Hatred Blinds, Love Illuminates

Light has an opposite: darkness. Scholar William Barclay said, “As John sees it, there is no such thing as neutrality in personal relationships. As Westcott put it: ‘Indifference is impossible; there is no twilight in the spiritual world.’” * In relationships with others, we’re either moving toward love or away from it—there’s no static middle ground. “The word darkness refers here mainly to the ethical aspects of the term. This has been made explicit in some versions, for example, ‘in darkness doing evil,’ ‘doing dark deeds.’” **

• Barclay outlined various ways of relating to other people that fall short of God’s standard of loving them: we might just ignore their existence, view them with contempt, see them as a nuisance, or look at them as an enemy. But God’s standard calls us to “regard their needs as our needs, their interests as our interests, and to be in fellowship with them as the true joy of life.” *** Assess honestly: which of these attitudes do you sometimes slip into with difficult people in your life?
• Scholar N. T. Wright noted, “It’s difficult. It’s so much easier to collapse back into living the old way, the way of suspicion and hatred. But that means going back into the darkness (verses 9 and 11), whereas the life of love means going forward into the light…. Love–God’s kind of love–…. demands a victory, a victory over the old enemy who does his best work through human hatred.” **** What do you find most appealing about choosing to live in God’s loving way?