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Paper1.docxThis Paper will be written on “Love”. The only resource that is allowed is eBook: Balentine, Samuel E. The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Theology. Oxford University Press : 2014 (The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Theology.); since you don’t have access I have copied and pasted below.
Love
Love relationships are described, recommended, and regulated in the literature of almost all human societies. The love theme is present in the Bible from the earliest documents of the Hebrew Bible (ca. 1000 B.C.E.) to the more recent documents of the New Testament (ca. 100 C.E.). It is used to describe and regulate human relationships and, on the basis of these experiences, to articulate a variety of theological understandings of the relationship between God and humankind (theology) and the role of Jesus Christ within that relationship (Christology).
Hebrew Bible.
Relationships of love are described in the cultures and languages of Egypt and Mesopotamia, prior to and parallel with biblical literature. The Hebrew root for “love” (ʾāhab) is found across all forms of literature in the Hebrew Bible, other nonbiblical Hebrew texts, and works in other Semitic dialects. The etymology of the expression is debated, but it is widely agreed that “the emotional experience is the germ cell for the development of the concept of ʾāhab” (Haldar and Wallis, 1974–1977, p. 102). The overall use of the expression in the Hebrew Bible indicates a positive attraction to, and search for, the other (see Deut 11:22 ; 30:20 ; Prov 18:24 ; Isa 1:23 ; Ps 40:17 ; 43:3 ) as well as faithfulness to the loved one (Jer 31:3 ; Hos 11:4 ); and its opposite is hatred (see 2 Sam 13:15 ; Ps 109:4 ).
Love language addressing everyday secular relationships.
· • Sexual love: Isaac and Rebekah (Gen 24:67 ), Jacob and Rachel (Gen 29:18 , 20 , 30 ), Samson and Delilah (Judges 14:16 ; 16:4 , 15 ). Hebrew uses another verb for the act of sexual intercourse (yādaʿ = to know). Sexual love is celebrated by such passages as Proverbs 5:18 and 30:18–19 and the Song of Songs, which situates a poetic celebration of the joy of the fulfillment of sexual yearning within the Hebrew scriptures.
· • Love among parents and friends: Abraham and Isaac (Gen 22:2 ) and Jacob’s love for Joseph (Gen 37:3 ). Love is divided between Isaac’s partiality for Esau and Rebekah’s love for Jacob (Gen 25:27–28 ). Ruth loved her mother-in-law (Ruth 4:15 ). Jonathan’s love for David is proverbial (1 Sam 18:3 ; 20:17 ). Saul’s love for David (see 1 Sam 16:21 ) may have soured, but David’s love for both Saul and Jonathan is expressed in his lament after their deaths (2 Sam 1:23–26 ). Love is also used to describe special relationships between masters and servants (Exod 21:5 ; Deut 15:16 ).
· • Love as part of community behavior: The Wisdom Literature expresses concern for the need for love between parent and child (Prov 13:24 ; 16:13 ; 17:17 ) and in a family (Prov 15:17 ). This love is based upon one’s ethical responsibilities ( 12:1 ; 29:3 ; see also the negative 15:12 ). The wise man loves wisdom itself, and this leads beyond ethical responsibilities to a true love that has its basis in God (Pss 33:5 ; 37:28 ; 99:4 ). On the other hand, the tyrant loves evil and lying ( 52:5–6 ).
· • Love for neighbors and enemies: God’s design of mutual love generates the golden rule (Lev 19:18 , “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”). No one should be so obsessed with his or her own interests when this would harm his or her neighbor. Love for fellow human beings extended into love for the stranger (Lev 19:34 ; Deut 10:18–19 ), but in Israel this meant people dwelling in the land. There is no call to love enemies of the nation.
The theological use of love language.
As a covenanted people Israelites love one another with “steadfast love” (ḥesed). A strong feeling of security because of the guidance and protection of God was widely expressed (see Pss 31:24–25 ; 103:11–13 ; 2 Sam 7:14 ). The sentiment that God surrounded the just with righteous love is late (see Ps 146:8 ; Prov 3:12 ; 8:17 , 21 ; 15:9 ; Neh 13:26 ), while God’s love for the Patriarchs (see Deut 4:7 ), Solomon (2 Sam 12:24 ), and even Cyrus, King of Persia (Isa 48:14 ), is associated with the influence of the thought of the Deuteronomist.
