1 Peter 1:22
Now that you have
purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from
the heart.
Have you been betrayed in love? Has someone gotten close to you and
deliberately sought to mess you over? Or
did they turn off the charm (charm is NOT an emotion) and become something different? Betrayed trust is hard to bestow once
again. Sometimes it ought not to be
bestowed again.
The purification of their souls, their
obedience to the TRUTH, the truth that is Jesus Christ and all that entails,
these are the pieces Peter puts into place so that his readers will know “genuine
mutual” love. That sounds rather
clinical. The purpose of purifying their
souls, of obedience to the truth, these are not so that they are going to get
into heaven. No, it is so that they will
have genuine, mutual love for each other.
So here is a curve ball. John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever should believeth him should not
perish but have everlasting life.” So,
to interpret this verse, the job of the church is to get people to believe in
Jesus, no matter what or how. Scare them
with hell and damnation if necessary.
Exploit them in times of weakness.
Whatever it takes…
But if we are truly obeying the truth,
and we have established that the Truth is a catchword for Jesus and what he
stands for, and the reason to obey is to purify our souls so that we might, in
turn have a genuine mutual love…that undercuts “in your face” evangelism.
Peter is going after something
completely different. He is going after
the human equivalent of God’s love for us.
It is genuine, without ‘if’s, and’s, or but’s, and God seeks it to be mutual,
that we will love our God in return. In
Jesus-obedience to the truth-this love can be established. It is what Peter is calling to be
established.
It is to answer and overcome all the
garbage that people do to people under the cover of perverting the true nature
of love.
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