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Dear Friends,

I want to begin this month’s letter by asking you a question. Some
might consider it a type of pub-quiz question, or a question of Bible
trivia, but I hope to show, as I write, that there is more to the
question than simple knowledge of the type that is necessary to
succeed in quizzes.

The question is: What do the following eleven New Testament
verses have in common?

John 13:34, 15:12, 15:17
Romans 13:8
1 Thessalonians 4:9
1 Peter 1:22
1 John 3:11, 3:23, 4:7, 4:12
2 John 5

The answer is that every one of these eleven verses contains the
phrase, love one another. It is a phrase that is first spoken by Jesus
in John’s gospel, in the first of the references listed above (John
13:34), when, while talking to his disciples, he says,

A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you,
so you must love one another.

The first thing to note is that, even though it is a ‘new command,’
the fact that it has been given by Jesus imparts it with a weight that
it would not otherwise have. The early church is clearly affected by
this ‘new command,’ for it is not something that is easily forgotten.
The apostles carry it with them and remember it. Indeed, they
repeat it to others when they come to write their letters.

So, how does this ‘new command’ affect us today? Do we still carry
it with us in our daily lives, as the apostles and members of the
early church so clearly did? Do we, like them, repeat it to others
because we see it as one of the hallmarks of being a Christian?

These questions are important, because loving one another is
clearly central to what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. Indeed,

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