Add to Your Faith: Brotherly Kindness and Charity

Above all, there is the greatest commandment in the law, with which the apostle Peter culminates his seven marks of grace.

By Simon Padbury • 5 September 2019 • 12 minutes read

(6.) Brotherly Kindness

The sixth of the apostle Peter’s seven marks of grace (2 Peter 1:5-7) is brotherly kindness1 (also translated brotherly love and love of the brethren).2 We must love our brothers and sisters in our adopted covenant-family of God, namely the Christian Church.

The sixth and seventh of these marks of grace that Peter holds up before us are two kinds of love. The greatest of these is agape (ἀγάπη) (1 Corinthians 13:13); we will get to agape later in this article. But it is important to point out here that agape love too should be shown to our Christian family. In fact, often where we might expect from the context that philadelphia (φιλαδελφια) love is being spoken of, the word used is agape. So in Christ’s command to “love one another” and Paul’s thanking God whenever he remembered the “love for all the saints” in a church, the word is agape but philadelphia is included as subsumed within this agape.

Philadelphia love ought to be a distinguishing mark of the Christian and of the Church as a community. Our Lord commanded us: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love3 one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” (John 13:34-35). After the greatest commandment in the law, our Lord said, “And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:39).

That should be enough to persuade us. But know this: where we manifest toward each other (and display before a watching world) anything less than this philadelphia love (and agape love, which is the word that Jesus uses here), it is a shame upon us, and we shame our Lord Jesus Christ himself.

Knowing that this philadelphia love for fellow Christians is a true evidence of saving grace in the soul, Paul thanked God whenever he learned of such love4 being manifested in the growing Christian church-families in his day (Ephesians 1:15-16; Colossians 1:3-4; 1 Thessalonians 4:9-10; 2 Thessalonians 1:3-4; Philemon vv.4-7; see also Hebrews 6:10).

Do we see the same love for fellow Christians in action in our churches? Do we practice this this ourselves?

As our Lord instructed us, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35). Can the world see that you yourself are a disciple of Christ through noticing that you too have this love other Christians?—yes, even while you have an ongoing disagreement with some of them about doctrines?

Of course, this visibility implies that we must live our lives clearly in the sight of the watching world, and not away in some closed community that does not invite in, or welcome in non-Christian visitors, or that does no evangelistic outreach.

Even if the apostle Paul could commend you and your church for your philadelphia love, you need to do more of it! As Paul encouraged the saints in Thessalonica, “But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia: but we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more” (1 Thessalonians 4:9-10).

This philadelphia love is the fulfillment of our Lord’s second greatest commandment: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:35-39). “If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well” (James 2:8). Do we keep the “royal law” of God in this way?

And then we come to the greatest commandment in the law, with which the apostle is about to culminate his seven marks of grace, the fruit of the Spirit.

(7.) Charity

Seventhly, and finally, Peter commands us to add charity5 (or, love) to our faith. We have considered the love that we ought to have toward our Christian family; so let us now consider the love we ought to have toward our God.

This love is the fulfilment of the Lord Jesus Christ’s greatest commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength” (Mark 12:30, citing Deuteronomy 6:5).

We should love God with that fullest intensity of pure love which involves our whole being—all our heart, soul, mind and strength—so that, whatever we do, we do it all to the glory of God and we do it out of agape love for God.

Real love is an attitude of mind, not a mere feeling. It is a holy determination to will and to do the best for someone (above all to God, and then to our neighbour).

It is often said that agape love carries the idea of loving someone even when they are unworthy of that love—but God is never unworthy of such love!

With that in mind, understand this: God’s own love, spoken of by the Lord Jesus Christ himself in John 3:16, is agape love: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

The Christian agape love with which Peter commands us to add to our faith (or even, to crown our faith), is a spiritual gift. We are incapable of this or any other mark of grace (whether love toward God or toward fellow Christians) in our fallen nature. So, we must pray to God for it and, as Paul does in many of his epistles, we must thank God whenever we see it manifested, whether in ourselves or in anone else.

Now, please give this next thought your undivided attention: love does many things, and it holds back from doing some things. It is not agape love, if it is merely a feeling in the heart. This superabounding Christian love of which the Bible speaks must fill your whole heart and soul and mind; and it must motivate everything you do, think and say—first toward God and then toward your neighbours.

As with all that God gives us in his work of grace in our souls, we have the responsibility to exercise this agape love and to fan it into flame, otherwise it tragically cools and dims—because we let it fade away, and this grieves God the Holy Spirit (compare Ephesians 4:25-32).6

“Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) And let us consider one another to provoke unto [agape] love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching” (Hebrews 10:23-25).

As the apostle John7 reminds us, this manifested agape love, if genuine, is a definitive proof of our conversion and discipleship: “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we [agape] love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death…My little children, let us not [agape] love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him [God]” (1 John 3:14,18-19). For it is not in truth, it is not true agape love, if it is only in word and in tongue and not in deed.

We Christians all mourn that we so often show little of this love. We all need more of this love. And we all need to manifest more of this love. So, we must be persistent in praying to God for more and more of it! And God shall pour into your heart that agape love by his Holy Spirit (see Romans 5:5).

