Love One Another Order Printed Copy

Author: Watchman Nee
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About the Book

"Love One Another" by Watchman Nee explores the biblical concept of love as the foundation of Christian relationships. Nee emphasizes the importance of self-sacrificial love and forgiveness in building a strong and harmonious community of believers. Through practical examples and insights from the Bible, Nee challenges readers to cultivate a spirit of love towards one another.

John Owen

John Owen’s life was incredibly difficult. Born in 1616 and dying in 1683, Owen lived through the deaths of his first wife and all of his children, several of whom died in very early childhood. He supported his last surviving daughter when her marriage broke down. He contributed to a political revolution, watched it fail, saw the monarchy restored and wreak a terrible revenge on republicans, and lived in and around London during the persecution that followed. For twenty years he would have seen the decapitated heads of his friends on display around the city. He died fearing that the dissenting churches had largely abandoned the doctrine of the Trinity and justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone; and, with Charles II about to be replaced by his openly Catholic brother James, believing that the English Reformation was almost over. Owen was one of the most published writers in the seventeenth century. He published around 8 million words. These writings included books on theology and spirituality, politics and economics, and ranged in length from the largest commentary ever published on the epistle to the Hebrews to a short Latin poem that has never been reprinted. For not all of Owen’s works have been kept in print. The most widely circulating nineteenth-century edition, most of which is published by the Banner of Truth, did not include Owen’s sermon manuscripts that are kept in various English libraries, nor the book for children that Owen published in 1652. Owen was one of England’s earliest children’s authors. The catechisms that Owen published (1645) outlined what he expected children in his congregation to know. These catechisms were published before the Westminster Assembly published its better-known examples. But Owen’s catechisms are in many ways simpler. The Primer (1652), which Owen prepared after the death of several of his children during the years of poor harvests and disease at the end of the 1640s, showed what Owen expected of an ideal Christian home. Its routine would be built around Bible reading and prayer, he believed, and his little book included sample prayers that children could learn to pray in mornings, evenings, and at meals. Owen argued that those who led church services should take account of the needs of children. Services that were too long, he believed, did no one any good. Adult believers should not need written prayers, he believed, and these should be banned from public worship. But children were different and needed all the help they could get. Owen enjoyed many warm friendships. His social network included many of the most famous writers in seventeenth-century England. Among his friends and rivals were John Milton, Andrew Marvell, John Bunyan, and Lucy Hutchinson. Owen fell out with Milton and became the subject of one of his sonnets. Owen helped Marvell publish one of his most controversial political pamphlets. He encouraged his publisher, Nathanial Ponder, to publish Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. And he appears to have supported Lucy Hutchinson during her move into London, when she attended and took notes upon his preaching and translated large parts of his Theologoumena Pantodapa (1661)—a translation of which has been published with the title Biblical Theology. Owen’s letters reveal his kindness and care as a pastor, especially to mothers grieving their children’s death. Owen was deeply political. He preached to Members of Parliament on the day after the execution of Charles I, and pinned his hopes for the reformation of church and society on their efforts to transform England into a protestant republic. During the 1650s, under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, Owen served on important committees that sought to establish a religious foundation for the new regime. But he grew dismayed by the ways in which the Cromwell family, and the administration they led, seemed to turn away from godly values. In 1658, he worked with leading army officers to create a crisis that, he likely hoped, would call the regime back to its earlier ideals. It failed, and instead created the crisis that was resolved by the restoration of the monarchy, the return of Charles II, and the persecution of dissenters that followed. During the Restoration, Owen kept his head down, and, as persecution slackened in the later 1660s, published pamphlets that argued that dissenters were the economic lifeblood of the English nation. But he was chastened by his attempts at political intervention and came increasingly to realize that his focus should be on things eternal. Owen often changed his mind. As his developing attitudes to political intervention suggest, Owen committed himself to some beliefs and behaviors that he came to regret. In his early years, he changed his churchmanship from Presbyterianism to Congregationalism. He innovated as a Congregationalist, installing as a co-elder and preacher a man who would not be ordained for several years. He argued for the weekly celebration of the Lord’s Supper, though it is not clear that he ever persuaded any of his congregations to practice it. He thought carefully about the end times and came to believe that, in the latter days, a large number of Jewish people would be converted to Christianity and would return to live in the Promised Land. He dismissed a great deal of discussion about the millennium, but became convinced that the binding of Satan had yet to be achieved. Owen changed his mind because he kept on studying the Bible. Owen was biblical, through and through, and depended just as much on the Holy Spirit. He certainly believed in a learned ministry–after all, he had taught theology at Oxford and done his best to promote godliness within the student body. But he also trusted the Holy Spirit to guide ordinary Christians in small group Bible studies that did not need to be policed by a formally trained expert. Aside from his own Bible study, which advanced on the serious scholarship represented by the three thousand titles that were included in the catalog of his library published soon after his death, Owen encouraged church members to meet together to study Scripture in private. Owen trusted the Bible and the work of the Spirit after writing about both. Owen was not a philosophically-driven, rationalist theologian. His writing abounds in biblical citations. It is molded and contoured by biblical revelation. But he warned that Christians could approach their study of the Bible with absolutely no spiritual advantage to themselves. Christians who approached the study of the Bible without absolute dependence upon the Spirit who inspired and preserved it would gain no more benefit than Jewish readers did from their Scriptures, he argued. Christians should never choose between entire dependence upon the Bible and the Spirit. Owen believed that the goal of the Christian life was knowing God. Before Owen, no one had ever shown clearly how Christians relate to each person of the Trinity. Owen described the goal of the gospel as revealing the love of the Father, who sent the Son as a redeemer of his people, who would be indwelt, provided with gifts, and united together by the Spirit. Owen’s Communion with God is among his most celebrated achievements—and no wonder. It is the exhalation of his devotion to Father, Son, and Spirit, and the discovery of the limitless love of God. Owen is much easier to read than many people imagine. There is a mystique to Owen—a widespread feeling that his books are too difficult and best left to expert theologians. But Owen’s greatest books were written as sermons for an audience of teenagers. Publishers have begun to modernize Owen’s language in new editions of his works. Now more than ever, it’s time to pick up Owen and find his encouragement for the Christian life.

