Un-love
So if it’s not hate and not apathy, could it be judgmentalism? Maybe not, since I don’t think that’s even a word. But I think I’ve read some writers who try to set up such a contrast.
As a sidebar, I was thinking too: is the absence of something the same as the opposite of something?
I agree with D C Talk that “love is a verb.” Might the opposite of love not be a verb, or must it be a verb?
I’m not trying to be persnickety. (Heck, I don’t even know what that means.) But I really have thought about this a lot this past week or so. And I do think that love is very central to the entire message of Scripture.
In the Tuesday evening Bible study I’ve been attending the past few months, we’ve read through Romans. I usually don’t think about Romans being about love, justification maybe, or sin, but not love. However, a huge chunk of the last third of the book deals with the issue of love. So it’s been on my mind. And smack dab in the middle of that section on love is the passage on submitting to authority. So what does that have to do about love? The 13th chapter of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians makes a lot of sense, but it’s a little fuzzier in Romans.
So what else might be an opposite of love? If I keep on rambling, a good choice will be this blog.
1 comments:
First of all, I don't see anything at all wrong with rambling in a blog.
I caught up on your blogs this morning. I must confess, I don't read them daily anymore because they aren't there daily :)
But I have been thinking about your question since then. Pat and I memorized I Cor. 13 when we were dating. It was probably the smartest thing we ever did, tho' we were too dumb to know it at the time.
Anytime I have willfully chosen to go against the guidelines of I Cor 13, it has been because of selfishness.
If you put substitute selfishness in the place of love in that chapter and change each statement to its negative, selfishness seems to make sense.
So, my vote for un-love would be selfishness. I'll have to re-read the last third of Romans. I do remember quoting to the boys when they were little "As much as it is possible within you, live at peace with all men." That generally stopped the fighting until they were out of sight.
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