Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. (1 Peter 1:22-23)
We find again and again that the point of the New Testament returns to love. God's love for us in Christ Jesus, our love returned to Him in trusting obedience, and the agape-love of Jesus expressed through us to our brothers and sisters. Peter's call to believers in his first letter is no different. Having laid out the faith we've been called to in Jesus, Peter reminds us that this faith should and must be expressed in our love for one another.
He attaches to Christian love (agapaō or ἀγαπάω) a word that the New Testament frequently couples with "love": anypokritos (or ἀνυπόκριτος). This word is translated as "sincere" in the NIV and "earnestly" in the ESV. This word is a great key to true, Christ-like love for brothers and sisters. See Romans 12:9, 2 Corinthians 6:6 also for the connection of anypokritos with agapao)
This rich Greek word means "without hypocrisy" or even "without pretending." Oh, how easy it is to play a religious game, being nice to people, or just trying to get people to like you. To love without hypocrisy, without pretending, is to actually love our brothers and sisters, as Peter says, "from the heart." To actually love them for their own benefit, because they are beloved children of God, bought at the high price of Jesus' life.
Here Peter is making sure that believers know how important real love is to God. And that once we "have" this sincere love we must express it "deeply."
This second Greek word, translated "deeply," is ektenōs or ἐκτενῶς. This is another very rich word which, more than "deeply," means "without ceasing."
Thus, we are called to have love for one another, without hypocrisy, and to express that sincere love to one another "without ceasing."
This is quite the challenge. But, thanks be to God, His grace in us is great enough to fill us with His love that we can do this. He goes on to remind us that it is to these very things that we were called and chosen:
You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (1 Peter 2:9-10)
Dear brothers and sisters, let us never lose sight of the high calling of love.
May the Lord always keep our hearts alive and ablaze with His agape-love.
Amen.
Essene Press Team
