BY FAITH WE UNDERSTAND

Proof of what is unseen.

ABOUT MARK WARD

BY FAITH WE UNDERSTAND

Proof of what is unseen.

ABOUT MARK WARD

The Good Samaritan and ἀγάπη

A little tip for word study in the Bible: Don't think that you have exhausted the topic of "love" when you have looked up and studied every passage in which "love" appears—or even every passage in which forms of ἀγαπάω or φιλέω appear. No one word, Greek or English, communicates the Bible's ethic of love. Sentences and whole paragraphs and arguments and sections communicate that ethic. For example, if you tried to do an exhaustive study of love in the NT and you did so by looking up ἀγαπάω and...

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Stanley Fish Channels Van Til

Stanley Fish has a larger share of common grace than most people. For all his dark glasses, he sees many things clearly, and I always enjoy reading him. This must-read article made me feel truly sad—and not in a condescending way at all—for the hundreds of thousands of NY Times readers who continue to live so blindly in the faith that they have no faith. Reason is an idol of Enlightenment culture (as well as a gift of God). Here are three quick excerpts that grabbed me from Fish's piece: There...

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Love and Hate; ἀγαπάω and μισέω

If hate is the opposite of love, as many passages indicate, then why don't we have a book called The Four Hates? Why don't preachers fulminate against the scary hate of a mother for her crying infant (ἀστοργέω [a + storge]), the emotional hate of one's ex-best-friend (ἀφιλέω [a + filos]), the even more passionate hate of one's ex-lover (ὠράω [a+ eros]), while defending the disinterested hate (ἐγαπάω [a + agaph]) of the enemies of one's country? Love is love. Hate is hate. They come in degrees;...

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