1. If love is defined by God in 1 Corinthians 13 as never-failing and in 1 John as laying down one’s life, why is this not the foundation for how we are to perceive God’s love? Are we not commanded to love in the same manner that He loves? “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another.” (John 13:35)
2. If God’s nature is love how can it be separated from any other aspect of His being? If His nature is one of a loving Father then would not everything that came from Him be as a Father? Would not his wrath and judgment be as “fatherly” as His nurture and sustenance?
3. Do you think that it sounds possible or reasonable that anyone could resist and defeat the love of God, indefinitely?
4. Is love really as powerful as we say it is? Do we actually believe, “God is love,” “love never fails,” “the greatest is love,” “love is the fulfillment of the law,” or as the song, “the love of God is greater far than any tongue or pen can tell”? Can we really make these claims with no qualifications? Are you truly convinced that LOVE NEVER FAILS?
5. What is agape love? How different is it to human love? Could there be any power greater to melt the hearts and lives of people causing them to turn from their destructive ways? What is the alternative? Fear of punishment? Hope of reward?
6. How can I obey the two greatest commandments of loving God and neighbor as myself in light of the following:
“If I approve of a God who fails to love [most] of my neighbors and I am grateful for this fact, then I do not truly love or will the good for all my neighbors: and if I DO love them, then in the very act of willing the good for them I demonstrate my disapproval of any God who does not likewise will the good for them.”
Thomas Talbott
7. If the summation of the law is “love your neighbor as yourself” does God love us as Himself? In other words does He lay His life down for all of us His “neighbors”? Or does He answer, “Ah, but the question is, ‘who really is My neighbor? To Me it is actually just a few elect.’“
8. Why does the Westminster Shorter Catechism’s definition of God not include love?
“God is a spirit; infinite, eternal and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.”