Thanks, Dr. Oord. I never saw the connection between having a robust and comprehesive definition of love and the practice of acting in a loving way weather we are saints or just normal people.

I do wonder if the constant act of doing love that then becomes a habit can be erased by doing something un-loving in malice intent. Even with forgiveness can a murderer become a saint?

Very good! I hope you don’t mind but might use some of this, in idea at the very least, in my sermon n sacrificial praise, the praise God is really looking for. I believe that praise to be love, for to act intentionally in response to another for overall and there well being we must put away self, much like Jesus did at the cross.

Thank you for this piece.

I agree that it’s important to have a community where love is the focus. I think we can get burnt out and we need a way to recharge ourselves if we’re going to put on love. God knew the the importance of community and Jesus showed us how much the community affects our thoughts and actions. Without a community I think it would be a lot harder to love all the time.

I appreciate your effort to make us think about the importance of actually defining the word “love.” When we think about the word, and what it means in our life, then we become much more capable of acting out that love in our lives - what a great insight! I will continue to think about your definition of love, and many others, as I continue through your class and past graduation. Thanks!

I like thinking about love as a habit. Slowly day by day the habit is formed. I think that this type of love gets significantly less attention and appreciation in our society. The church greater who get’s up early and comes in to help others even when he is hurting makes a sacrifice and is consistent, but is rarely recognized. Big acts the harder and less convenient like helping enemies vs. friends get more credit. I wish the exemplars got more credit on earth.

It is safe to say that some love more than others. I am not sure if that is true because people who love practice more to love or if they are innately structured to care more and be more open to love. I will say that practicing love will in turn built a habit to love. If a person never loves how can he feel the positive response in return to the feeling? But if a person consciously loves and promotes over all well being they will built a habit that is structured around being a positive attribute.

I believe that people are what they think. If love is a big part of someone’s mind, then they will act more lovingly. God made us all differently, yet I believe that God made us all capable of love. Psychology comes into play when we begin to think about nature and nurture which affects the way people love. Yet God is everywhere so love is everywhere as well.

Anything that human beings do gets better with practice…thoughts turn to ideas…ideas turn to words…words turn to actions…actions turns to deeds…deeds completed over time turn into habits.  Practice, practice, practice.  We are all capable of love, God made us that way.  It is just a matter of getting out and doing it…Over and over again until it becomes a habit to love.

I definitely believe that love takes practice.  The more you do something the more natural it seems to become.  So what makes love so different.  Maybe some kinds of love start off with an intetional purpose for self fulfillment but once you have felt the satisfaction of actually helping someone else benefit and promote their well-being it becomes something that you want to do.  It is no longer something that you do for yourself but something that is now a natural part of who you are. The example of the character in Gran Torino didn’t just wake up one day as a different person.  He took baby steps in showing love to his neighbors and then gave the ultimate sacrifice of himself for them as his final act of love. Jesus is most certainly our greatest example and by following his example of showing love everyday in everthinng we partake in is something we should all practice in everyday of our lives.

“Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Ephs. 4:13).
We can and ought to be like Jesus in loving. Jesus and his teaching is the image of love. Jesus is also our example of how we ought to go in order to reach the goal of perfection- fasting, prayer, unity (in spirit) with Father, knowledge and practice of gospel teaching/love. Jesus did not just have a theory in His head about how to love, but he came to do his Father’s will; he lived out love every moment. There are many people who know what the Bible teaches, but they do not do it. I do not want to be one of those.  Full obedience to scripture out of love to God is holiness. True Christians are people who practice scripture. Faith comes from hearing of Scripture. Faith is dead without works. Alive faith worketh (expressed) by love.

I believe it true that some loves more than others. Some people are genuinely more caring and compassionate, loving, towards others. When the blog mentioned love as being an action that we consciously choose and practice thus becoming better I immediately thought sport, music, job, etc. In all of these cases if we desire to succeed in the area we practice and our practice improves our performance. To love more often requires a continuous practice and mastery of the art of loving. I believe this mastery of learning how to love is a lifelong journey with Christ.

Is it possible to then say that an exemplar, who shows love in every instance of time, also has reached entire sanctification? In theology we talked about an instance of love being the absence of sin. Entire sanctification also means the absence of sin, so wouldn’t that mean they were one in the same?