Souls Are Our Reward

Run the race. Fight the good fight. Finish strong. Obtain the prize. Many of the familiar catchphrases for Christian faithfulness and perseverance come from a couple memorable verses: Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. (1 Corinthians 9:24–25) When our faith begins to falter, or our spiritual disciplines wane, or our joy fades to a dim flicker, or our love grows cold, we need to be reminded to run. Even when it hurts, even when we want to give up, even when we’d rather do anything else. Any race with Jesus will be hard (Luke 9:23). Faith, hope, love, and joy may come freely by grace, but that does not mean they are always easy. The apostle Paul, knowing the costs and rigors of following Christ, reaches for this kind of rugged and strenuous imagery again and again (Philippians 3:12–14; 2 Timothy 4:7–8). What might surprise us — even those of us who have been running with Christ for decades now — is what race Paul really had in mind, at least in 1 Corinthians 9:24. When he held out that wreath of all wreaths, he had more in mind than our clinging to faith and persisting in private prayer. Run to Win The verses above come immediately after another familiar passage, which ends, I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings. Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. (1 Corinthians 9:22–24) The race Paul was running (and calling us to run) was not merely about guarding the faith in our own hearts, but about pursuing that faith and joy in others. The race may look (very) different for us than it did for an unmarried apostle, but the race is still our race. Paul was running to win the lost, despite how much effort it required and how much it cost him. He was talking about aggressive mission, not merely secret devotion. And that race — becoming all things to all people that we might save some — can be even more demanding, confusing, and discouraging than nurturing our own relationship with God. Many more give up trying to win the lost than give up going to church or reading the Bible. “Winning souls fills and waters the soul like nothing else.” Paul knew that winning the lost often feels like the back half of a marathon in the heat of August. So, he reminded the church to keep running — not to lose heart or slow down, but to press through to the end. Keep taking risks and making sacrifices to share, keep enduring the inevitable rejection and hostility, and, above all, keep praying for the lost. Keep running. Four Reasons to Run Well The apostle knew how much resistance we face in evangelism. Remember that he was hunted by murderers, stoned by crowds, beaten with rods, and almost flogged to death for trying to win people to Jesus. More than almost anyone, he knew how many incentives there were not to go and make disciples. But he also knew there were even more incentives to choose faithfulness and embrace suffering along the dangerous roads of soul-winning. He shares at least four of those incentives right here in 1 Corinthians 9. NEW JOY Perhaps nothing drove the soul-winning apostle more than the thought of one more sinner, even just one, being brought from the horrors of death and judgment to the heights of life and joy in Christ (2 Corinthians 1:24). “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22). Some. Notice how modest he (even he!) is about his goals in evangelism. And yet notice how driven he is: all things to all people by all means. The threefold all expresses the precious worth of the some, the unparalleled reward of seeing someone finally stumble upon their Treasure hidden in a field (Matthew 13:44). Winning souls fills and waters the soul like nothing else. Jesus himself says, “I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10). If even one conversion sets heaven afire with joy, should it not thrill and motivate us? SHARED JOY The joy of seeing someone saved, however, is heightened further by the joy of enjoying Jesus with them (2 Timothy 1:4). “I do it all for the sake of the gospel,” Paul continues, “that I may share with them in its blessings” (1 Corinthians 