Doug Wilson on fine fine form with his first post of the year, detailing how we to are love the LORD better. He sets the scene with this verse:
The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil.
Pride and arrogance and the way of evil
and perverted speech I hate (Proverbs 8:13)
Then makes this striking observation:
We should be able to immediately see that there is no virtue or vice to be found in a transitive verb. By themselves as verbs, love is not good and hatred is not bad. Everything rides on the the direct object. If you love your mom, that is great, but if you love child porn - same verb and everything - you are being wicked. In order to honor God, the right verb has to be lined up with the right direct object. Genuine love lines up with certain things so does true-hearted hate.
So what are the 7 things to be a greater lover/better hater. In summary, they are:
1) Learn to love properly e.g. delighting in God's word, actively loving our spouse, children, grandchildren etc.
2) Learn to hate hypocrisy i.e. don't hate other people's sins more than your own
3) Learn to hate jargon, buzzwords, cant and Kant. No solid examples given here but I guess he has in sights things like 'edgy', 'missional', 'gospel-centred' etc.
4) Learn to hate every form of egalitarianism, feminism, metrosexuality [...] and androgyny. In other words, ever since our division as a race into male and female, the true believers have responded with a hearty vive la différence.
5) Learn to hate every attempt to turn the Scripture on itself. That is, we are to remember that the Scriptures are coherent. One good step towards this is to say No! No! No! to red letter bibles.
6) Learn to hate every form of coercion that is not mandated by God Himself. Cameron, Barak Obama, The EU beware!
7) Learn to hate the suggestion made by some Christians (some evangelicals even!) that we are to take no prisoners. But what of Matthew 28:19-20?
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