Concerning brotherly love

But concerning brotherly love you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; and indeed you do so toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more; that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and that you may lack nothing. – 1 Thessalonians 4.9-12

These Thessalonians must have been some kind of church. Paul writes that their brotherly love was so great that everybody knew about it. They were not just known as a loving church in Thessalonica but in all of Macedonia.

These believers knew how to love each other. We are told to ‘let brotherly love continue.’ We are told to love in deed and in truth. We are told that others are going to know that we are believers by the way we love each other.

I think in our efforts to stand and to not compromise and to separate from the ungodly that perhaps we have forgotten this concept of brotherly love. Part of my Christian life thinking that being a fighter for Christ was more important than love and that love led to compromise and softening.

Love for the brethren means that I treat my brother with love even when we disagree. It means that I need to love the brother who may not treat me with love. It means I choose to love those who seem unlovely to me.

One of the ways the world judges us and our faith is the love we show each other. Jesus said folks would know us by the love we show each other. If the only way people knew I was saved by the love I showed my brethren what kind of testimony would I be?