This post reminds me of when people are told to smile even with they are unhappy and they will eventually feel a difference in their mood later on that same day.  This idea relates closely with the idea of consciously and purposefully responding to others to promote their well-being.  I do agree that by repeatedly doing those actions one will form a habit that could potentially benefit him or herself too.  This would be a great challenge to yourself and within the next week or so see how purposefully promoting another’s benefits helps to benefit you too!

I really appreciate the idea of love being a habit. This might be harder than doing a few large acts of love but living a fairly unrighteous life. Making bad habits is easy however, and making good habits generally takes work. To make a habit of love I think someone would have to do it intentionally so that they may someday to do it habitually. I know that I can certainly improve the way I love in day to day, small ways. I need to make loving others habitual!

I find it hard for me personally to be loving at all times or to seem happy even when I’m just in a nonchalant mood.  I find it easier to make bad habits then good.  It would be a challenge for me to make good habits and try to be more loving toward others, because I’m the type of person who doesn’t really show off a happy mood most often. Many may say that I look sad, but it is not that I try to be that at all.  My face expression may not totally define what my mood is all the time.

I have often thought that when i die I would like to go out saving someone else, be a hero.  Reading this post made me think that maybe being a person who continually loves others and makes love a habit is more heroic then a one time act. Dieing for someone is a very loving thing to do and is very admirable.  I think in some cases it may be harder to live for somebody.

I feel that as Christians we are so incredibly blessed to have Christ an example of love to follow.  Not only did he perform a “heroic” act of love, he also lived out love in the mundane everyday sort of way as recorded in the gospels.  He was the ultimate exemplar.  I appreciated the thought that love could become a habitual way of living; the more often we choose to respond in love the more natural it becomes.  I like this idea because it offers hope to our broken and sinful state of being.  Not only can we be freed from the eternal punishment of sin, but we can also be free from a life of bondage to sin.

I think we can all look to exemplars of Love for inspiration and example. They on a daily basis perpetuate Love and make a difference in the world. But what I think is important to notice is that now that they are exemplars, they have not stopped and said “Oh, I made it. I can stop now.” The continue to Love and practice Love just as much as they did before the were “exemplar.” I think this constant never-ending Love is something that we as Christians can find nothing short of inspiring.

I think that it is difficult to be an exemplar for almost anytihng. Christ was the perfect example of this, so for us to come close is somthing not often seen. Perserverance and disicpline in our own personal walks with God, is how we can achieve being an exemplar to others that are not christians. We dont need to do anything outstanding per se, just be loving, pure individuals.

This virtuous idea of love, by practicing it day and day, to make sure when the day comes to love you love. The daily love is even more extreme than the one time sacrifice. It would be so much more difficult for a person to be self-sacrificial. By practicing love throughout your life will help you be more prone toward loving acts.

It is fascinating to be to see who becomes famous for acts of love.  I take Mother Theresa as a strong example.  When any person thinks of Mother Theresa they think of a loving and caring woman who stands up for what she believes in (which is all true), but why does she get so much recognition?  Not to say she doesn’t deserve it, but what is it that makes her so famous as compared to other people in the world who do strong acts of love, but don’t get the recognition?

I agree that love takes practice; you cannot become a loving person because you wake up one morning and decide to. I believe that when one does not grow up in a loving environment it is difficult to show love because they themselves were not shown love. Love does become a habit when you consistently act in a loving manner with which is a proper response to others. An exemplar is a person who frequently shows love. I think that we all strive to be a loving person but even if you are like Clint Eastwood and you show love in that very moment, it is the beginning to the “habit” of love. He also showed small doses of love by giving the boy tools and saving the girl from the boys on the street who stopped her. This all leads to loving others, as God has wanted us to do.

I agree with with an exemplar having to perform and practice one such activity often, But i feel that even with being exemplar at some task, we are still prone to failure. So for someone to love as an exemplar i feel that it is very difficult and almost impossible task to achieve.

When I think of exemplars in my life, I find myself challenged to love more myself. I would suspect that most of my exemplars do not realize the full impact they have had on me and others. In the same way, whether or not we consider ourselves “exemplars”, we need to always remember that our actions are not with impact on those around us

I appreciate the practice of loving act makes one a loving one. Though, I questioned if it were to be real loving activity if they were to do loving things out of their habit. Just like we would not notice to appreciate little things that becomes our daily routine. Maybe loving in habit is not so good as I might think?

I thought it was an interesting concept of love how we consciously choose to practice the action of love and we become better and better at it. 