Hosea’s presentation of God’s relationship with God’s people through the figure of marriage is new. Hosea’s use of the word ʾāhab steers clear of notions of physical desire or lust by insisting on loyal affection. Israel’s path as the loved one of God who gave herself to foreigners as a harlot (Hos 8:9 ) leads to a husband’s wrath, antipathy, and divorce, in keeping with Israel’s concept of love and marriage. But God’s love transcends these concepts, overcomes his wrath ( 14:4–8 ), and draws them to him with the bonds of love ( 11:4 ). Once established, this imagery is used by other prophets. Jeremiah speaks of Israel’s “prostitution” (Jer 2:2 , 20 , 23–24 , 25 ; 3:3–4 , 13 ; 30:14 ; 44:17 ). Yet God draws Ephraim to himself again in love ( 31:3–4 ). Ezekiel uses the marriage figure to describe the tragedy of Israel’s infidelity (Ezek 16:33 , 36 , 37 ; 23:5 , 9–11 ), but there is no message of a loving restoration. Deutero-Isaiah also uses the image of marital and maternal love to describe the relationship between God and an unfaithful people (Isa 43:4 ; 49:14–16 ; 51:17–19 ), and here, as in Trito-Isaiah ( 62:4–5 ; 63:9 ), God works to restore a right relationship by means of his love and compassion. The figure of love appears occasionally in other places within the prophetic tradition (e.g., Zeph 3:17 ; Mal 1:2 ). Only sometimes is a link made with the marriage bond (see Mal 2:11 ).
The “Deuteronomist” is a term given to a tradition that most likely had its origins in the northern kingdom prior to its collapse in 931 B.C.E. (see 2 Kgs 22:3—23:3 ). It is a theological reflection upon Israel’s call to blessedness, failure, and punishment and is found across many of the historical books of the Hebrew Bible (Joshua— 2 Kings), in some prophetic traditions (especially Jeremiah), and most systematically in the book of Deuteronomy. The Deuteronomist regarded the relationship between Israel and God as a covenant that paralleled the treaties between unequal parties, established in the ancient Near East between lower figures and a royal suzerain. God generated Israel through a loving gift: the forefathers, the Exodus, the promise of the land, and the promise that they would become a great people (Deut 7:8 , 13 ; 23:5–6 ; 30:16 , 20 ). Because of all that God has done, there is only one possible path for Israel: love of God and fidelity and devotion to that love (Deut 6:1–5 ). As God had initiated the covenant, the only acceptable response from Israel, the privileged partner in this treaty, was love and obedience. The Deuteronomist addressed the failure of Israel, repeatedly calling the nation to obey the “commandments” ( 5:10 ; 7:9 ), to serve God ( 10:12 ; 11:13 ), to obey God’s voice ( 30:20 ), and to walk in God’s ways and cleave to God ( 11:22 ; 19:9 ) as signs of love for God. Israel must make a choice between life and good or death and evil ( 30:15–16 ). God’s love for Israel brings with it a required theological and social response, that Israel love God. Other nations are to see this way of life based on love and acknowledge it (see Judg 5:31 ).
Recognition of God’s love and the attempt to return that love find expression in the Psalms, with a strong focus on the cult and ritual of the Temple in Jerusalem where the cult was eventually centralized. Israel rejoices in God’s presence (Ps 27:4 ), loves God’s sanctuary (Isa 66:10 ; Pss 26:8 ; 122:6–9 ), and calls upon God’s name there (Pss 5:12 ; 69:36–37 ). Israel’s love for God’s sanctuary is matched by God’s love for the gates of Jerusalem (Pss 51:20–21 ; 87:1–2 ). In the Temple and in the cult the social ramifications of love were sometimes in danger of being obscured.
Qumran.
The Deuteronomist’s understanding of the initiative of God’s love is central to the Qumran community (CD B 2:20–21, A 8:15–18, B 1:28–30, A 3:2–4, A 8:17). God has a special love for the spirit of light found in the community and takes pleasure in its works (1QS 3:26). The community responds by loving God and one another (1QH 14:26, 15:10; 1QS 1:3, 9). In this way they preserve the holy community (1QS 2:24; 5:4, 25; 8:2). Only those who love God can be admitted to the community (1QS 2:26—3:3, 1QH 2:14). By contrast, they must detest the sons of darkness (1QS 1:10). While God’s love remains strongly in place, absence of a command to love people outside the community indicates the sectarian nature of the community.
Greco-Roman Thought.
