We Urge You Brothers to Do This More and More

My morning Bible reading today included 1 Thessalonians 4 which contains these verses “Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you brothers to do this more and more…” (1 Thess. 4:9-10).

The last two weeks I’ve been facilitating our small group from our church in a discussion of Hebrews 13. The first verse of that chapter is, “Let brotherly love continue.”

These have reminded me about how important brotherly love is. Jesus said it was brotherly love, not correct theology or party affiliation or the number of seminary degrees we have or anything else that ought to mark us as his disciples. “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another, just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35, emphasis mine).

We ought to love one another. We ought to love one another more and more. We ought to love one another even when it is inconvenient or costly or requires suffering to do so.

How do we love one another during a pandemic when so many things are out of kilter?

Scotty Smith wrote on The Gospel Coalition blog let us pray to know “how to spend the limitless currency of grace on each other in wonderful, wise, and extravagant ways.” Let’s pray for the grace to be kind and patient, to keep praying for each other and to use every opportunity afforded us to speak words of grace to each other. With our mentees in prison that means that we keep praying for them and we keep up writing to them. With our brothers and sisters in the free world that means using Zoom or Facebook or text or
email or calling one another. It means continuing and not giving up.  

I suspect that many of us are tired of all this. I’ve heard increasingly of people being frustrated and angry. Let us pray for the grace to “not grow weary of doing good” (Gal. 6:9). We need each other right now. Your mentee needs you. I need you. Let’s continue “to encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing” (1 Thess. 5:11).

Much love, Barry