Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Loving V Trusting
John Piper writes of the difference between love and trust:
Put another way (by James I think) the claim to love Christ, without obedience, is empty and void. They cannot be separated, nor can they be understood one from another. There is no sense in trying.
love teching trust
Trust is more concretely demonstrable for children than love. A little child can be told to jump from the fourth step and daddy will catch him. “Trust me. I will catch you.” They can grasp that at two years old.
Similarly, a small child can grasp the application to Jesus: He will always be there to take care of you. In fact, he died once, to save and protect you. You will understand that more someday.
But what it means to love Jesus is not so easily demonstrable. Loving Jesus is more emotionally complex.
But I think Piper points himself out as someone who is outside the mainstream of society:Emphasizing a child’s duty to love Jesus more than emphasizing the need to trust him may cause a distortion of love into a set of deeds. Children are wired to translate all perceived duties into deeds.When I look around today, I see a world that thinks love is pure emotion, without consequence in deed or action. I do not think that such emotion that does not produce action is a valid understanding of love either. These things are inextricable and indivisible. Love does not merely underlie obedience, it produces it.
But that is not what love is. It is before and beneath deeds. When Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15), he meant that love precedes and enables obedience, not that love is obedience.
Put another way (by James I think) the claim to love Christ, without obedience, is empty and void. They cannot be separated, nor can they be understood one from another. There is no sense in trying.
love teching trust
