Church is suppose to be family

Love one another with brotherly affection ... ESV

In love of the brethern be tenderly affectioned one to another ... ASV

Love each other as brothers and sisters ... CEV

Loving one another with the charity of brotherhood ... DRB

Be warmly affectionate to one another with brotherly love ... EMTV

Love one another warmly as Christians .... GNB

Be devoted to each other with mutual affection ... ISV

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In English we might not see much difference between 12:9 where we are told to love without hypocrisy and 12:10 where we are told to love one another. But in the Greek you have two different words used. Romans 12:9 is talking about our "agape" which is an affection not based on performance and which indicates a calculated love based on making something the highest priority of our lives. It can be and most of the time is highly emotional, but it is emotion based on personal commitment. Agape love is not superior to other type of loves. It simply is a different type of love.

In this light one could understand Romans 12:9 as "Don't pretend to have the love God and others as your highest priority when it really isn't."

Now in Romans 12:10 we have two other Greek work used for love. One is philostorgos which is which is an old compound word used only here in the New Testament and philidelphia. Paul is now focusing on the idea that we are to not only agape God and others but now to give to Christians both philos and storgos type of love.

What is storgos? It is a love and loyalty based on a relationship outside of our control. It is the unconditional and long lasting love of family members for one another regardless of personality differences or performance. It is an affection that is given because of a unity we have with people that was simply destined to be by the providence of God alone. In this context Paul is saying we should feel affection for other Christians because God has chosen them to be our spiritual family. We are to give them loyalty, care, and warmth as we would family members.

Philadelphia is a word that strengthens this. It is when we actively pursue having deep and intimate family relationships. Storgos is the foundation for such a pursuit. But philos is opening our hearts to feel love towards our family members and seeking intimate friendship with them. Here is a commitment to emotional intimacy.

Now context always rules the varies shades of meaning these words may have. Here we have a call by Paul for Christians to recognize that the gospel of grace has made us a spiritual family and to love without hypocrisy we must open ourselves up to this new set of relationships found in the church and embrace other believers as relatives. This spiritual family is to have as much loyalty given to it as we would give to our physical families.

It also means that we must be seeking to make those in our local church those with whom we would have emotionally intimate friendships. Ultimately, these verses can only be experienced in the local church. We are to be ready to embrace any Christian at any time as a family member "storgos" and have a general "philos" attitude towards them, but it is in the company of believers we worship with that these words will take on concrete and real meaning.

The gospel calls us to make our local church the center of our social life. We are to be a company of friends who have faith in Messiah Jesus in common. Our love for HIM is to create love for one another.

At the present moment 39% of Americans attend church once a week. It would seem that weekly attendence at church would be the minimum effort people would have to make the local church the center of their social lives. We know that many who attend weekly have not done that. If we use the normal 80/20 rule we could speculate that in reality only about 8% of Christians in America have most likely made the relationships at church the central and most important relationships in their lives. Only 8% are experiencing to some degree the reality of what the Apostle Paul wants us to experience in our local church.

How can we open ourselves up to such intimate spiritual friendships? Many times we have been hurt in church and been disappointed by "hypocritical love" (see vs 9). It is God's will we give ourselves to this spiritual family and yet it is hard to do and hard to experience. May God grant each of us the grace to seek to deepen our love for one another.

How can we do church well?

As one studies church history is become clear that it is not easy to do church well. Paul says that the manifold wisdom of God will be seen by the powers of the heavens in the Church (Eph 3:10). It is clear that God's intention is for us to demonstrate His love, grace, and holiness. We are to be the body of Messiah and live the gospel before the nations. Yet, we are so easily distracted and deceived.

We normally can stand in judgment of other Christians and of various movements in church history. Yet, we rarely judge ourselves or our short comings. Self righteousness runs deep in our veins and it is hard to understand that some who prayed harder than we have prayed and studied harder than we have studied, failed to do church well. So how great is the danger that in our generation we might fail to do church well. Are we failing even now?

The beginning of insight is humility. My brothers and sisters for 2000 years have struggled to do church well. How easy is would be for me to fail to do church well. Satan, the world, and the flesh have as their highest priority to shatter the witness and testimony of the church. They are much more interested in corrupting the Church than running Washington. They want us not to reflect God's wisdom but to be foolish.

Lord, have pity on your people. We need revival of true spirituality and reformation to align ourselves with your WORD. We need a transformation of head and heart. We need to know how to relate to one another in holy love. Teach us to do church well.