*** SHOW NOTES (not a transcript) ***

Lead:

Does loving people mean accepting them unconditionally? How yes and how no?

Intro:

This summer I fell madly in love…with a new-to-me quote.

Contrast is the mother of clarity. ~ Os Guinness

And this is exactly what’s in store today in our Think & Reflect segment…what’s the relationship between acceptance and love? How are they the same, and how are they different?

Yesterday in our Bible segment we heard John start with the bold statement that Jesus is God. And spoiler alert, at the end of the book he tells us why he writes — so that we may believe. The whole thing is a recitation of evidence. Today, as you’ll hear, includes perhaps the most famous passage in the Bible, namely the one that answers the question about how we can have our broken relationship God reconciled.

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Bible (modified annual plan of The Bible Project):

Passage: John 3-4
Translation: NET (New English Translation)
Verses: 90
Words: ~1933

Think & Reflect:

As we see in this definition, love and acceptance aren’t the same thing.

ACCEPTANCE — Being received with approval or pleasure. In the Bible, things or persons are often said to be acceptable to men or to God. Human acceptance (or rejection) of other humans is affected by many things such as race, class, clan, sex, actions of the individual, prejudice, etc. On a human level Jesus shows us that all human beings are to be accepted, to be loved for their own sake, simply because they are persons created in the image of the loving Father (Gen. 1:26–27; Matt. 5:43–48).
Above all, sin keeps a person from being acceptable to God (Gen. 4:7; Isa. 59:2). From earliest days sacrifices were offered to God in an attempt to make the worshiper acceptable to Him. Later the law revealed more clearly what one needed to do to be acceptable to God. This included ethical actions (Ten Commandments) as well as sacrifices (Leviticus). Israel succumbed to the temptation of separating sacrifice from ethical action, so the great prophets again and again proclaimed the truth that no sacrifice is acceptable if it is divorced from just treatment of others (Isa. 1:10–17; Amos 5:21–24). Micah summed up the terms of acceptance in 6:6–8, “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (NASB). The proper attitude of humility is as important as right action (Ps. 51:16–17; 1 Pet. 5:5–6).
Jesus summarized the law and the prophets in the two great commandments (Matt. 22:37–40) and held them up as the requirements for eternal life (Luke 10:25–28). Paul saw that the law serves two purposes. One, it makes known God’s requirements, thus revealing human sinfulness (Rom. 3:20). Two, the moral law as a true expression of God’s will remains a goal or guide, even though one no longer thinks God’s acceptance is won by the law. The NT proclaims that Jesus has done what is necessary to make one acceptable to God. At the beginning of His ministry, Jesus announced that His mission included proclaiming the acceptable year of the Lord, the time of salvation (Luke 4:19). Jesus revealed the will of God clearer than ever before (Heb. 1:1–2); He destroyed the works of the devil (1 John 3:8); but above all He put away sin “by the sacrifice of Himself” (Heb. 9:26 HCSB). Paul wrote of acceptance before God mainly as justification. People are made acceptable to God because the just requirements of the law have been met by the sacrifice of Jesus (Rom. 3:21–26; 8:3–5). The book of Hebrews presents Jesus as the true High Priest who offers the perfect sacrifice that effectively cleanses or covers sin so that it is no longer a barrier to acceptance by God (Heb. 9:11–14, 26). Both Paul and Hebrews taught that for acceptance by God to be effective, one must believe—accept the offer of acceptance from God in Christ and commit oneself to following the way of Jesus, confessing Him as Lord. See Atonement; Justification; Love.(1) ~ Joe Baskin

And a challenge in today’s culture:

This shift from “accepting the existence of different views” to “acceptance of different views,” from recognizing other people’s right to have different beliefs or practices to accepting the differing views of other people, is subtle in form, but massive in substance. To accept that a different or opposing position exists and deserves the right to exist is one thing; to accept the position itself means that one is no longer opposing it. The new tolerance suggests that actually accepting another’s position means believing that position to be true, or at least as true as your own. We move from allowing the free expression of contrary opinions to the acceptance of all opinions; we leap from permitting the articulation of beliefs and claims with which we do not agree to asserting that all beliefs and claims are equally valid. Thus we slide from the old tolerance to the new.(2) ~ DA Carson

The bottom line

We are to accept people with pleasure and love them the way Jesus loves them. This is different, however, than explicitly (or implicitly) that their sin is acceptable to God. Remember, as Paul writes in 2 Co 5:11-21, Jesus has given us a ministry of reconciliation that includes persuasion. Persuasion to what? Ambassadors of what? The offer is a free gift, but it must be accepted.

We’re not loving to our children if we let them eat candy as often as they want or worse, right? They might dislike us for laying down the law of the house, but we do it because we love them. Loving them doesn’t mean accepting unacceptable behaviors — it means point people to Jesus, telling them of His offer, and inviting them to reconciliation through trusting Him and turning from the junk that has separated them that relationship.

Wisdom segment:

Passage: Psalm 82
Translation: NET (New English Translation)
Verses: 8
Words: ~131

Love you!

-R

Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in digitally-extended communication and connection, an award-winning speaker, award-winning author, and a passionately bad guitarist. Follow him on Twitter -- @RogerCourville and @JoinForTheHope – or his blog: www.forthehope.org.

Sources and resources:

(1) Joe Baskin, “Acceptance,” ed. Chad Brand et al., Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2003), 16. (Thank you for supporting our ministry by using this link when purchasing this book.)

(2) D. A. Carson, The Intolerance of Tolerance (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012), 3–4. (Thank you for supporting our ministry by using this link when purchasing this book.)

#884: John 3-4 | Acceptance | Psalm 82