Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Every January, Christians all over the world, start reading the Bible through, hoping to get it done in a year’s time.

And as the old joke goes, everything is fine until they get to Leviticus.

Then come all the sacrifices and the leprosy talk, and mold and mildew, and there’s only so much a person can take!

But if we are not careful, we completely miss one of the greatest verses in all of the Bible.

In fact, Jesus calls it the second greatest commandment in all of Scripture.

Jesus said that loving one’s neighbor, coupled with loving God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength make up all the laws and the prophets.

Which means, if we are a people who want to live a holy life, we do it by loving God and loving others.

And that’s what we want to talk about this morning.

And in studying it, I want us to ask the five Ws and the H questions: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How as it regards our obligation.

Though the text does not directly state when or where, I think we can infer it by its context.

To What are We Obligated?

Love

The first question that we are posing to the text is: To what are we obligated?

The answer is quite simple.

To love.

We are obligated to love.

The word owe in verse 8 is the verbal form of the word Paul used in the previous verse, thus linking these two verses.

We pay what we owe.

Whether its taxes, revenue, respect, or honor, we pay what we owe.

And now Paul says that in fact, we ought not owe anything at all, except love.

In other words, we are obligated to love.

The two words in this verse for love come from that well-known Greek word, “agape.”

I quickly want to help us to understand this love by comparing it to the other loves.

Hopefully then, we’ll get an understanding as to what we are obligated to.

The first word for love is eros.

Eros is what we could say is the closest thing to selfish love.

Of course, we get the word “erotic” from it, but its more than just sexual in nature.

It is selfish in nature.

It’s a love that craves satisfaction.

Most people probably have this type of love for God.

They want God to be their genie and satisfy their desires.

The second word is philos.

This is more of a mutual affection.

This is the love that friends have for one another.

They care about each other’s wellbeing.

This love gives and takes between two or more participants.

The third word, this word in the text is agape.

This is selfless love.

Whereas eros is selfish love seeking one’s own desires and philos is mutual love seeking mutual care, agape is selfless.

Eros may cast someone aside once the desire has been met.

Philos may cast one aside if situations get too difficult.

Agape does not cast aside because it isn’t in the relationship for itself but determined to be the good and do good toward others.

This is the love that God demonstrates for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

This is why we read about this type of love in

1 Corinthians 13:4–8 (ESV)

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant

or rude.

It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;

it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends.

So to what are we obligated?

To love selflessly.

To exude patience and kindness, humility and gentleness, selflessness and forgiveness.

To bear through things even when they are tough; it never gives up on its object.

To Whom are We Obligated?

Everyone

So the first question was “to what are we obligated?”

And the answer is to “selfless love.”

The second question then is to whom are we obligated?

If we are to never give up on the object of our love, then we ought to know who that object is.

And the answer is everyone.

Let’s look again at

Notice the three persons Paul mentions: No one, each other, and another.

The word “no one” is all exclusive.

The literal translation is closer to our improper English; it’s proper Greek, but improper English: “Owe nothing to no one.”

It’s all exclusive.

But then it looks as if there is only a particular set of people: each other.

So then, Paul must mean the church, fellow believers.

The word Paul used is the same word Jesus used in

So love between the disciples, right?

So we are obligated to love our fellow-believers.

But Paul doesn’t leave it there.

He changes the word again!

This time he uses the word “heteron.”

It means “other” but of different sort.

The simplest example is heterosexual couples.

These are couples of two different genders/sexes.

On the one hand, they are the same as they are both people, but they are different in their sexes/gender.

Taking into consideration the context in which this is stated, that we pay all that we owe, whether taxes, revenue, respect, or honor, which is all-inclusive, and that we’re still in the context of paying no one evil for evil, then it seems logical here that Paul is indicating we are to love everyone unselfishly.

This certainly fits in with Jesus’s teaching that we not only love our neighbor, but our enemies as well.

Too often, we are like the lawyer seeking to justify ourselves and ask the question, “who is my neighbor.”

In light of the Leviticus verse we saw earlier, that seems like a legit question.

After all, its context is “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people.”

Now the question is only, who are my own people?

My family?

My tribe?

My country?

Jesus’s response with the parable of the Good Samaritan was simply that everyone is your neighbor, and we are to be a good neighbor to everyone.

Jeremiah brought this up to those going into exile to Babylon, a very wicked city.

As exiles and sojourners in this land, we are still to seek the welfare of this place.

We are to love the people with a selfless love.

Why are We Obligated?

Holiness

This leads us to our third W question: Why are we obligated to love everyone?

For holiness’ sake.

Or we could say for righteousness’ sake.

Let’s look at what Paul wrote,

There’s that word “For!” “Because!”