How to Love, Part 1: Agape
I’ve lost count of how many times I see someone accusing Christians, particularly traditional Bible believers, of being “unloving” because they didn’t celebrate or approve of that person’s ideas or lifestyle. Yes, believers are sometimes unloving, judgmental, or prejudiced. And when they are, they need to repent and change. But that’s only a part of the picture. It is becoming critically important that people who identify as followers of Christ define and practice what God’s love / Christ’s love really is. New Testament Greek uses four words for love: Eros—physical love (of which plenty varieties are going around). Philos—emotional love…
Jihadi Hunter Dad
Here’s a former military dad with guts: Dimitri Bontinck of Belgium had a son who converted to Islam, fell in love with a Moroccan girl, and apparently went to Syria to fight with ISIS. Unlike most of us who would fret and lament, this dude went after his kid, as in he went down there and brought the kid home. He’s even gone back down there and brought other kids home. Now that’s a real man. How many people would have such a combination of love and guts? Seriously. His son is now on trial, and Dad is advocating for…
The Pity of Little Love
Courtesy of The Guardian We’ve gotten used to reports of Islamists attacking non-Muslim infidels. But I also read of Sunnis killing Shiites. 65 killed, 175 injured, lots of women and children, were just blasted by remote control in a crowded marketplace in northern Pakistan. And the inter-Muslim killing goes on in Iraq and Afghanistan. The extremists don’t just hate non-Muslims. They hate anyone who doesn’t adhere to their brand of it. It reminds me of years past when the Catholics and Protestants of Northern Ireland were killing each other, but never in such large numbers and not so incessantly. They…