Plato’s reflection on the ideal transcendent Good, manifested in human love, and Aristotle’s movement of matter to form by being loved suggest some perennial reflection upon love. The focus of the Greco-Romans was upon human experiences and is reflected in the vocabulary of eros, phileō (to love) and epithymia (desire). Ovid (43 B.C.E.–17 C.E.) sang the praises of sexual love, but the Cynics and the Stoics of the first century (Epictetus [ca. 55–135 C.E.] and Seneca [ca. 4–65 C.E.]) were suspicious of it. They saw perfect love reflected in control over one’s emotions, especially on the part of the philosopher. Musonius Rufus (ca. 30–101 C.E.), Plutarch (46–120 C.E.), and Lucian (ca. 120–ca. 180 C.E.) praised marriage but pointed to the possible corruption of true love. They suggested an inner search for the true meaning and expression of love.
New Testament.
The phenomenon of the Christian scriptures depends upon the event of Jesus of Nazareth. The texts that narrate Jesus’s story (the gospels) are not objective history, but one can trace the beginnings of Jesus’s articulation of the centrality of love to its further theological and socioethical developments in the letters of Paul and the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke. It reaches its most spectacular articulation in the Gospel of John and the accompanying Johannine letters ( 1–3 John).
Jesus of Nazareth.
Studies of Jesus’s teaching on love focus upon words found in the Gospels that can be traced back to him. This approach is somewhat one-sided. He not only said things; he also did things in relationships. This can be difficult to trace in detail, but one should not ignore the evidence in the gospels that Jesus was a man of compassion, mercy, and forgiveness. The later insistence of the author of 1 John that the Christian should attempt to “ought to walk just as he walked” (1 John 2:6 ) and Paul’s request that his Christians have in themselves the mind of Christ and to imitate him, as he was an imitator of Christ (Phil 2:5 ; 1 Cor 4:16–17 ; 11:1 ; 1 Thess 1:6–7 ; 2:14 ), suggest a lasting memory of Jesus’s lifestyle.
Within the Synoptic tradition only two statements of Jesus insist upon the centrality of love. Mark 12:28–34 reports a request from a scribe that Jesus indicates the first commandment. Jesus responds by joining the command to love God above all things with all one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength, found in Deuteronomy 6:4–5 , and the command to love one’s neighbor as oneself, from Leviticus 19:18 . The other love command that can be traced back to Jesus is his striking statement: “Love your enemies” (Matt 5:44 ; Luke 6:27 ; omitted in Mark). These two traditions (Mark 12:28–34 ; Q 6:27) are widely accepted as going back to Jesus himself. Nowhere in the Old Testament, Jewish literature, Philo, Josephus, or Qumran can the combination of Deuteronomy 6:4–5 and Leviticus 19:18 be found. Apart from the Synoptic parallels (Matt 22:37–39 ; Luke 10:27 ), Jesus’s teaching on the combination of love of God, the first of all commandments, and love of neighbor, the second, as greater than any commandment does not play a role in early Christian literature. The same can be said for his command to love one’s enemies.
Jesus was part of a tendency of his time to locate simple and essential statements that articulated the heart of Israel’s life and practice as he joined the passages from Deuteronomy and Leviticus. He broke new ground in commanding love of God and love of neighbor as greater than any other way of responding to God. He stretched the command to love beyond these limits by insisting upon love for one’s enemies. From these “words” of Jesus one can solidly suspect that Jesus’s loving lifestyle was driven by love for God, love for neighbor, and even love for his enemies. This was “just as he walked.”
Paul.
The love of God, the love of Jesus Christ, and the love that the Christian expresses in response to God’s saving action in Jesus Christ are central to the Pauline message. The initiative in this process lies entirely with God, who showed love for us while we were yet sinners (Rom 5:8 ). Christ died for us, and we were thus reconciled with God by means of the death of God’s Son. In Romans 8:31–39 , Paul is lyrical in his description of the immensity of the saving love that God has made available through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Equally lyrical is his description of the never-ending quality of Christian love, the greatest of all gifts, in 1 Corinthians 12:31C—13:13 .
