The Rule of Love
How the Local Church Should Reflect God's Love and Authority
by
This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app
1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date Oct 31 2018 | Archive Date Oct 05 2018
Talking about this book? Use #TheRuleOfLove #NetGalley. More hashtag tips!
Description
In an age of consumerism, individualism, and skepticism, this book demonstrates how God’s holy love and authority are presented to a watching world through the church. A 9Marks book.
In an age of consumerism, individualism, and skepticism, this book demonstrates how God’s holy love and authority are presented to a watching world through the church. A 9Marks book.
A Note From the Publisher
PDF may not be compatible with all reading devices
Advance Praise
“Love is one of the most popular themes and most commonly invoked ideals in the world. It is also one of the most misunderstood. The Rule of Love is a brave and bracing critique of the picture of a watered-down, self-centered, and all-inclusive (i.e., unholy) love that prevails in contemporary culture—and in too many churches. It is also a recovery of a God-centered picture of love in which God’s love for the world is tied to God’s holy love for his own glory. Only the latter makes sense of the gospel, and of church discipline. Any book that explains how God’s authority and judgment are not the opposites of God’s love, but rather its display, is radical—in the dual sense of recovering the root and offering prophetic critique—and this book is deserving of a serious hearing and a radical reception.”
—Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Research Professor of Systematic Theology, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
“I don’t know many people who have thought as long, as hard, and as well about the church as Jonathan Leeman. He helps us to reconstruct our idea of the local church, not by rearranging the walls, but by refitting the two floorboards that undergird the church—love and authority. It seems our culture has been drawn to the former and rejected the latter because it has understood neither. In a world that is quick to react, Leeman challenges us to step back and reconsider love, authority, and the way they were designed to relate to each other. He opens our eyes to our hidden assumptions and fears about love and authority. With theological precision and pastoral sensitivity, he does much more than highlight our problems and fears—he also shows us a grand vision for the gospel working in the world through a church that rightly understands love, authority, and their inseparable connection. This is an excellent work for pastors, church members, and even people on the outside trying to make sense of what Christians believe. I am grateful that Jonathan has condensed his years of study about the church and pastoring in the church into a such a potent book, and I’m excited for others to get their hands on this.”
—John Onwuchekwa, Pastor, Cornerstone Church, Atlanta, Georgia; author, Prayer: How Praying Together Shapes the Church
“In an age when authority is often undermined in the name of love, Leeman helpfully reminds us that love and authority are not opposites. Instead, he refreshes us with the biblical reality that love isn’t defined by itself at all, but is defined by God. That also means that we cannot love our families, our churches, our neighbors, or our friends and leave God out of the picture. We love truly when we love for Christ’s sake as we are brought into the orbit of God’s love for himself.”
—Abigail Dodds, author, (A)Typical Woman: Free, Whole, and Called in Christ; contributor, desiringGod.org
“While multiple words can be used to describe the many strengths of Jonathan Leeman’s new book, the word that most comes to mind is timely. On the one hand, he clearly and cogently articulates how our culture has undermined the nature of God’s love, especially in relation to the ideas of authority and judgment. On the other hand, he persuasively and passionately presents how the church of Jesus Christ, armed with a biblical view of God’s love, can present to a needy world the goodness and beauty of God in multiple ways. Every church, with its pastors and people, needs to read this timely book.”
—Julius J. Kim, Dean of Students and Professor of Practical Theology, Westminster Seminary California
“The world does not understand divine love. Amazingly this is far too often also true of many Christians. Jonathan Leeman does a superb job in providing a biblically faithful and theologically rich study of this important teaching. I was personally helped to better appreciate this doctrine, and I am delighted in commending this book to others. You will be blessed.”
—Daniel L. Akin, President, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
“In The Rule of Love, Jonathan Leeman skillfully demonstrates how a God-centered approach to love is far more satisfying and sustainable than our culture’s fluid, anemic, me-centered approach. As it unpacks how God-centered love involves things like holiness, discipline, and authority, this concise book brings clarity to our cultural confusion and poses a timely challenge to the church: Will you display this love to the world?”
—Brett McCracken, Senior Editor, The Gospel Coalition; author, Uncomfortable: The Awkward and Essential Challenge of Christian Community
“It is not only our society that is confused about what true love is and its proper relationship to authority, but also, sadly, the church. After perceptively diagnosing the condition of our culture, Jonathan Leeman offers a biblically and theologically faithful antidote to the distorted views of love and authority that we too often have embraced. Rightly grounded first in our triune God’s holy love before moving to how love and authority function in the church, this book is a must-read if God’s people are to recapture the beauty and glory of how our local churches ought to reflect God’s love and authority before a watching world. My prayer and hope is that this book will be not only carefully read but also put into practice in our daily lives for the health of the church and the glory of our triune God.”
