Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Hello, dear ones.

Being a holiday, I guess we’re getting around a bit slower. All this LABOR is kind of tiring. I could get tired just looking out this window! Becki just called to say breakfast was on…but I think I’m going to resist the program in favor of doing a jog after sending this before I conform to breakfast. Then I need to get some large graphics ready to apply to a big truck trailer…one of those long 53-footers. I don’t look forward to dealing with all those rivets. Then we’re planning to take the little boys to the State Fair in Salem this evening when Thano is off work at 5pm. It’s the last day of the Fair.

Please have a great day doing whatever you’re doing.

Love, Dad/Ray.

PS: If you need help painting the following scriptural theme on your wall, bear in mind that I’m a sign painter. Smile.

I cannot imagine a more concise statement of Biblical priority and purpose than this. Paul cuts right through all the fat, froth, fraud, frivolity, futility, and formalism and drops on us a simple, yet profound, all-encompassing standard to live by. It’s another one of those high-impact statements that would be worth painting on our walls, hanging on our refrigerators, and etching across our bathroom mirrors. We would be wise to use it as a measuring stick for everything we see, do, and desire. Use it in assessing the authenticity and value of ministries and “revivals” that emerge around us. Use it for judging church programs that can consume so much time and energy. And use it in determining the value of your own pursuits and ambitions. “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” Wow!

It helps me to lace together some vital Biblical concepts this way: LOVE is a COMMAND, but the Gospel is a CONDITION—it’s a conditional OPPORTUNITY that allows and equips one to fulfill the COMMAND. You can’t fulfill the COMMAND without embracing the CONDITION. So the Gospel is not a COMMAND to do right (to LOVE), but offers the CONDITION or FREEDOM to do right—to fulfill the COMMAND to LOVE. Look again at the last 3 verses of our reading.

“You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.”

Repeat it again after me: “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” Say it again. Again. Again. Let’s not forget it!