This must be understood within the context of Paul’s presentation of God’s action in rendering the sinner (Rom 1:18—2:20 ) righteous through the death and resurrection of Jesus (Rom 1:16–17 ; 3:21–26 ). Indeed, it is not only that the sinner is rendered righteous but also that God’s action in and through Jesus Christ takes place within an apocalyptic framework. God’s righteousness is understood as the power and sovereignty of God for the salvation of the entire creation. This notion can be grasped in the light of Paul’s presentation of Jesus’s death and resurrection as a “new creation” (2 Cor 5:17 ; Gal 6:15 ). For Paul, the Jewish notion of a beginning of all time (Urzeit), where the glory of God was manifested, was lost by the disobedience of Adam and the entry of sin into the world (Rom 5:12 ). This situation can be held at bay by means of observance of the law, confident that at the end of all time (Endzeit) God will again assert his sovereignty and the glory of the origins will be restored. However, Paul reinterprets that situation. He draws the Endzeit into human history. For Paul, the situation of sin generated by one man’s disobedience was overcome by another man’s unconditional obedience. Jesus Christ’s act of unconditional obedience to God, emptying himself of his likeness to God, taking on the condition of a slave, and humbling himself unto death, even death upon a cross (Phil 2:5–8 ), reversed the post-Adamic situation of hopeless sinfulness (Rom 5:19 ). “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Rom 5:20 ).
But the traditional expectation of a final end of all time was still in place. Paul uses older traditions (e.g., 1 Thess 5:13–18 ) and his own formulae (1 Cor 15:51–57 ; Phil 3:20–21 ) to refer to an event that is to come in the uncertain future. He gives instruction to his churches on how they are to live the “in-between time.” There is a strong sense of living between God’s gift of the new creation in and through the death and resurrection of Jesus (Rom 1:16–17 ; 3:21–26 ) and the final coming of God and Jesus Christ at the end of time. Believers wait in hope and love through the in-between time (Rom 8:24–25 ). The creation waits with eager longing, as do those who already enjoy the first fruits of the Spirit groaning inwardly (Rom 8:23 ).
Already caught up in the anticipated presence of the glory of the end time, given by God through the obedient death and resurrection of his Son, yet aware that the end time is yet to come, the Christian lives the law of love. The law does not save; that has been effected by the death and resurrection of Jesus. But the commandments of the law are still in place. They guide the believer in a response to God’s love and grace. Paul never suggests that the law’s commandments are invalid. This is made particularly clear in Romans 13:8 , where Paul teaches that “the one who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law” (author’s translation). He spells this out with explicit references to the law in verses 9–11 , concluding that all the commandments “are summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law” (vv. 10B–11 ). In Galatians 5:13–14 , the call to freedom resulting from God’s saving action sets the believer free “through love [to] become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ” Although the verb “to love” is not found, its practice within the community is indicated in Galatians 6:2 : “Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”
Jesus Christ is the model of how the law must be lived, responding to the loving initiative of God. Christ has made the believer his own (Phil 3:12 ); God’s own love has been bestowed. Living in the in-between time, believers must “be clothed with Christ” (Rom 12:14 ; Gal 3:27–28 ; 1 Cor 12:12–13 ; Col 3:10 ), live no longer for themselves but for Christ who lives in them, “and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20 ; see also 2 Cor 5:14–15 ). For Paul, repeating the obedient love of Jesus Christ is the way of a believer in the in-between time. The believer has been claimed by love. “As a new man in Christ, the believer is love; that is the total meaning of his life and the reason why his obedience is the yielding of his whole life to God” (Furnish, 2009, p. 200).
The Synoptic Gospels.
Apart from Jesus’s identification of love for God and neighbor as the most important commands in response to the scribe in Mark 12:30–31 and the indication that Jesus looked upon the rich man and loved him ( 10:21 ), the Gospel of Mark does not address God’s love or the love of Jesus. Jesus’s teaching on love of God and neighbor is also recorded in Matthew 22:37–39 and Luke 10:27 . Matthew also singles out Jesus’s command to love one’s neighbor (Matt 5:43 ). To these words of Jesus, which they received from Mark, Matthew, and Luke, both add Jesus’s teaching on the need to love one’s enemy (Matt 5:44 ; Luke 6:27 ). But Matthew and Luke have their unique contributions to the biblical teaching on love.
