“Let love of the brethren continue.”1 - Hebrews 13:1
“Love of other believers…” - "Love" is the famous Biblical word "Philadelphos" meaning love for a fellow believer, and speaks of the nature of the love; formally, a brotherly love or brotherly kindness. It is a combination of two different Greek words, Philos (Love) and Adelphos (brother), hence the translation. It speaks more the nature of the affection that one has to other believers than it does to one for whom one has affection. It is in the nominative case as the subject of the sentence.
As such, we must take care how we translate it and take care not to split this into two parts. This is not "love of the brethren", it is "brotherly love". That may seem like a small difference, but it is a significant one and, more importantly, it is a Biblical one. It does not speak to who we love, but to the way in which we love the ones we do love!
“…a natural outflow of the Christian life…” - By this we mean that this kind/degree of loving of other believers is a natural expression of being a Christian. We have said before, and the Bible is very clear, that Christians live and behave as Christians. This is, the Bible proclaims, inescapable. All believers demonstrate the truth of the presence and reality of Christianity in their lives. There is no such thing as a believer that gives no evidence of the presence of that salvation. One of the evidences of that salvation is love for the brethren and that evidence, the writer to Hebrews says, ought to continue!
“…it became very natural and exciting to love other Christians and to want to be around them.” - This is one of the truly sad things in the Church today - we have lost the lustre and joy of our fascination with each other. We no longer really like being with each other. We come to church for a number of reasons, but in many ways, we'd really rather be at home! It is almost as if church is a bother to us. That joy was wonderful, but it faded over the years.
“…must be nurtured or it will not grow…” - By "Nurtured" we mean not only that it must be kept up, but that it must be worked on and increased so that it matures and grows as with any other part of our Christian life. No part of our relationship with God can remain static.We be both seeking and submitting to He and to His Word on a continuing basis or, as MacArthur clear reminds us we will not only not grow, we not grow, we regress, or shrivel!
“…it may actually shrivel.” - The danger of losing or falling back from loving the brethren is a very real danger. The fervency with which we love the Church when we come to Christ is an amzing thing, and by church, I don't mean the institution or the organic church as a whole, I mean the people of the church. When we are young in the Lord we love each other as young lovers do, we almost can't get enough of each other. But as time goes by, if we allow it, that love cools, an the danger is that we drift apart and we occupy ourselves with other things that are of interest to us, to oursleves, and not to the entire group at large. Thus that love cools and we fall away. Oh, we are not enemies by any means, at least, we ought not be! But neither are we the intnse lovers of each other in the sense that Hebrews 13:1 says we ought to be!
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[1] This year I am often using MacArthur’s devotional “Strength for Today” as a starting point for my comments. Quotes from MacArthur’s Devotional are in boldface.
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