MID-WEEK MANNA FROM PASTOR NAT’S DESK:
October 9, 2024
The Third Person of the Godhead Series – Part 31
LOVE: THE FIRST ‘FRUIT’ OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (Part 4)
After identifying last week the three different root words translated into the common word love, namely, “eros,” “philos,” and “agape,” thus clearly revealing the stark differences between them, but not till thus carefully analyzed. We now consider the fourth kind (not cited in any order of importance), “platonic love,” a brainchild of the Greek philosopher, Plato.
Knowing more about the man reveals even more of this kind of love, more specifically, if it is based on God and His divine love. The following is quoted from the authoritative secular source of Webster’s Unified Dictionary and Encyclopedia, published by H. S. Stuttman Co. Inc., NY, 1960, p. 3304 (all emphasis mine):
“Plato. 428-438 B.C., Greek philosopher was born at Athens, of one of the most distinguished families of the city. In early life a pupil of SOCRATES, he set up his own PHILOSOPHICAL SCHOOL, the Academy, c 387, having spent the interval between his master’s death and that date in travel in Italy and elsewhere. All Plato’s authentic writings, and some others on which both ancient and modern critics have cast more or less doubt, have come down to posterity. Practically all of them are in the ‘dialogue form,’ which he particularly affected. Plato’s PHILOSOPHY, briefly, was IDEALISM: THE BELIEF THAT IDEAS, RATHER THAN MATTER, ARE THE TRUE REALITY, ETERNAL AND UNCHANGING, FROM WHICH ALL LIFE AND CREATION STEM.
“Plato GLORIFIED the RATIONAL SOUL as ORIGINAL, IMMORTAL, SUPERIOR TO THE BODY. He was one of the MOST INFLUENTIAL of all philosophers in Western civilization.” (end quote). How did Paul, ‘the apostle to the Gentiles’ of the Christian era of the New Testament describe in his Holy Spirit-inspired epistles the vaunted “wisdom” of the Greek philosophers of who still wield such a powerful influence in these last days, not only upon Western civilization but in the beliefs and doctrines of its different religions, sects, and denominations but all united in two fundamental doctrines: the immortality of the soul and the sacredness of the first day of the week!
Thus it is of the greatest urgency that all professed Christians humbly “examine themselves and prove themselves” strictly by God’s word as to how they understand “love” as given in “God so LOVED the world. . . “, “If you LOVE Me, keep My commandments.” John 3:16; 14: 15, etc., or the so-called “love chapter” of 1 Corinthians 13.
We will summon the testimony of New Testament regarding the philosophy and wisdom of the Greeks compared to the principles, knowledge, and wisdom of the omniscient, and omnipotent LIVING God of love, light, and life, God wiling. Bless all, NMF.