Please begin this lesson by evaluating an idea about what constitutes love. The idea --at its simplest-- is this: "True love sees only the good in people."

According to this idea, if you are a truly loving person, you will emphasise the positive in people, and ignore the negative. You will be kindly blind to their faults, and you will appreciate their nobler points. Everybody has some fault, and everybody has some virtue. When you love people, you see their virtue, not their fault.

Now when you have considered that idea, I would like to give you another task: Make a list of what you consider to be the top ten most dangerous ideas in the world today.

It would be interesting to know whether the idea I asked you to evaluate, was included on your list of most dangerous ideas. I would include it very high up on my list. I reckon I might even count it about the second most dangerous idea in the world.

Sometimes we hear criticism of the Hollywood style of romantic love, that it is superficial and blind. The promotion of such "love" is considered dangerous. Yet the very people who repeat that criticism, will hold to the idea that true love will see only the good in people and will not take account of their wrongs. I view this notion of Christian love as being just as superficial and dangerous as the Hollywood version --in fact hardly distinguishable from it.

Illustrations

The problem with the idea that love sees no evil, can be illustrated in a mundane manner, with the following stories:

• Beth was lonely. She needed to make friends, but wasn't having much success. Her mother told her to just notice the good in people, and to ignore their faults. Beth did so, and made friends fast. But she didn't make fast friends. When her peers observed that she saw only the good in them, and she did not notice their shortcomings, they felt comfortable around her. Soon she was popular. But as their wrongdoings went unchecked, Beth found herself more their victim than their friend. One night, Beth's mother changed her tune. That was the night the mother was called to the police station to collect Beth, who had been blamed for a crime her "friends" had done.
• Jim was training young Mark in the use of a cutting machine. To instill confidence in the trainee, Jim drew attention to what Mark was doing right, and said very little about what he was doing wrong. Jim called this "tracking the positives" and in this manner Jim soon had Mark turning out work he could approve. But one day Jim saw Mark handling a cutter carelessly, and not in the manner Jim had shown him. Jim knew Mark's incompetence could result in a serious accident. He said, rather sternly, "Mark, you are handling that cutter the wrong way, and you haven't turned the power off; you could lose a few fingers like that, my lad."
• The Bible has stories with the same moral to them. In Galatians 2:11-21 Paul tells of how, "When Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed." He accused Peter of "playing the hypocrite" in the Antioch church.

Was Beth's mother uncharitable toward Beth's friends, or Jim toward his trainee, or Paul toward Peter? Indeed not. On the contrary, they were showing love by recognising error and making people accountable for it.

Paul, in 1Corinthians 13:4-5 says that love "keeps no account of evil" . But in what sense? Surely Paul means that "love holds no grudges" (as brother Hugo McCord translates it). In a sense, Paul himself kept an account of Peter's evil, didn't he? He certainly held Peter accountable for wrongdoing. But Paul did not hold it as a grudge against Peter, intending to pay Peter back for it. This seems to me a fairly simple and sensible thing to understand. Yet it is not always properly understood among us.

There are four points worthy of your consideration and applicable to the idea that true love sees only the good in people. These points will help us to understand the matter more fully.

1. God is love, yet he sees the evil in others

True love comes from God and we are to love as God loves 2:6-11) . Someone will say, "But God is perfect; He has the right to judge, and the ability to do so consistently with his love. We are imperfect, so we cannot." Yet Jesus clearly said, "Love one another as I have loved you" (Jhn 15:12) . We can (and should) love as God loves.

Some consider God's love to be unconditional. Yet Jesus had earlier said, "If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love" (Jhn 15:9-10. Later he said, "You are my friends if you do whatever I command you" (Jhn 15:14) .

The old standard of love was, "Love thy neighbour as thyself" . If we love ourselves (in the best sense), we discipline ourselves, knowing that neglect would be detrimental to our own best interests. Should we then excuse others or remain blind to their evil?

The new standard of love makes it even more imperative that we take proper account of the evil in others. God the Son set this new standard when he said, "Love one another as I have loved you" .

Does Jesus love us by overlooking our sin and insist that we do the same for others? No, he forgives, and expects us to forgive, and that is not the same as being blind to sin or ignoring it. Forgiveness is a process that takes account of sin and duly deals with it in mercy and in justice.

The Bible says that love "covers a multitude of sins" (1Pet 4:8) . But how does it cover them? True love deals with sin effectively that it may be genuinely blotted out. True love never merely sweeps sin under the carpet. It never ignores or overlooks sin.

Only "he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins" (Jas 5:20) . That is God's way of love --not to leave sin unchallenged, but rather to turn sinners from the error of their ways. [See lesson entitled "Love Covers a Multitude of Sins"]

2.Those who see only the good in others make one exception

I have occasionally been accused of "lacking love" because I levelled an accusation at someone. If love sees only the good in others, then love does not accuse. Yet those who claim to be loving do accuse --they have accused me of being unloving! Are we to say, then, that there is no lack of love in accusing the accuser of lacking love?

What a riddle that would be, and all the more curious, since to call someone unloving is the worst accusation you can make. If you say a person does not love, that is tantamount to calling that person godless. For "he who does not love, does not know God..." 4:8) .

Most of us know of some case where a person who spoke out against error was accused of lacking Christian love and spiritual graces. That accusation was accompanied by remarks about the person's own failings. These remarks were hurtful, belittling, unfair. The pot had called the kettle black.

3. You cannot see the evil in yourself if you see only the good in others

The Bible says, "Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted" (Gal 6:1) .

This shows that we should not be blind to evil, whether in others or in ourselves. But more than that: it is with the same eyes that we perceive evil in others and in ourselves. If we blind our eyes to another's evil, how shall we have eyes to see our own evil?

4. You cannot preach the cross of Jesus if you see only the good in others

Jesus died for the forgiveness of sins. If you do not see sin in others, then neither do you see their need of the blood of Jesus. You cannot have it both ways.

When you point your finger at people's need of the cross, what are you pointing your finger at? You are not pointing at the good in them, for Jesus did not die to save them from that, but he died rather that they might have remission of their sins (Mtt 26:28) . So when you preach the gospel to people, you are pointing at their sins. And that is the loving thing to do.

You may object that no, it is the Holy Spirit who is convicting them of sin, you are just the instrument, and make no judgment yourself. But as God's instrument you must concur with what God is doing through you. And God is not seeing only the good in people --he is seeing the evil in people and urging them to see it. What virtue is there in your being blind to it?

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