9:23; Philippians 1:25). This incentive is wired into the heart of God himself — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit forever loving, sharing, enjoying, creating, saving together. It’s wired into the creation, which waits to share in “the freedom of the glory” waiting for us (Romans 8:21). And it’s wired into any real joy in us, because real joy is never content just to have, but must give and share. As Jesus says, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). Has anyone modeled the ecstasy of shared joy more than the church in Macedonia? “In a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part” (2 Corinthians 8:2). What does abundant joy look like, even in extreme poverty? It looks like sharing. IMPERISHABLE JOY The clearest incentive to run well here, though, is the imperishable wreath waiting at the finish line. “Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable” (1 Corinthians 9:25). So, what is this wreath? While Paul does not mention wreaths anywhere else in his letters, he does tell us more about the prize he covets. “What is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming?” he asks the Thessalonians. “Is it not you? For you are our glory and joy” (1 Thessalonians 2:19–20). And to the church at Philippi: “My brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved” (Philippians 4:1). His crown, his prize, his wreath on the last day will not be something he owns or wears; it will be the lives he saved, the joy he shared, the souls he won. And that wreath, unlike any wages or reward we might receive on earth, will live and grow and bloom long into eternity. How many of us spend our best time and effort, year after year, pursuing wreaths that perish, while failing to run for that which lasts forever? ASSURED JOY The last incentive, unlike the others, comes as a warning: “I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:26–27). Along with the stunning rewards — new joy, shared joy, imperishable joy — fear also inspired Paul to love and pursue the lost. What will happen to me if I fail to prove faithful? He wanted the depth of assurance that comes through faithfully fulfilling his mission. The apostle knew he, even he, would be disqualified if he disobeyed what Jesus had called him to do — if he gave up running. And he knew men, even in ministry, who had been disqualified. He describes such men twice, with one sobering thread between them. He warns, People will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. . . . These men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. (2 Timothy 3:2–5, 8) What’s startling (and frightening) about these men is that they were lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, and abusive, yet they still had the appearance of godliness. They looked faithful while secretly indulging sin at the expense of others. They looked like they were running well when they were really only running from God. “Many more give up trying to win the lost than give up going to church or reading the Bible.” Paul mentions similar men elsewhere, who are “insubordinate, empty talkers, and deceivers” (Titus 1:10). “They profess to know God,” he says, “but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit” — “disqualified” — “for any good work” (Titus 1:16). The tragic thread between the two passages is that some profess to know Jesus, and even learn to act like Christians, and yet fail to ever truly run — to truly repent, believe, and treasure Jesus, and then make him known to others. And if we live like them, neglecting or ignoring what Christ demands of us, we too will be disqualified. “So,” Paul says, “I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control” (1 Corinthians 9:26–27). He did everything he could to avoid their awful fate. Fear was not his sole motivation, or even his greatest motivation, but he feared the horrible cost of unfaithfulness — of skipping the race and abandoning the lost. So, he disciplined himself to run hard, and long, and well. And he called us to run with him. Article by Marshall Segal Staff writer, desiringGod.org