Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
It's fantastic that one little word could turn the world upside down. Yes, the world was once powerfully shaken by a little band of men from Palestine who carried news embodied in one rather obscure word. Their terrified enemies in Thessalonica confessed its impact: "These who have turned the world upside down have come here too" (Acts 17:6). The dynamite-laden messengers: Christ's apostles, especially Paul and his colleague John.
The word that performed this mighty feat was one little known in the ancient Greco-Roman world--a Greek term, agape. It meant "love," but it was revolutionary. It came to carry a spiritual wallop that overwhelmed people's minds, catalyzing humanity into two camps, one for and the other against the heavenly idea.
Those that were for it were transformed overnight into recklessly joyous followers of Jesus, ready to lose property, go to prison, or even to die a tortured death for Him. Those catalyzed against it as quickly became cruel, bloodthirsty persecutors of those who saw light in the new concept of love. None who heard the news could ever sit on the fence.
The mysterious explosive in this spiritual bomb was a radically different idea than had been dreamed of by the world's philosophers or ethics teachers. It was a new invention that took friend and foe alike by surprise.
It wasn't that the ancients had no idea of love; they talked about it plenty. In fact, the Greeks had three or four words for love (our modern languages usually have only one). But the kind of love that came to be expressed in agape mercilessly exposed all other ideas of love as either non-love or anti-love.
All of a sudden mankind came to realize that what they'd been calling "love" was actually veneered selfishness. The human psyche was stripped naked by the new revelation. If you welcomed the spiritual revolution, you got clothed with agape yourself; if not, having your robes of supposed goodness ripped off turned you into a raving enemy of the new faith. And no one could turn the clock back, for agape was an idea for which its fullness of time had come.
When John took his pen to write his famous equation "God is love" (1 John 4:8), he had to choose between the several Greek words. The common, everyday one--eros--packed a powerful punch on its own. Something mysterious and powerful, eros was thought to be the source of all life. It swept like a torrent from a broken dam over all obstacles of human will and wisdom, a tide of emotion common to all humanity. If a mother loved her child, her love was eros, thought to be noble and pure. Likewise, the dependent love of children for their parents and the common love of friends for each other. Further, the mutual love of man and woman was a profoundly mysterious drive.
As the apostles fanned out telling their story, the cross became the world's moment of truth. In that lightning flash of revelation, every man saw himself judged. The cross became the final definition of love; and that's why that word agape turned the world upside down. Let it turn your life upside down!
-- Robert J. Wieland
From: The Word That Turned the World Upside Down, 2001.
Copyright © 2018 by "Dial Daily Bread."
