LOVE ONE ANOTHER (ALLELOUS NOT ADELFOS)

Close to his death, Jesus started giving his last remarks to his disciples. Of the four gospels, the gospel of John is the one that gives us a narrative of Jesus’ last remarks. When Jesus came to this world he found laws and commandments but he did not agree with most of these so he decided to launch his and this is what he said in one of his last remarks: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35).

95yrs after the ascension of Jesus, the Apostle John, who was a Jewish eyewitness of Jesus, wrote and said: We love Him because He first loved us. If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also. (1John 4:19-21 NKJV).

While Jesus commands us to LOVE ONE ANOTHER, the apostle John asks people to LOVE THEIR BROTHERS. Many people who read their Bibles in English and other vernaculars will not understand the difference between these two verses. Many will not even understand why Jesus said that: ‘A NEW COMMANDMENT I GIVE YOU’. The implication is simple: there was obviously the OLD COMMANDMENT.

The Old commandment is one from which John references from when he asks us to love our brothers and yet the new commandment by Jesus commands us to love one another. In fact, when you read the Greek Bible, the word that Jesus used was: Allelous (ἀλλήλους) and this word means a foreigner, alien, someone of another race or kinship group, or nation. It also means one another, each other. So what Jesus asked us to do is to love everyone, relative or stranger.

The love of Jesus is not discriminative but inclusive. It is a commandment to love everyone, not only your brother. On the other hand, however, the kind of love that Apostle John advocates for is love for a brother and the Greek word he uses is Adelfos. (ἀδελφός), this word has a range of meanings but exclusive. The word means  brother;

(1) Literally, male sibling with at least one parent in common (John 1:41); figuratively, members of the Christian community, and of associates in religious work (spiritual) brother, same religion, fellow believer (Romans 8:29);

(2) In Jewish usage fellow countryman (Acts 3:22);

(3) Of one of equal rank and dignity (Mathew 23:8);

(4) Of a neighbor or member of one’s in-group brother, friend (Mathew 5:22).

Love of brother is an exclusive love. It is love that loves those it is related to in some way. This love is the easiest love to all of us, it is easier than the love that Jesus advocates for. The Love of Jesus is all inclusive, it is a love that extends from biological, social status and tribal ties to everyone around you regardless of the ties.

In fact, the love that Jesus calls all of us Christians to exercise is a radical love that urges us even to love our enemies. In the term Allelous, enemies are inclusive too, however, in Adelfos, love is restricted to those who are related to you.

This is what God has always called us to do. He has, again and again, cautioned all of us to love one another, but unfortunately, the best we have attempted to do in doing the will of God (which is Love) is to love our biological brothers. God asks us to love ONE ANOTHER but we insist on loving our BROTHERS.

This is fundamentally the problem, the difference between loving one another and that love directed to one’s brother is that: ONE ANOTHER is any human being while BROTHER is specific biology or particular tribe.

Throughout the history of the world, we have had too much crime due to the love your brother syndrome. I am not saying you should not love your brother. All am saying is that you should obey the commandment of Christ to love your brother just as you love others who are not. People defend themselves on the issue by saying: I have no problem with others, but what Jesus commands us here, is to actively and practically love others and not to be indifferent to them.

This is elevated Christianity. In the past and present, people have hurt others because they don’t look like them, speak like them, believe like them, because they are of different sex, millions have been killed because they are not brothers.

The Bible is filled with hate crimes propagated by the Jews and all other Semitic tribes. The battles and criminal wars recorded in the Bible in the name of God are demonstrations of how much crime we do while hiding in the name of religion. The Egyptians tortured the Israelites and kept them under slavery for over 400yrs just because they were other people and not Egyptian brothers.

The Babylonians, Assyrians, Philistines and the Jews killed each other for two reasons: first, they were not the same tribe and secondly, they were not of the same belief system. Europe colonized Africa and launched slave trade for many years.

The Love your brother syndrome is defined as any wrongdoing perpetrated against a particular group of people. It is a form of prejudice directed at a group of individuals based on their ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious preference, or any other defining characteristic. Love your brother syndrome is a preferential treatment of some at the pain of others.

Anytime two different groups of people come in contact with each other, there is the possibility of tension or conflict developing, which often leads to violence – directly or passively. Whether the crime in question is assault, theft, verbal abuse or even murder, the motivation behind it is based on the hatred for a group that is perceived as being different in some way.

Historically, a Roman Emperor known as Nero burnt many Christians for no crime but for being Christians. Adolf Hitler and the Nazis incinerated over 50,000 Jewish women and children just because they were Jews. That is what we know as the Holocaust. The Holocaust resulted in the mass murder of millions of people.