Let us be always adding more agape love to these other marks of grace which the apostle Peter here commands us to add to our faith. Peter concludes, “For if these things,” his seven marks of grace, “be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:8).

Appendix

William Guthrie, The Christian’s Great Interest, Chapter 4

There is a renovation of the man’s person, soul and body, in some measure.

  1. His understanding is renewed, so that he judgeth “Christ preached” in the gospel to be “the wisdom and power of God,” a wise and strong device beseeming God (1 Corinthians 1:23-24)…
  2. The heart and affections are renewed. The heart is made a new heart, a heart of flesh, capable of impressions, having a copy of His law stamped on it, and the fear of God put into it, whereby the man’s duty becomes in a manner native and kindly to the man— “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them” (Ezekiel 36:26-27). It was before a heart of stone, void of the fear of God. The affections are now renewed: the love is renewed in a good measure; it goeth out after God, after His law, and after those who have God’s image in them, “I will love the Lord” (Psalm 18:1)—after His law, “O how love I thy law!” (Psalm 119:97)—after those who have God’s image in them, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35) “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren” (1 John 3:14). This love to God’s people is purely on the account that they are the children of God, and keep His statutes: it is with a “pure heart fervently” (1 Peter 1:22); and therefore it goeth towards all those whom the man knows or apprehends to be such. “I am a companion of all them that fear thee, and of them that keep thy precepts” (Psalm 119:63)—in all cases and conditions, even where there is nothing to beautify or commend but the image of God. And this love is so fervent many times, that it putteth itself out in all relations; so that a man seeks a godly wife, a godly master, a godly servant, a godly counsellor, in preference to all others—“Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with me: he that walketh in a perfect way, he shall serve me” (Psalm 101:6). And “it is not quenched by many waters” (Song of Songs 8:7). Many imperfections and infirmities, differences in opinion, wrongs received, will not altogether quench love. Also it is communicative of good according to its measure, and as the case of the godly poor requires— “Thou art my Lord, my goodness extendeth not to thee, but to the saints,” etc. (Psalm 16:2). “But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him” (1 John 3:17-19). The man’s hatred is also renewed, and is now directed against sin. “I hate vain thoughts” (Psalm 119:113); against God’s enemies, as such, “Do not I hate them that hate Thee?” (Psalm 139:21-22) The joy or delight is renewed, for it runneth towards God, “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee” (Psalm 73:25)—towards His law and will, “His delight is in the law of the Lord” (Psalm 1:2)—and towards the godly and their fellowship, “To the saints in whom is all my delight” (Psalm 16:3). The sorrow is turned against sin which hath wronged Christ— “Looking to Him whom they have pierced, they mourn” (Zechariah 12:10). The sorrow is godly there, and against what encroacheth upon God’s honour—“They are sorrowful for the solemn assembly, and the reproach of that is their burden” (Zephaniah 3:18). There is some renovation in all the affections, as in every other part of the soul, pointing now towards God.
  3. The very outward members of the man are renewed, as the Scripture speaks—the tongue, the eye, the ear, the hand, and the foot, so that those members which once were abused as weapons of unrighteousness unto sin, are now improved as weapons of righteousness unto holiness (Romans 6:19).

  1. The word translated brotherly kindness is φιλαδελφια (philadelphia) meaning friendship or companionship as with brothers (Strong’s Concordance, Greek Dictionary, number 5680). ↩︎

  2. The phrases brotherly love (Hebrews 13:1) and love of the bretheren (1 Peter 1:22) also translate The New Testament Greek word φιλαδελφια (philadelphia). ↩︎

  3. The fact that Christ used the word ἀγαπάω (agapao) (see Strong’s Concordance, Greek Dictionary, number 25) and not φιλαδελφια, does not contradict but rather add weight to this argument. If we are to agape-love fellow Christians, then of course we should show philadelphia love to them. ↩︎

  4. This certainly holds true, even though in all these Scripture quotes that follow contain the word ἀγάπη, not φιλαδελφια, because all these verses have to do with our love for our brothers and sisters in Christ. ↩︎

  5. The word translated charity is ἀγάπη (agape), meaning love, affection, benevolence. The word is perhaps derived from the word ἄγαν (agan) which means very much, or abundance. And perhaps also, The Greek-speaking Jews transferred this word over to the Greek from the Hebrew אהב (ahab), which also means love (as used in Deuteronomy 6:5) (Strong’s Concordance, Greek Dictionary, number 26). Charity is a deep and constant love that seeks the welfare of the one thus loved (Vine’s Expository Dictionary). Older English Bibles, following the historic use of the Latin word caritas in the Vulgate (an early translation of the Bible into Latin by Saint Jerome), use the word charity to translate the New Testament Greek ἀγάπη (agape), where caritas was used perhaps to avoid the sexual suggestion in another Latin word for love: amour (Online Etymology Dictionary). ↩︎

  6. You will not see charity (agape love) mentioned in Ephesians 4:25-32 but it does list a lot of things that you should and should not do toward fellow Christians. ↩︎

  7. John is sometimes referred to as the apostle of agape love, because he writes much about it in his Gospel and his Epistles. ↩︎