Fear VS Acceptance

The apostolic "concept" of divine love, referred to as "Agape," is distinguished from other forms of love like friendship or affection.
Agape is correctly understood as a cultural and linguistic concept (and not as a theological subject). In Greek, it is used for giving, absorbing love, sometimes describing events such as invitations, hospitality and celebrations, (often associated with weddings.)

The link between the teachings of Jesus and this imagery is very close. Jesus Christ emphasizes that Agape is a representation of the invitation to His Kingdom.
This invitation has consequences and various fruits in our lives.

I begin this note with the Hymn of Love:

1Cor 13
If I am able to speak the language of men or of angels, but have not divine love in me, I shall be like a noisy cymbal or a rattling cymbal.
If I have received the gift of prophecy, if I know all secret truths, if I have all knowledge, if I have faith so strong that I can move mountains with it, but have not divine love, I am nothing!
If I divide all my wealth among the poor, if I sacrifice my body to be burned with fire, but have not divine love, I am nothing.

Divine love is patient and kind. This love is not jealous, envious, boastful, proud, rude, self-seeking, hot-tempered, or abusive, not pleased with injustice, but rejoices with justice. Divine love endures all things, always believing, always hoping, always persevering.

This love never fails. Prophecy passes away, speaking in tongues passes away, all knowledge passes away. For our knowledge and our prophesying are fragmentary. But when completeness comes, the fragmentary will become superfluous.

When I was a child, I spoke and thought like children. When I grew up, however, I left childish things behind.We are the same way: now we only see reality as if we were looking at it in a blurry mirror. But when the fullness comes, we will see everything face to face and clearly. Now I know and understand everything only in fragments, but then I will know and understand everything as perfectly as God himself knows me.

But these three will always remain: faith, hope, and love. But of these, divine love is the greater.

Between love and 'charity'... (filia - Agape)

What is this divine love, described by the apostles here? It's an otherwise rarely used word {Agape}.

For it is not philia = (friendly) love and not eros = affection, but an attitude different from the emotional - relational threads of everyday life.

Yes - even just the emotional part is much more than a casual mood ...
There is a huge difference between love and affection - so how big is the difference between man's love and God's love?

Agape

agape has now become a religious term. It is also easily spoken of by those who "fill in" the rest of the Pauline teaching with a list of sinful bodily behaviors (vv. 4-7), yet that is where we learn: what is not agape.

The right approach is cultural and linguistic, not theological.
The word agape is used in Greek culture for occasions of invitation, hospitality, and even communal celebration. It is perhaps interesting that the English meaning "gazing with open mouth" has survived - could it be that it was once associated with the idea of "inviting to a festive event"?

The agape is always an implication of a common festive event. Very often a wedding. If anyone has seen the movie "big Greek wedding" - well you get the full picture of such a celebration. After all, such a Mediterranean event lasting several days is almost exactly the same as the Middle Eastern weddings described in the Scriptures.

What concerns us from this is that Jesus and his disciples do not speak and teach with this image by accident. It is no accident that they give us not doctrine but teaching - showing us the way of invitation. An invitation to His feast, that is, to His kingdom.

Fear not

There is no fear in {agape} love; on the contrary, love that is fulfilled casts out fear, for fear has the character of punishment (it involves torment), and he who fears has not been fulfilled in love.
We love because he loved us before.
1 Jn. 4:18-19

Here, on the last sentence, it is worth agreeing that the apostles are looking only at the fruit of a relationship with the Lord. They never expect man to do divine things in his own strength. The agape love is of divine origin. This is what our intimate relationship with Him shows. This is where the merely religious man is exposed. He is not really in the freedom of grace. He is a slave to demands. He expects the same of others. He is not in divine acceptance. Therefore he is afraid. That is why he will not invite anyone in love.

The Groom who is late

In the Word we read, John the Confessor proclaims, and Jesus Christ repeatedly and explicitly says, that at this wedding feast he, Christ, is the bridegroom :

John the Baptist says this about Jesus:

.. in the friend of the bridegroom who stands and listens to him, great joy is aroused when he hears the bridegroom's word...
my joy is complete.
John 3:29

B. Jesus says:

Is it possible for the sons of the wedding feast to sit in mourning while the bridegroom is with them? The days may come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and they will fast.
Matthew 9:15

Later, Jesus openly tells us that the wedding is a picture of the Kingdom of God - and it matters how we prepare for it. And we can look for the key in one of the early traditions of the Jewish wedding in the period of waiting at night.

I'll come at night

The kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. For foolish were those who took a lamp, but did not take oil with them.

After the bridegroom was late, they all fell asleep and slept. At midnight there was a cry, Ni, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him! Then the virgins all got up and put on their lamps.
But the fools...
Matthew 25:1

..ye yourselves know that the day of the Lord cometh as a thief in the night
1 Thessalonians 5:2

The day of the Lord will come like a thief
2 Peter 3:10

In the book of Revelation, the glorious Christ again warns us believers:

Look! I go away a thief. Blessed is the man who keeps awake and keeps his clothes, so that he may not walk naked and be seen in his deformed form.
Rev 16:15

We believers are therefore called to this wedding event! And called to this waiting in readiness!

When we hear that: "God so loved {with agape love} the world" {us humans}, he invited the people of the world into his fellowship in such a way that he gave "his only begotten Son" in exchange for them, for their sins - "that whoever believes in his Son should not perish but have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the midst of men to condemn them, but that through the Son they might be saved.." Jn 3:16-17

So the message we get is that this is how God invited the world. Everyone. Relatives and strangers are invited.

And when we follow Him, we also participate in the family invitation, the suffering with Him, the ultimate waiting for Him - and the celebration of the Lord.

So, agape love, originating from the heavenly source, dispels fear and is a fruit of a relationship with the Lord, contrasting it with mere religious adherence driven by demands and fear.

Question: do we live for demands, for ourselves, in fear, or invite others, by agape?

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