What’s Love Got to Do With It?

In 1955 Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, Pete Fleming, Ed McCully, and Roger Youderian, all young missionaries in Ecuador, felt the tug of God in their hearts to try to bring the Kingdom of God to an unreached people group known as the Aucas. The young men and their wives began praying and taking steps to make contact with the tribe. Finally the day came when the men landed their plane on the sandy beach of the river near the Auca village. Everything seemed to go well in their initial contacts with the tribe. Then one day the Aucas, who had seemed to be opening up to their expressions of love and friendship, massacred the young missionaries. Five young widows were left behind to raise their now fatherless children alone.

What would prompt these missionaries to risk their lives to take the gospel of the kingdom to this savage tribe? Why were they willing even to risk death and leave behind their widows and fatherless children? One word: LOVE. It was the love of God that had changed their own lives that flowed in and through them, making them instruments of that love to the Aucas. When people experience the love of God, they become channels through which that love can flow to others.

But that’s not the end of the story. a few years later, Elizabeth Elliott, the widow of Jim Elliott, and Rachel Saint, the sister of Nate Saint, began to try to reach the very people group that had killed their loved ones. Elizabeth was not only a widow but the only parent of her little daughter. Why would she try to evangelize the savages who had killed her husband and risk leaving her daughter a complete orphan? One word: LOVE.

The efforts of the women to extend friendship and love broke through the barriers of hate, distrust, and isolation that had held the Aucas in bondage for centuries and the whole tribe became followers of the lamb of God. What was it that produced such a radical transformation in an entire people group? One word: LOVE.

Neither the families of the martyred missionaries nor the body of Christ called for war or some form of retaliation against the tribe that had committed such an atrocity. Rather they responded in love. And love produced something more than a blessing. God’s love produced transformation.

What a difference between then and now. Since 9/11 we hear very little about the love of God for Muslims. Most evangelicals I know supported the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to try to rid the world of terrorism and the Islamic jihadists. At times the rhetoric flowing out of the church sounded almost like some people were calling for Christian jihad! And yes, I have been guilty of some of the same attitudes in the past.

But over the last couple of years God has been speaking to me about his love. Oh, I have always spoken and preached about his love. The problem is we talk a good game but we are not good at walking in the agape love of God.

Read 1 Corinthians 13 again and take it literally. Would love call for war against the terrorists, be they the radical Muslims of 9/11 or the savage Auca tribe of the 1950′s? Or would love refuse to take into account a wrong suffered? Would love truly bear and endure all things? As you try to answer that, don’t equivocate and don’t rationalize. Just let the Bible speak. What would love do?

Elizabeth Elliott went to the very people who had brought a 9/11 into her life. Her loss and that of her baby daughter was real. But there was no call for war or retribution. Rather she went to her husband’s murderers and lavished the love of God on them. Transformation was the result.