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The Spirituality of Love

The Spirituality of Love. Dr. Becky Towne. Christian spirituality is dependent upon a biblical understanding of love. Longsuffering – what love is Greek meaning is “patience” or the act of bearing with someone. OT – Describes God Ex 34:5-7 Ps 103:8-13 Jon 4:2

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The Spirituality of Love

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  1. The Spirituality of Love Dr. Becky Towne

  2. Christian spirituality is dependent upon a biblical understanding of love • Longsuffering – what love is • Greek meaning is “patience” or the act of bearing with someone. • OT – Describes God • Ex 34:5-7 • Ps 103:8-13 • Jon 4:2 • NT – Since God has been patient with us, we should be patient with one another.

  3. Descriptions of “longsuffering” in the negative sense • Love is not easily provoked or not easily drawn into anger. • Love thinks no evil. • Love is not envious.

  4. Kind – what love does • OT – Describes God and is usually partnered with “longsuffering” • NT – Believers are to love as God loves. Therefore, believers are to be kind and bear the stamp of the Holy Spirit by displaying kindness as a fruit of the Spirit’s presence. • Gal 5:16-25 • Eph 4:29-32

  5. Descriptions of “kindness” in the negative sense • Love is not boastful, proud, or arrogant. • Boasting – intellectual pride emphasized through speech • Arrogance – action or the way boasting comes across • Pride – seeks to build itself up by tearing others down • Love is not rude. • Love is not self-seeking.

  6. Loving and being loved • It is fundamental to human nature to love and to seek love. • Rightly loving God orders all the other loves common to human existence. Longing for God, 19 • Rightly loving God leads toward the corporate practices of the “one anothers.” • http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1810761/posts

  7. Origen of Alexandria • Ultimate goal of human life – intimate and continual communion with God • 42 Stages toward intimacy with God from the 42 camps of the children of Israel in the wilderness. • The path to intimacy with God, then, is viewed by Origen as the soul’s journey from earth to heaven.

  8. Origen’s Ordering – a three-level summary • Body – finding God through the five senses (Proverbs is an example of moral knowledge producing ethical understanding) • Soul – finding God through enlightened knowledge, i.e., Scripture (Ecclesiastes is the key book at this level, enlightenment based on a combination of active love and contemplative reflection)

  9. Spirit – finding God through perpetual communion with God (Song of Solomon is an example of the state of being absorbed into God, no longer controlled by desire). • The goal is to enter into union through contemplation. • The result is a life of pure love and active charity. • Foster’s prayer, 25.

  10. Augustine of Hippo • Humans are estranged from God. • It is difficult to return to God because of three temptations: • Love of power; • Pervasiveness of lust; • Inability to find contentment. • Therefore, Augustine reasons, either we love self or we love God; either we align our wills with God or we are self-willed.

  11. Bernard of Clairvaux • Twelve Steps of Spiritual Demise, 36 • Twelve Steps of Spiritual Progress, 37

  12. Bernard’s Degrees of Love • Love Self for Self’s Sake: self-love • Love God for Self’s Sake: seeking eternal life through God; self-preservation • Love God for God’s Sake: thanksgiving for who God is and what God does; trumps self-preservation • Love Self for God’s Sake: loving self the way God loves

  13. Blaise Pascal • Definitions of the human condition: • Boredom; • Inconstancy (moody, uncertain, unsettled); • Anxiety. • These conditions are troubling diversions, cultivated to keep humanity from considering the reality of God, the nature of life, and the need for a remedy that God alone provides

  14. Pascal • The truth of Christianity is relevant when the true conditions are addressed • Pascal’s ordering of the life of love • Body: governed by desire, any life lived on the order of the body alone will end in emptiness • Mind: natural and unable to bring humanity into direct contact with God; living on the order of the mind yields arrogance • Heart: the will is ordered to the will of God, enabling humanity to order the intellectual concerns of the mind and satisfy the physical needs of the body through proper expressions

  15. Paschal’s defining contribution to religious thought is that humans are both “great and wretched,” without emphasizing the greatness or wretchedness to the exclusion of the other or ignoring one’s need for a remedy.

  16. What is love? In small groups, discuss the impact of your thinking regarding the definition of love for life and ministry

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