The key to Matthew’s contribution is 22:37–40 . Telling the story of Jesus in a largely Jewish–Christian setting, the relationship between Jesus and the law and the prophets is a matter of crucial importance. For Matthew, all the law and the prophets depend upon the love of God and neighbor (v. 40 ). This basic supposition plays out in other places where Jesus instructs the people on the need to forgive ( 6:14–15 ; 18:21–22 , 23–35 ) and in his regulations on how one should deal with one’s enemies ( 10:17–25 ) and with one’s errant brother ( 18:15–17 ). These instructions reflect an early Christian community coming to grips with both outside and inside pressures in the growing tensions between postwar Judaism and emerging Christianity. The high point in Matthew’s exposition of the theme of love is found in the last of his five discourses ( 25:31–46 ). The situation of a struggling community is again found here, but Matthew’s Jesus reaches beyond the community itself to a broader sense of God and neighbor. The word “love” never appears in the discourse, but final judgment will be meted out according to the believer’s treatment of the needy neighbor. Service to that neighbor is service to Christ (vv. 40 , 45 ). If the law and the prophets depend upon the command to love God and neighbor ( 22:37–40 ), then they are fulfilled in the love and service of others. Not to love in this way will lead to eternal punishment (v. 46 ).
Jesus’s teaching on the need to love God continues in Luke ( 10:27 ). Luke’s Jesus also asks for love of one’s enemy ( 6:27 , 35 ). The command to love one’s neighbor is not explicit but radicalized Luke’s insistence that the believer is to be merciful as the heavenly Father is merciful, doing good, lending, and expecting nothing in return, just as the Father is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish ( 6:35–36 ). The Lukan ideal of Christian love is most clearly found in the description of the early Christian community as living a genuine koinōnia (“fellowship”). Christians are to be devoted to the common good (Acts 2:42 ; 9:31 ), selling their possessions to share with all, according to need ( 2:44–45 ; 4:32 , 34–37 ), and ready to respond to the needs of others ( 11:28–29 ). This ideal is not found in love commands in the gospel but in the numerous uniquely Lukan narratives of Jesus’s care and forgiveness for the socially unacceptable ( 7:1–9 , the Roman centurian; 7:11–17 , the widow of Nain; 8:1–3 , women in his ministry; 17:11–19 , the Samaritan leper; 23:34 , forgiveness of his executioners; 23:39–43 , the crucified criminal), in his parables that focus upon the marginal ( 14:15–44 ; 15:11–32 ; 16:1–8 , 19–31 , etc.), and in his instructions not to judge others ( 6:37–42 ). Within the narrative of Luke–Acts, love of God, neighbor, and enemy is reflected in the compassion, service, and care for all, even one’s enemies, and in showing restraint, forgiving, and sharing with others. This was the way of the Lukan Jesus and the way of the believer in Acts.
The Gospel and letters of John.
The theme of love dominates the Gospel and letters of John. It has been claimed that Johannine Christianity, in a way similar to the Qumran sectarians, reflects a move into a sectarian Christianity. John never mentions love of neighbor or enemy but insists that the believers “love one another” (John 13:34–35 ; 15:12 , 17 ; see also 17:21 , 23 , 26 ). The Gospel and the letters must be taken separately as the narrative of the Gospel and the teaching of the letters reflect different literary worlds and slightly different times, with the Gospel predating the letters. The Gospel states clearly that Jesus does the will of the one who sent him, perfecting the task given to him (John 4:34 ). He must make God known ( 17:3 ) and, thus, bring eternal life to all who believe in him ( 17:2 ; 20:30–31 ). The God Jesus must make known is a God who so loved the world that he gave his only Son, not to judge the world but to make possible eternal life ( 3:16–17 ). First John 4:8 (cf. v. 16 ) takes this understanding of God one step further by baldly stating “God is love.” The task of Jesus is to make known a God who loves. He does this by means of his unconditional loving response to his Father, when he is “lifted up” on the cross so that he might draw everyone to himself ( 3:14 ; 8:28 ; 12:32–33 ; 19:25–27 ). Within the narrative world of the Fourth Gospel it is not only what Jesus says that communicates the message of love but also, especially, what he does.
On the cross the love of God is made visible, and by means of the cross Jesus returns to the glory that was his before the world was made ( 11:4 ; 12:27–28 ; 13:1 , 18–19 , 31–32 ; 17:1 ; 19:28–30 ). All subsequent believers will look upon the pierced one ( 19:37 ). Jesus asks that his disciples be swept up into the love that unites the Father and the Son ( 17:24–26 ) and manifest in their lives Jesus’s own unconditional and self-giving love ( 13:34–35 ; 15:12 , 17 ). The ongoing mission of the Johannine church is entrusted to the ministry of Peter, who must swear his love and commit himself to martyrdom for the glory of God ( 21:15–19 ) and to the witness of the disciple whom Jesus loved ( 21:20–24 ).
