keywords

Whether we like it or not, the moment we confess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, that is, from the time we become a Christian, we are at the same time a member of the Christian church … Our membe...

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Christians are Weird

Author

A. W. Tozer

Keywords

Christians

Scripture

Ephesians 3:19, 2 Corinthians 6:10, John 12:24-25, Luke 6:20-21, Matthew 23:12, Philippians 3:8-9

A real Christian is an odd number, anyway. He feels supreme love for One whom he has never seen, talks familiarly every day to Someone he cannot see, expects to go to heaven on the virtue of Another, ...

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Caring Christians

Author

Ralph Neighbor

Keywords

Scripture

1 John 3:18, 1 Peter 2:12, Matthew 5:16, Luke 6:32-35, Romans 5:8

Even if people reject the gospel, we still must love them. A good example of this was reported by Ralph Neighbour, pastor of Houston’s West Memorial Baptist Church (in Death And The Caring Community ...

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Experiencing the Inner Radiance of a Fellow Believer

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Philippians 2:14-16, Romans 8:9-11, Acts 4:13, Matthew 5:14-16, 1 John 1:5-7, John 17:20-23

Have you ever met someone and known instantly, or at least guessed, that they were a fellow believer? When I was in college, I lived abroad for a year in Germany. We always had Fridays off so that we ...

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Triune Selfless, Self-Giving Love

Author

Richella J. Parham

Keywords

In her excellent little book ( Mythical Me ), Richella Parham describes how her meditation on the Trinity helped her escape the comparison and competition trap: The relationship among the Father, So...

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Love Does not Insist on Its Own Way

Author

Dave Peterson

Keywords

Scripture

1 Corinthians 13:4-7, Philippians 2:3-4, Colossians 3:12-14, John 13:1-17, Luke 10:25-37, Genesis 37:50, 1 Peter 4:8

Once, while on vacation, on our way to church, Terri and I got into a disagreement over something. When I felt I was losing, to make my point, I stopped the car and got out. We were on a country road....

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Loving Others

Author

Scot McKnight

Keywords

Missions

Scripture

1 Chronicles 2:

Let me tell you the story of a great missionary named Frank C. Laubach (1884–1970). He grew up in the farming community of Benton, PA, and served as a Congregationalist missionary in the Philippines. ...

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What is a Christian?

Author

Bill Rodenberg

Keywords

Christians

Scripture

2 Thessalonians 1:3, 1 Peter 2:2, 2 Peter 3:18, Mark 5:19, Luke 14:23, Acts 1:8, Matthew 5:16, Luke 8:16, Philippians 2:15, Mark 4:1-20, Luke 8:4-8, Psalm 12:6-8, Psalm 91:1-2, Luke 8:39, 1 Peter 2:9, 1 John 5:13, 2 Corinthians 5:1, 2 Timothy 3:1-5

The word “Christian” has lost much of its meaning in our culture. It means “Christ in one.” As you communicate the Good News of Jesus Christ, this is what God expects of a Christian: He expects us to...

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Following Jesus Requires Real Commitment

Author

Bradley Long

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 3:5-8, Matthew 22:37, Romans 12:1-2, Luke 14:26-27, Deuteronomy 6:5, Luke 16:13, Mark 12:30, John 14:15, Matthew 16:24-26, Luke 9:59-62, Matthew 6:24, Hebrews 11:13-16, Hebrews 10:38-39, Matthew 6:33-34, Matthew 10:37-39

What are you willing to do for love? An instructor for the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course shared with a class the major hang-up he had to get over before asking his wife to ma...

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Disconnected from the Vine

Author

Sharon Hodde Miller

Keywords

Abiding in Christ

Scripture

Matthew 23:1-12, Isaiah 29:13, Matthew 7:21-23

Christianity can be such a pretty faith. God calls us to wonderful things, to noble deeds, and to be a people of love. We are meant to be kind, joyful, brave, and good. These are attractive qualities ...

thought exercise on Loving Other Christians

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