Chapter # 12 Paragraph # 4 Study # 2
February 16, 2020
Humble, Texas
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Thesis: Abhorring and clinging: the essential attitudes of unhypocritical Love.
Introduction: In our last study we looked into Paul's second major exhortation that is rooted in the "life of the sacrificed body". When Paul called for our presentation of our bodies to "The God" on the basis of His "compassionate mercies", he had the particulars of how such a life would be used of God in mind. Thus, once he issued the summons, he immediately turned to the particulars of how such a life should be lived in respect to the "stewardship" of our possession of "grace-gifts" from God which are designed to be used for the edification of His Church.
Now, having given a kind of comprehensive overview of that "stewardship of grace" in the form of a high-lighting of seven of the more dominant "gifts", he has turned to the most fundamental issue of the "life of the sacrificed body": motivation. In regard to "motivation", the most basic bottom line is the issue of "Love" as an expression of the most critical of the attributes of God. Addressing that, Paul said we are to be "unhypocritical". This is not "perfect", as in "fully developed". Rather, it is "restrained as to claims made": we are to honestly live by the particular level of the Love of God to which the Spirit has brought us. In other words, we should never claim to "love" another beyond the reality of how much we actually "love" that other, nor should we attempt to hide the actual love of God for another that resides in our souls. In other words, we are to be openly frank about our commitments to one another as to "degree". Thus, we should never say to another, "I can't live without you", nor should we say, "I don't need you".
This evening we are going to go further into this concept of living by an unhypocritical love by looking into Paul's "attending participles": "abhorring" and "clinging".
- I. "Abhorring The Evil".
- A. This stipulated "attending idea" has both an over-all conceptual identity as well as some specific behavioral implications.
- 1. The over-all conceptual identity.
- a. When we look at Paul's use of the word translated "what is evil" (poneros), we note several things.
- 1) The word is used in our text with a definite article preceding it: "The Evil" (a kind of "title") [Half of Paul's uses use the word with a preceding article and half do not].
- 2) The word is used in 71 texts of the New Testament and 58 of them are in letters/records that Paul did not write: that leaves only 13 references to the concept by Paul.
- a) Those 13 are scattered throughout his writings in such a way that none of them "dominate" (establish "evil" as a major theme).
- b) He used this word only once in the entire letter to the Romans.
- 3) There is an association of "The Evil" with "unbelief" as a deliberate attitude in Ephesians 6:16, 2 Thessalonians 3:2, Hebrews 3:12, and 10:22. indicating a kind of "scoffing attitude" toward the promises of "The God".
- 4) In John's references (most dominantly in 1 John) there is a deliberate personification of "The Evil" as God's, and our, particular opponent [Satan].
- 5) There is also an association of "evil" with an especially "hurtful" person or behavior (most illuminating is Revelation 16:2).
- 6) And, finally, and perhaps most helpful, there is an association of "evil" with the particular issue of self-exaltation at the expense of others.
- a) What this means is that "the evil" in Paul's mind is most likely "the attitude of superiority" that comes out of the basic problem of the "pride of life" category that John established in 1 John 2:16.
- b) What this boils down to is that we are to "abhor" our most profound inner attitude that "Life" comes from being "Big" in the eyes of others.
- b. Thus, the over-all conceptual identity of "The Evil" is "the extremely hurtful attitude of superiority toward others".
- 2. Some of the specific behavioral implications have already been covered over and over in our studies in Romans, but the chiefest is the rejection of the summons given in 12:1-2 and the subsequent refusal to treat the "grace-gifts" of God as our primary stewardship, especially in respect to the building up of the Church of God.
- B. The "attending participle" translated as "abhorring" (apostugeo).
- 1. This verb is significantly rare in discoverable use: one reference in the New Testament and less than a hand full of references in Liddell-Scott.
- 2. The definition given in Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon is "to hate violently".
- 3. Given the prefixed preposition, we understand that it is an "intensified" (thus "violently") form of a word only used by Paul in Titus 3:3 and translated in some translations as "odious".
- 4. The "bottom line" is that Paul reached deeply into the available vocabulary of the Greek language to attempt to indicate just how serious he was about our attitude toward our penchant for self-elevation at the expense of others.
- a. We are to react to it as if it was a "significantly odious" thing.
- b. We are to react to it as a "violently hated" thing.
- II. "Clinging to The Good".
- A . In the larger picture, one's attitude toward "The Good" resurfaces under the auspices of the same noun in 12:21.
- 1. This "return" to "The Good" from its first mention in the paragraph in verse nine to the last instruction given in the paragraph in verse twenty-one does at least one thing: it creates a "focus" upon "The Good" that, then, gives the appearance of "the over-all concern" of the "love" that is to be unhypocritical (for "love" to be unhypocritical, the "hate" must be intense whenever the spectre of treating a fellow believer badly (simply to raise one's own "status") arises).
- b. This "return" also reveals Paul's determination that his readers grasp this principle as it applies, not only to fellow believers, but also to "enemies".
- B. The idea of "cleaving".
- 1. The verbal idea is surfaced in 11 texts in the New Testament with five of those eleven being found in Acts. Paul only uses it three times in all of his letters and his references all refer to the idea of a powerful uniting of two (as if by "glue").
- a. Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon has a reference that translates the verb "to weld" (putting two metal parts together by melting both into a common "pool" and letting the melted metals cool, united).
- b. It appears to be a word designed to indicate a potent uniting, though Luke's uses in Luke 10:11 and 15:15 are not in harmony with this notion of potency.
- 2. Paul's use here is deliberately contrastive to the idea of "violently hating"; thus we assume his concept of "cleaving" was just as "violent" as that of the "hate".
- C. The concept of "The Good".
- 1. There are 90 uses of this word in the New Testament with 19 in Romans alone.
- 2. Illuminatingly, 2:7 and 10 make "good" the basis for participation in eternal life. This argues for a strong link between "righteous" and "good".
- 3. In 7:19 Paul makes a similar "contrast" (see 2.b. immediately above) between "good" and "evil", using the same word for "evil" (kakos) as is found in verses 17 and 21 of this paragraph.
- 4. He does this again in 9:11 and implies the same idea as 2:7 and 10 above (closer to our present consideration is 12:2 where the "will of The God" is described as "good" in the same sense as 8:28.
- D. Paul's "Point" is that the unhypocritical "love" that reaches to both fellow believers and enemies is to always have a "welded" attitude of attempting to treat others "righteously" for "good".
