"Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart..." (1 Peter 1:22)

Biblical Definition Of Love

The main appeal of the paragraph surrounding this verse is straightforward: love one another earnestly from a pure heart (22). This action is built, according to Peter, on the foundation of a change that took place in us. This change enabled us to have sincere brotherly love (22). In other words, love is built upon love. Reciprocal, brotherly love is meant to develop into sacrificial, even non-reciprocal love.

This is a major application for Peter. The exiled Christians he wrote to were outcasts from society, so Peter pushed them towards a new society—the church. He wanted this to become the Christian's primary social context, and he will spend the rest of his letter explaining the importance of Christian relationships.

For some of you, this is a significant shift that needs to occur in your life. If you've grown up in a Christendom culture, one where Christianity was a sort of baseline grid society used to view the world, you might not feel an intense need to push into the church. One reason for that might be that you have built a good network of relationships where your values are generally shared with Christians and non-Christians alike. But this will likely shift as even older generations begin massaging their views to the new value systems being promoted by today's society.

Living On The Margins

But many of you are like me. You have never lived in a Christendom culture. For you, Christianity has always been on the margin, and now you are watching it get pushed further in that direction. So you especially need to press into the church. You must love the body of Christ, the family of God, God's flock.

There was a time in our society when the vast majority of people were not true Christians, but Christianity was still well-regarded and respected. During that time, many people saw the Bible and the faith as untrue, but with some good teachings and morals that were helpful to society. To them, Christianity was like Aesop's Fables—untrue but (perhaps) helpful.

Then society shifted, and many began to see Christianity as a silly belief system. At that point, the Bible and its doctrines were seen as nothing more than fairy tales. To people in this camp, Christianity is like a belief in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny—harmless but not helpful, and certainly only received by immature and undeveloped minds.

But we are in a new day where society has shifted once again. No longer do people think of Christianity as untrue but helpful or untrue but silly. Now many think of Christianity as untrue and harmful, a major oppressive force in historical and contemporary society. It holds up things like the traditional family and biblical sexual morality. And many today cannot comprehend human happiness if those fixtures are in place. For people with this view, Christianity is not like Aesop's Fables or a belief in Santa Claus, but Mein Kampf, the dangerous and damaging ideologies of Adolf Hitler.

I don't mean to be provocative or extreme by saying so. I am merely trying to demonstrate how many are thinking about Christianity today. Not everyone thinks this way, but many are being taught this way, and it poses many challenges to Christians. One of them is the challenge of community—Where do we find it? Who do we turn to for it?

Shift Toward The Church

Part of Peter's answer is that we must turn to the church community. We must grow to love the church. For all its flaws and imperfections, it is loved by God and created by his gospel. We must embrace it.

But many modern narratives abound about the modern church, stories that turn us off to it as our option for connection and community. But don't give in to the world's way of viewing the church. Like any family, you will get hurt, confused, and treated awkwardly in church relationships. It happens. But as we center ourselves around the gospel and the Bible that gives us the gospel and the God who gave us both, we will have the very best community humanity can build on this side of eternity. Press into it. Love it.

That's Peter's exhortation: Love one another earnestly from a pure heart (22). Give your church everything you got. Love other believers. Be earnest about it (22).