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Thanksgiving provides opportunity for many a happy and holy activity. In my various interactions this past week with the church and at home with family I have observed a vivid example of one such activity. It is a quality of love that God’s children express toward one another. The character of this love reflects something of heaven itself, since God is its source. In biblical language it is called “brotherly” love. The following quote from Dionysius helps explain how brotherly love works among God’s people.

Dionysius the Great was bishop of Alexandria (c. 190 – c. 264), in Egypt, from 247 until his death. During this time, the Christians in Alexandria suffered persecution under the Emperor Decian. For several years Dionysius led the church whilst in hiding. A number of his surviving letters contain horrific descriptions of believers being tortured and murdered because they would not deny Christ. However, persecution was not the only threat; the city also suffered civil strife, plague and famine. In one letter, Dionysius writes about a time when Alexandria was struck by a severe plague. He describes the response of the surrounding pagans—one of utter selfishness. When the pagans abandoned their fellow-men, the Christians stayed to help.

“[The heathen] thrust aside any who began to be sick, and kept aloof even from their dearest friends, and cast the sufferers out upon the public roads half dead, and left them unburied, and treated them with utter contempt when they died, steadily avoiding any kind of communication and intercourse with death; which, however, it was not easy for them altogether to escape, in spite of the many precautions they employed.

However, in spite of the way they had suffered at the hands of their neighbors, the behavior of the Christians could not have been more different.

Certainly very many of our brethren, while, in their exceeding love and brotherly-kindness, they did not spare themselves, but kept by each other, and visited the sick without thought of their own peril, and ministered to them assiduously, and treated them for their healing in Christ, died from time to time most joyfully along with them, lading themselves with pains derived from others, and drawing upon themselves their neighbours’ diseases, and willingly taking over to their own persons the burden of the sufferings of those around them. And many who had thus cured others of their sicknesses, and restored them to strength, died themselves, having transferred to their own bodies the death that lay upon these. And that common saying, which else seemed always to be only a polite form of address, they expressed in actual fact then, as they departed this life, like the “off-scourings of all.” Yea, the very best of our brethren have departed this life in this manner, including some presbyters and some deacons, and among the people those who were in highest reputation: so that this very form of death, in virtue of the distinguished piety and the steadfast faith which were exhibited in it, appeared to come in nothing beneath martyrdom itself.”1

Footnotes:

1 Dionysius of Alexandria, “Epistle XII – To the Alexandrians”, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 6, trans. S.D.F. Salmond (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1886), 108-109.

On Sunday I’m scheduled to preach the morning services at College Church on the topic of ‘holy war’ from Josh 5. Sermon preparation has provoked more than a little thought, especially in light of America’s current involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. Following is a quote from Lloyd-Jones that didn’t make it into the message, but is still worth considering.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899 – 1981) left a brilliant career in medicine to serve as a Christian minister. Over time he became one of the most significant British evangelicals of the twentieth century. He came to Westminster Chapel, in London, as assistant minister in April 1939, with the shadow of war looming ever larger over Britain. Six months later, the nation now at war, he preached a series of sermons, published in December of that year as the book Why Does God Allow War? He argues that many of our demands and desires for peace are governed not by godliness, but by worldliness.

“‘Why do we expect God to prohibit war?’ or ‘Why should God prevent war?’ . . . Has not the tendency been to take it for granted that we have a right to a state and condition of peace? Do we stop to ask what is the real value and purpose and function of peace? . . .

There are two passages, at least, in scripture which show very clearly why we should desire peace. The first is in Acts 9:31: “Then had the churches rest throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria, and were edified; and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied.” . . . The other passage is in 1 Timothy 2:1-2: “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions and giving thanks, be made for all men, and all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and a peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.” . . .

It is not enough that we should desire peace merely that we may avoid the horror and sufferings of war . . . Man’s chief business in life is to serve and to glorify God . . . and consequently he should desire peace because it enables him to do that more freely and fully than he can during a state of war.

But is that our reason for desiring peace? Is that the real motive in our prayers for peace? . . . Far too often, I fear, the motive has been purely selfish . . . and one has felt that many have desired peace merely in order to avoid a disturbance of the kind of life which they were living and enjoying so heartily. What kind of life was that? In a word it was almost the exact opposite of that described in our two passages of scripture. Under the blessing of peace, men and women, in constantly increasing numbers, have forsaken God and religion and settled down to a life which is essentially materialistic and sinful . . . This became evident not only in the decline of religion, but still more markedly in the appalling decline in morals; and indeed, finally, even in a decline in a political and social sense. It was a life of purely selfish and carnal enjoyment, with all the slackness in every respect that such a life always produces. It led to the decadence which the rulers of Germany banked, and on which they based their calculations. They did not believe that we would not fight because we were highly spiritual, but, rather, because they felt that we had lost our stamina and would allow nothing to interfere with our indolent life.

Then came a crisis in September, 1938. Men and women crowded to places of worship and prayed for peace. Afterwards they assembled to thank God for peace. . . What if war has come because we were not fit for peace, because we did not deserve peace; because we by our disobedience godlessness and sinfulness had so utterly abused the blessings of peace? Have we a right to expect God to preserve a state of peace merely to allow men and women to continue a life that is an insult to His Holy Name?”1

Footnotes:

1 Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Why Does God Allow Suffering? (1939; reprint, Wheaton, IL, Crossway Books, 1994), 91-95. In later editions, the title was changed from Why Does God Allow War?