Commissioned Trouble

The disciples were commissioned to challenge the whole structure of the world, the way people went about their business, the way they organized their personal and communal lives. They were to live differently, and that was bound to cause trouble….There is a deep paradox here, because we don’t think of love as confrontational, and we often have to learn that to love someone truly may confronting them when their way of life is destructive to them or to others. The way of mere tolerance is a very low-grade substitute for true love. Genuine love helps the beloved to see the truth, the way things really are, as Jesus did.”

-NT Wright, discussing John 15:18-27 in Reflecting the Glory