“You selectively ignore certain parts of the Bible”

**This is adapted from a message I received from an old friend.

Here’s my response:

I say this with a clear conscience and full of integrity: I don’t believe I ignore any parts of the Bible. The verse you cited was indeed a law required for ancient Israel. However, under the new covenant (Jesus), certain ceremonial laws have now been fulfilled by Jesus and no longer have bearing on us today. I can cite scriptures for that if you want it. (Tim’s note: if you would like to ask about that, just comment below!)

And I 100% agree we should always focus on the love of God. I believe where our break down is, is we aren’t on the same page on what “love” is.

My position would be love is both grace and truth. If you only have grace and no truth, that is a very flimsy love. I believe you could even call that sort of “love” enabling or fake. For instance if I “love” my wife but I refuse to tell her I’m having an affair. How much love is that? Truth is essential for love to be taken seriously.

Love with all truth and no grace is abusive, angry, hypocritical, and repulsive.

However when you have both grace and truth we have the sort of “agape” love that God has revealed to us. (Agape is one of the Greek words for love. It’s worth googling it. It’s pretty cool/powerful.)

I believe your position on what love is would be tolerance, grace, and service.

Tolerance = You do whatever you want and I’ll accept it no matter what even if I don’t like it.

Grace = be super kind and supportive to people even if they don’t deserve it.

Service = sacrifice one’s own resources (time, money, emotions etc) to help others.

I defer to you XXXXXXXX if I have represented your position on what love is, correctly?

The biblical position would say all of those things are great! You would be commended for those values. You would also be encouraged to *add to them* (not replace, but add to) truth.

(Tim’s note: above is what I said, but I would want to clarify that a better position on tolerance would be “I will treat people I do not agree with, the way I would want to be treated if they disagreed with me.”)

How do we know what truth is? What do we do when respectable leaders are all arguing on what truth is? My position: we defer to God. What did he say—that’s what I want to go with.

One might ask, but how do we know if the Bible is reliable? How do we know if it truly is from God? Ahh my friend, go down and explore that path. Do so with an open mind and a humble heart and you’re life is about to be transformed (XXXXXX we haven’t talked in many years; I will be filled with joy if you’ve already arrived at the conclusion that the Bible truly is the recorded words of The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.)

XXXXXXX I commend you for your last comment. A few of these guys on here are passionate (self included!☺️) and you handled it with a lot of grace.

—

Those reading this post, anything you would have added?

Much (agape) love to you all!

Tim