Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. (John 13:34)
Love one another
Consider the lilies of the field… Matt 6:28
Consider the lilies of the field… Matt 6:28
Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. (John 13:34)
thedailylily.com 
Reading what Nelson Mandela wrote does not seem to leave us with much excuse to hate others or to blame others for hateful behavior.
And reading the verse above and the chapter of John 13, further reinforces what the quote states. Reading vs 14 and 15 provided one example Jesus gave of practical love for one another.
Debi, not sure I understand what you understand about the quote. “Not to blame others for bad behavior?” Could you explained how you got that?
I see your point now Debi. Love and hate are choices. But, if your were taught to hate as a child I think you could hold them accountable. There was a lot of hate in the nation where Mandela grew up. The apartheid system, which institutionalized racial discrimination. He taught and lived the truth in the midst of this hate. He was imprisoned for more than 27 years for teaching wisdom. God’s wisdom. Someone taught him love and he taught love to the point
I don’t see anyway not to hold others accountable for what they teach or model. Yet, when we are confronted with truth and wisdom we all have been given the gift from God to makes choices.
Tammy’s footnotes speaks to this issue. It leaves no doubt in my thinking that when we know God’s truth of love and live it we will be busy teaching love. Doesn’t Genesis 1:27 make it clear that God created every human being in His image?
What are we all teaching with our words and lives. Even here. I believe very strongly that we are accountable for what we teach others. Yes, and we are accountable for our choices.
The question is what knowledge have I imparted to anyone that would cause another to have to make a choice that might cause them and me to at the very least be talked about as a ….maybe a president, named Jimmy Carter.
“Long before he was called a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, a humanitarian and the 39th president (https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/james-carter/) of the United States, Jimmy Carter was known as something else: a “Goddamn n***er lover.”
That’s the racial slur a White classmate of Carter’s at the US Naval Academy assigned to him right after World War II when the future president befriended (https://alumni.dartmouth.edu/learn/good-reads/redeemer-life-jimmy-carter-randall-balmer)the academy’s only Black midshipman.
Carter was called the same racial epithet when he took over his family’s peanut farm in South Ge
orgia during the Jim Crow era. He repeatedly refused to join a segregationist group called the White Citizens’ Council despite threats to boycott his peanut business.”
“Not to blame others for bad behavior?” Could you explained how you got that?
I think I thought since the quote said, “no one is born hating…people must learn to hate,” then we must be somehow responsible for our “hateful behavior” if we can be “taught to love”. My thinking may need correcting.
The footnotes for John 14:34 in the NIV says: “To love others was not a new commandment (see Leviticus 19:18), but to love others as much as Christ loved others was revolutionary. Now we are to love others based on Jesus’ sacrificial love for us. Such love will not only bring unbelievers to Christ; it will also keep believers strong and united in a world hostile to God. Jesus was a living example of God‘s love, as we are to be living examples of Jesus’ love.”
This song caused me to pause and rethink Tammy’s footnotes. Revoluntary? Really? Am I? Seems as I read the lyrics and tried to hum the tune the Holy Sprit prompted me to check my prayer list for today? Any day? “Pray that one day our unity would be restored!” …And, “w e will work with each other, we will work side by side
We will work with each other, we will work side by side.”
Hum that’s a big, tall order or dream!
“We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
And we pray that our unity will one day be restored
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
Yeah they’ll know we are Christians by our love
We will work with each other, we will work side by side
We will work with each other, we will work side by side
And we’ll guard each man’s dignity and save each man’s pride
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
Yeah, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.”
Songwriters: Peter Scholtes
“It leaves no doubt in my thinking that when we know God’s truth of love and live it we will be busy teaching love.”
Thank you for what you wrote, Sara. The reading links and examples of those that model love make your statement above real clear; as do Tammy’s footnotes.
This old story has been shared by many in various ways. I thought nice to revisit it. Maybe it models love in the way that pleases God!
“An anthropologist, who had been studying the habits and customs of a group of people in a village far away. When he finished his work, he had to wait for a ride to take him to the airport to return home.
He’d always been surrounded by the children of the village, so before he left, he put candy in a basket with a beautiful ribbon attached. He placed it under a tree, and then he called the kids together. He drew a line on the ground and explained that they should wait behind the line for his signal.
And that when he said ‘Go!’ they should rush to the basket, and the first to arrive there would win all the candies.
When he said ‘Go!’ they all unexpectedly held each other’s hands and ran off towards the tree as a group.
Once there, they shared the candy with each other and happily ate it.
The anthropologist was surprised.
He asked them why they had all gone together, especially if the first one to arrive at the tree could have won all the candy in the basket.
A young girl replied: “How can one of us be happy if all the others are sad?”