An Old Command

“Dear friends, I am not writing to you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in Him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.” I John 2:7,8

This week my car would not start – again - which got me to thinking about a new car, or should I say a newer car. Yes, both of our vehicles are now 11 years old with well over 100,000 miles on each of them. Ah, a new car sounds so wonderful as I consider calling the tow truck once again. Just the word ‘new’ brings a sense of hope.

Yes, the 2010 models are now for sale, and not just in the automotive arena. There are new models for any and everything that can be purchased. We are a society driven by the mantra that the new is better than the old. This year’s gadgets are superior to last year’s gadgets. This year’s electronics are better than last year’s. This year’s styles of clothing are more needed than last year’s trends. It goes on and on and our economy is fueled by the creed that newer is better.

The Apostle John reminds us that when it comes to spiritual truth, virtuous living, and the society called the Kingdom of God, the old will do just fine. John will later reveal that the command he is speaking of is to love one another. That command, of course, was the theme of Jesus, and John hammered it home until his last days on earth.

John says that the command that needs to be followed is an old one. This old command comes from the Old Testament in which the Jews were taught to love God and to love one another. They were given rules on how to treat the foreigners and aliens of their day with love. They were quite familiar with the rule of love. It was also an old command because, as noted above, Jesus preached that theme as recorded in John chapter 13. Jesus taught that one of the greatest signs of His presence in our lives was love. Yet, it was a new command in that He taught not only to love God, and to love one another, but also to love one’s enemies. That certainly was a new command.

The command that John wrote of here is old, yet new. The command has been around forever; yet it is new each day. It is an old truth, but it becomes new in us each time we live it out in daily life. We may be looking for some new exciting truth to jump-start our spiritual lives in 2010. We might be looking to go on a retreat to hear some speaker or to start some new program that has promised the revitalization of our faith in the coming months. It seems the church is always looking for the next new thing.

Maybe we should take to heart the words of John here and go back to the old. Maybe we should start with something small like love. Thomas Aquinas wrote, “To love is to will the good of another”. Personally, I think that is a great place for me to start. To want the best for someone else no matter if they have wronged us in the past, that is love. That is both the Lord’s Prayer and the Golden Rule.

I have come to realize that to ‘love one another’ is actually a very hard thing to do. It’s a hard thing for me to do. To love in the way that Jesus told us we must was so hard that John had to remind the Christian community living within the same century that Christ spoke those words of how they should live.

The amazing thing is that down through the centuries of church history there have been those who truly believed the words of Jesus and that of John. The command to love was something they not only held to intellectually, but in spirit; which meant it must have come from the Spirit.

The persecution of Christians has been with the church in every century, including our own. There have been times along the way when the intensity of that persecution has risen to horrific heights. In the early third century it truly seemed as if Christianity would be wiped out due to the hatred in which Christians were hunted down. Yet, in the darkness of hatred and murder, the light continued to shine.

In Alexandria in 205 a young woman by the name of Potamiaena was tortured for her faith. A soldier by the name of Basilides was given the duty of torturing and executing her. Her sentence of death was to be dipped into a cauldron of boiling pitch. Finally, as he walked with her on the day of her execution, he protected her from the crazy mobs that wanted to inflict more pain on her. As they walked along, Potamiaena thanked Basilides for the kindness that he showed that day and told him that she would pray for him. This act of love so touched Basilides that several days after she died he also confessed Christ and was baptized. When his superiors asked him if the rumors were true that he had become a Christian he replied that he had, and they in turn cut off his head.

Yes, to love is an old command, but its results are new every day. To love is hard work; but then, so are most of the Lord’s commands, which is why He sent the Holy Spirit to help us.

Peace to you,

Dan Owens

Copyright 2010 Eternity Minded Ministries