With Valentine’s Day on the horizon and all of the stores filled with ridiculous stuffed animals and candy, it is hard not to think about love. At least the world’s cheap imitation of love. I have been spending some time in Paul’s letters these past few weeks, and I am always floored by the love that he has for the church, and the people who make up the church. In most of Paul’s letters to the early churches scattered around the Mediterranean, he writes with such deep love and devotion, that it honestly shames me a bit.

Paul on most of these occasions, is writing to churches that he did not spend more than a few months or weeks with in ministry. He is writing to them to urge them on, and to say the difficult things that they are in need of hearing. I was discussing 1 Corinthians 4 with a friend of mine the other morning and we were blown away by Paul’s call to judge with-in the church. To expel the wicked and immoral from the midst of the early church.

We were floored by this for a bit, but in the end I thought about community, and the kind of love that doesn’t let his brother or sister walk into self-destructive or community-destructive behavior. Paul is exclaiming that we need to hold one another accountable and embolden one another to live lives that are honoring to God, and respectful and loving of those around us. Community looked different for the early church, than it does for us today. Love and friendship was not so easily dismissed or attained. You can live your life with a very false sense of community in today’s world of social networking and mobile devises, that make you feel like you are connected. Rebuke, discipline and accountability cannot take place through a cell phone.

Loving someone purely and completely doesn’t mean that you are going to always tell them what they want to hear. It doesn’t mean you are going to pat your friend on the back when he mistreats someone or intentionally damages the worth of another. Real love, lived out in community, holds each individual to a higher standard, as you are representing not just yourself but the community as a whole.

I pray that as Valentine’s Day approaches that we can all think about, pray about, and make some changes in our lives to love with boldness, humility and grace. May we see ourselves as true community, and not just simply worry about self-destructive behavior, but about family-destructive, community-destructive, and church-destructive behavior as well. We are all connected through the grace of and love of the Father in whose image we were made. Let us start to live like we believe this!

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