In more recent years, the act of genocide, or attempting to obliterate an entire ethnic, racial or religious group, has occurred in both Bosnia and Rwanda. In the Rwandan Genocide, a Hutu parent could kill his own biological children just because he had those kids with a Tutsi partner. We all remember the South African Apartheid, we have heard of the South African Xenophobia where citizens cut the foreigners in their economy into pieces.

We are witnesses of what is going on South Sudan between the Dinkas and the Nuels. It happened in the last Kenyan elections when people were slaughtered over the political tribal league. We witnessed it in the election of the United States of America where the slogan: BLACK LIVES MATTER was trending as many colored people died. We know that even in the most civilized countries of Europe, racial prejudice is still a problem. Talk about the Auschwitz camps and the Nazis Jewish Holocaust, etc. All this is due to what I call: LOVE YOUR BROTHER SYNDROME.

God never created Uganda or America, or Germany or the map of the world and its boundaries. He created land and placed human beings on it to explore with no limits. However, man created borders, he created political names for certain geographies and launched a restriction. Ever since he created these boundaries, he has never had peace within his invention.

People make these boundaries and mark territories not basing on humanity but based on those who speak the same language, same breed, height, looks, and beliefs. We are now, not defined by our humanity but by our National IDs, Passports and all sorts of man-made cards. We no longer see the humanity in people, but the skin color, the shape of the nose, tribal and biological ties.

I have no problem with people gathering due to similarities only if these ethnic groups have a mission to love those who are not like them. Unfortunately, whenever you see a group of people who have all in common, they have gathered to compete (fair and unfair) with those unlike them. God created us differently because he wanted us to fit into each other. Our differences in size, color, height, and dialect are for our functionality. We were created differently not to out-compete others but to complement one another.

Science and theology have proved that our similarities are in fact hypothetical. The reality is that we are different as machines, we can only be effective if we work together towards production. I don’t care whether you restrict your love to your kinsmen, but the truth is that you still do not share the same DNA.

I don’t care whether you share a DNA with your father but no one shares a DNA with their grandfather. We are called to appreciate our diversities and utilize them for a better living. We are like parts of the Body, the hands do not help the eyes because they are similar but rather it is because the hand is designed differently that it can help the eye.

Listen to me my brother or sister, you could get more help if you got out your hypothetical box of tribe, color, and size of nose community and adventured other people across. LOVE ONE ANOTHER commandment is a principal of operation and success. Love one another is a solution to all on-going wars, it is an antidote to greed and corruption. Love one another is an initiator of forgiveness. We can only change and progress if we first emulate the inclusive love attitude of our lord Jesus Christ.

We must stop building fences with barbed wires on high walls and start building bridges to connect with each other. We are different and because we are different it is an opportunity for love to be exercised. It is not Love if you Love your children, after all, they are your children. It can only be love if you love your neighbor’s children just as you love your biological children.

Christ one day asked: “For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? “And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so?  (Mathew 5:46-47)

It is a bitter truth to know that; God creates people and people create tribes. God creates land and people create borders, engineer land titles, etc. I have gone through many borders but whenever I reach these borders, I do not see any special natural feature. After man has created all these sectarian and discriminative organs, then love becomes an exclusive (that loves some against others) discipline and not an inclusive one that loves all.

Man starts speaking the language of US vs. THEM, he invents concepts like PATRIOTISM, PAN-AFRICANISM, EUROPEAN COMMUNITY, THE G8, ISLAMIC BROTHERHOOD, YIIRA REPUBLIC, BUGANDA KUNTIKKO, CHRISTIAN BRETHREN, etc. And man goes ahead to make uniforms and badges that distinguish a group from another.

The terrible truth is that people fight, kill and die for these corrupt entities created to benefit just a few click of people. God said LOVE ONE ANOTHER and the Jews said: LOVE YOUR BROTHER and your brother is a fellow Jew. God said LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR, and we said: LOVE YOUR RELATIVES.

This kind of exclusive love has resulted in preferential treatment of some people at the expense of others and that is why those who have been left out are always attacking those who have been pampered.

God wants you from today to change the way you look at yourself because that influences your view to others. God wants you to love one another, not your brothers alone. God wants you to redefine VALUE. God wants you and I to understand the difference between People and Property. Do not kill People to save Property but rather use Property to save People.

Humanity is divided along lines of religion, tribe, ethnicity, and political parties/power and it is through these that the devil has taken advantage to deflect our love from ONE ANOTHER (all people) to OUR BROTHER (a few we are connected to). We must point our children to a different direction. Jesus and John do not contradict but rather Jesus has established a new commandment.

The Bible says that: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. (2Corinthian 5:17 NKJ). Friend you can only love one another if you are in Christ Jesus. If your love is restricted to your kinsmen, then you are in the old, and Jesus to you, he gives a new commandment.

God Bless you, I Invoke Truth, Reason and Faith

Am Pr. I.T.WHITE
The Gospel Hawker