—Stephen J. Wellum, Professor of Christian Theology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; author, God the Son Incarnate; Kingdom through Covenant; and Christ from Beginning to End
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781433559631 |
| PRICE | $17.99 (USD) |
Featured Reviews
Becky L, Reviewer
First sentence: God is love, says Scripture. It’s one of weightiest and most precious truths imaginable for a Christian.
Would it be too bold to say upfront that this is one of the best books I've read in 2018? I'm going to do it anyway. This is the book I didn't know I needed...only to discover that I desperately needed such a book.
What is love? What is authority? How does the world define "love" and "authority"? How does God define love and authority? Why does the world's definitions clash with God's definitions? Is the church being overly influenced by the world? What are the dangers of letting the world's definitions impact how we live out our beliefs and doctrines? How can the church do a better job of reflecting God's definitions of love and authority?
The Rule of Love is engaging, compelling, thought-provoking. Perhaps because it is God-centered. Perhaps because it's practical and packed with applications for the church. Perhaps because it's packed with literature references.
Leeman first introduces us to the idea that God is love making sure to point out that "love" isn't all God is. He writes, "God’s own character gives us the definition and standards of love. Dictionary writers should observe God and then draft their definition of love on that basis. Anything called love that does not have its source in God is not love." Most people get "love" wrong. Because they're not looking to GOD to define it.
He concludes,
"We’re no longer interested in the God who is love. Rather, we’re interested in our own ideas of love, which become god. Love—or our notion of it—becomes the supreme justifier, boundary setter, and object of worship. That’s what a god is and does. So now we carry around something called love which possesses all the moral authority of God himself. The trouble is, it’s not God. It’s nothing more or less than our own desires—especially the desire to rule ourselves."
Modern day notions of love make assumptions--big assumptions--that clash with historic (and biblical) definitions of love.
Assumption 1. No moral boundaries or judgments can be placed on love. Rather, love establishes all the boundaries. You can justify anything by saying that it’s loving or motivated by love.
Assumption 2. Love means unconditional acceptance and the end of judgment.
Assumption 3. Love and authority have nothing to do with one another. Authority restrains. Love frees. Authority exploits. Love empowers. Authority steals life. Love saves life. This disassociation between love and authority is nothing new. They have been divided ever since the Serpent suggested to Adam and Eve that God’s love and God’s authority could not coexist.
Assumption 4. It follows that love is anti-institutional. Institutions, after all, impose authority on relationships. They are rule structures. In our minds, the words love and institution just don’t fit together. Love helps relationships. Institutions hurt them.
Essentially, he argues that "The world presumes to understand love and authority, like it presumes to understand God. Yet it understands these things only in their fallen forms, not in their created or redeemed forms... The main goal of this book, then, is to refashion our views of God’s love and authority and their relationship together."
There are SEVEN chapters: "Love in the Culture," "Love among the Theologians," "God's Love for God, Part 1," "God's Love for God, Part 2," "God's Love for Sinners," "Love and Judgment," and "Love and Authority."
In the first chapter, he examines the idol we've made called LOVE. How does culture see and define love? How did our culture come to view love in this way? (It hasn't always.) How is this cultural definition of love infiltrate the church?
In the second chapter, Leeman traces how theologians have defined and discussed love throughout the centuries. What kinds of love are there? How does God love us? Does God love in only one way? With which kind of love does God love us? Is his love unconditional or conditional? How can understanding God's love impact how I love others?
Chapters three and four focus on God's love for God. These chapters are admittedly the most complex and perhaps the most intense. It gets abstract, but he does use an analogy or two to help us out. One of his analogies is a boomerang.
The fifth chapter is "God's Love For Sinners." How did sin impact love? How has our fallenness shaped or distorted our view of love? If God loves sinners, why does he love them? how does he love them? Does he love conditionally or unconditionally?
It is finally--FINALLY--in this chapter that he reaches a definition of love. "Love is affectionately affirming that which is from God in the beloved, and giving oneself to seeing God exalted in the beloved." He points out, "Biblical love always begins with the love of God, and therefore it will affirm only what is from God. Sin and folly are never from God. Yet, when God rests lightly on our hearts, we begin to affirm sin and think we are serving both God and love in doing so. The trouble is, sin produces death, and so affirming sin is not love at all, but cowardice and hate...Love’s uppermost goal, whether in speaking or acting, is for people to know God in Christ. This is the demand of holy love."
The sixth chapter is "Love and Judgment." In this chapter he looks at judgment--and the undeniable connection between love and judgment. You might be surprised--I know I was at first--that these two are so closely related. But he convinced me.
The seventh and final chapter is, "Love and Authority." This is a dramatic chapter. Our ideas of authority aren't always all that biblical. By nature, by our fallen nature, we tend to not like authority...ever. What is the connection between love and authority? Can the two ever be separated? Why do we want them to be when God has designed them to go together perfectly? How can the church illustrate biblical authority?
As I mentioned at the start, I found this a GREAT book. It's MEATY and thought-provoking. Easily it is one of the best I've read this year. And I'm not just saying that because he discusses Les Miserables by Victor Hugo!
