Nielsen’s Nook

Nielsen’s Nook
Nielsen’s Nook
Contemplative, reflective, and irenic we pray.
Print Print

Moral Authority to Exhort

Will Nielsen
February 25th, 2008
Tags: • • • • • •

In commenting on Colossians 2:5, Lawrence Farley writes:

… for in this — in [Paul's] love for [the Colossian Church] and his spiritual agony at the thought of their danger — is his moral authority to exhort them. He has never actually met them. They are Epaphras’ spiritual children. His moral authority to teach them lies in the fact of his suffering for them (see Col 1:24). For it is only insofar as we love and suffer for others that we have the right to teach and direct them. 1

As I reflected on this verse and commentary, it occurred to me that many of the things that frustrate and even anger me at times are, in fact, opportunities in which God would increase and bless myself and others by teaching us to give and receive a love more authentic. In other words, true rich thick authentic love is most inconvenient - that is, unless you think God had His crucifixion for the life of the world merely scheduled out in His pda. Inconvenience, then, for the Christian, is filled with the immeasurable and redemptive possibilities of divine love.

Lord have mercy that your church, starting with me, would recognize authentic love and would be most industrious in its dispensing in this world.

__________

1 Farley, Lawrence. The Prison Epistles, The Orthodox Bible Study Companion Series. (Ben Lomond, Calif.: Conciliar Press, 2003) , p. 162. Commenting on Colossians 2:5.

Something to say?

View blog authority