First John repeats the Gospel’s teaching on love ( 3:15–16 , 17 , 18 , 22–24 ; 4:7–8 , 9–10 , 12 , 15–16 , 18–20 ; 5:1–3 ), but there are problems in this loving community. Some have left the community, and they are judged severely ( 2:19 ). In 2 John 10 the author instructs a Johannine community not to accept anyone who does not live by the “true doctrine” (doubtless that of 1 John). But in 3 John 9–10 a leader of another community, Diotrophes, is following this regulation and not allowing the author of the letters into his community. The Johannine communities are experiencing a severe breakdown in their relationships. What has happened to this early Christian community, founded on Jesus’s command to love as he loved (see John 13:34–35 ; 15:12 , 17 )?
All Johannine Christians were asked to be beloved disciples (John 20:29 ), made holy by God so that they may be the holy sent ones of the Father, as Jesus was the holy sent one of the Father ( 17:18–20 ). It appears that Johannine Christianity did not succeed. The failure was not the result of the formation of an early Christian sect. Never in the Gospel of John (unlike Qumran) are hatred and rejection of others commanded. Both 2 and 3 John come close and indicate that Johannine Christianity failed because the command to make God known to the world by loving as Jesus had loved them was easier to talk about than to live. Whatever we make of its failure within the early Christian church, Johannine Christianity has left us its story of Jesus, which it must have told and retold, despite (or perhaps because of) their struggles. We would not have the Gospel of John as part of the Christian canon if this were not the case. This is not a sectarian tract, written for the private mutual exhortation of a secret enclave.
Assessment.
There is no single biblical understanding of love. Jews and Christians have always seen love as essential to their way of life, their understanding of God, whose love called them, and Christians have always seen love as essential to the role of Jesus Christ, whose love saved them. Both Jews and Christians have been admired and despised across the centuries for features of relationships that depend upon love: admired for those whose self-gift in love is unquestionable, despised for a sectarian and self-centered love that is concerned only with preservation. There are many shades between these extremes. The Bible offers no complete or satisfactory presentation of the profound human phenomenon and experience of love. Nor does it articulate a complete theology and/or Christology based upon love. The biblical development and articulation of the love theme is a limited response to “all aspects of the Christian praxis of love … divine and human love … salvation, sexuality and forgiveness in the light of love” (Jeanrond, 2010, p. 23). The tendency to transform the complexities of love and care for others into a bloodless spirituality of love is to be avoided “to lift all human differences and forms of otherness to a higher spiritual level in the name of love” (cf. Jeanrond, 2010, p. 44). There are many elements in the history of love and the social locations of love that the biblical tradition does not face. It addresses only a small part of the imperative to love found at the heart of the Jewish and Christian scriptures. Nevertheless, it has played, and continues to play, an important role in the religious and secular understanding and regulation of human relationships, theology, and Christology. It deserves a place at the table when the complexity of the human condition and its relationships with God in religious traditions and with one another in a secular traditions are under consideration.
[See also ELECTION ; ETHICS, BIBLICAL ; GRACE ; HOSPITALITY ; and MERCY AND COMPASSION .]
Bibliography
Bibliography
· Burridge, Richard A. Imitating Jesus: An Inclusive Approach to New Testament Ethics. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2007.
· Furnish, Victor P. The Love Command in the New Testament. London: SCM, 1973.
· Furnish, Victor P. Theology and Ethics in Paul. 2d ed. New Testament Library. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 2009.
· Haldar, Alfred O., and John T. Wallis. “ʾāhabh, etc.” In Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, edited by Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, Vol. 1, pp. 99–118. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1964.
· Jeanrond, Werner G. A Theology of Love. London and New York: T&T Clark, 2010.
· Meier, John P. “Widening the Focus: The Love Commands of Jesus.” In A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 4: Law and Love, pp. 478–646. Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2009.
· Moloney, Francis J. Love in the Gospel of John: An Exegetical, Theological and Literary Study. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2013.
· Quell, Gottfried, and Ethelbert Stauffer. “agapaō, etc.” In Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, edited by Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, Vol. 1, pp. 21–55. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1964.
· Sakenfeld, Katherine Doob, and William Klassen. “Love.” In The Anchor Bible Dictionary, edited by David Noel Freedman, Vol. 4, pp. 374–396. New York: Doubleday, 1992.
· Sanders, Jack T. Ethics in the New Testament: Change and Development. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985.
· Stählin, Gustav. “phileō, etc.” In Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, edited by Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, Vol. 1, pp. 113–171. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1974.
Francis J. Moloney