I agree with the saying that love is an intentional act done response to God and others to promote overall well-being.  the difference between people who consistently love others more than some other people do is coming from being different individuals and their different way of showing the action of love.  It might seem like some people doesn’t love others as much as some other people do.  But maybe that is just how we decided to see in their action of love. There is no answer of what is right and wrong in action of love.  Maybe in their perspective, they are showing love in every way that they could.  We cannot judge or measure others’ action of love by what we see. What really matters is their heart and mind of loving others rather than what it is shown.

I think it would be very hard to continuously try to practice loving. As good as it sounds, I hate to admit I am just not that good. I like the idea that practice makes perfect, though. It reminds me of sports. If you want to be perfect at something, you have to practice. I think that Jesus set a great example for us to practice to be like.

I think that love exemplars, or any type of exemplar for that matter, develop their “exemplar-ness” by way of practice, just as Oord says above. I also think that as humans, it is almost impossible for us to love at all times, because we do have a sin nature, which increases our propensity for selfish behavior. We also will many times not know what the loving act would be in a certain situation; this will come with the practice mentioned above though. The more situations you place yourself in, or get placed in, then the more experiences you will have acting in loving ways.

In the Bible, we are told that we should love our neighbors as we love ourselves, yet as beautiful as that sounds it’s not always the easiest thing to do. If we practice love, we would become more compassionate, accepting, and patient towards those that are different from us.  Having exemplars in our societies shows us that it is possible to be loving and caring towards those around us; this serves as a motivator for the rest to follow.

thank you for this post Dr. Oord. This is a challenging post for my life. When becoming an exemplar it is key that we work and practice our talents as it relates to love and life. The great thing about exemplars is that we need to become exemplars so that the next generation is able to look to us for inspiration and guidance, just as we have looked to the exemplars of our generation.

I think that the blog post does well to highlight the two kinds of love; consistent love and heroic love. I think that both types of love are necessary in order for a person to be a moral exemplar. While heroic acts of love have the ability to garner praise and notoriety, consistent love is the “unsung hero.” Consistent love reminds me of Jesus’ teaching in Mathew 6 about not doing your deeds for the praise of others, but rather doing them for God.

This post reminds me of Aristotle’s Magnanimous person, the person who we can model when we practice our virtues. I also am reminded of writers like Walter Wink and Stanley Hauerwas. Wink pushes for an extreme form of the “Law of Love.” He argues that in everything we do, love should take precedence. Hauerwas looks to Christ as the Magnanimous person in the Christian faith and the church as the supporting and teaching community. These two authors have been very convincing to me recently and I think they fall in line with what is said here.

I have not really ever thought of the act of love as being habitual but I guess that makes sense. Why shouldn’t the same principles of doing things by habit apply to love as well? However, in order to start loving out of habit, there needs to be incentive for the person ready to love. This comes in response to Christ, as mentioned in the article.

I also agree that community is extremely important in helping people develop a more loving nature. We are not meant to go through life’s struggles alone and when we as Christians surround ourselves with other believers, more opportunities for love can be expressed.

practice makes perfect, and I suppose if you practiced being loving all the time maybe it would be possible to become a exemplar. For myself I know that this would be a challenge to always be loving. For an example the movie “Beyond the Gates,” which we watched in class, I did not feel any love while watching that movie. In fact it made me so furious that someone could treat another being in that way that I ran 8 miles after class just to release my frustration. I am no where near being an examplar.

Definitions are vital to understanding each other.  I believe many of the debates, disagreements, fights and even some wars could have been avoided if the initial conversations had been comprised of individuals willing and ready to understand where the other(s) was coming from.  Dialogue with others, along with living out our lives in Christ-centered loving actions, is how they will learn about Jesus and love.  Taking the time to learn about who the person sitting across from you at the coffee shop or next to you on the park bench is just as important as sitting down and starting the conversation in the first place.  If you don’t understand, at least partially, where the person you are conversing with is coming from and they don’t understand where you are coming from, your words cease to be an honest conversation, and, instead, turn into monologues where confusion and unsettled disagreements emerge.  Just as Dr. Oord says, “It’s hard to overemphasize how important it is to define love clearly;” I think this applies to many other aspects involved in conversation as well, but love is definitely a fantastic starting point.

I have often wondered why are some people more loving and what motivates them to be that way? Was it nature, nurture, both or possibly one more than the other? What I like about this blog is that it is saying that anyone has the possibility of being called a “loving person”. I do agree that if you are practicing habitual love habits and consciously thinking about it throughout the day then you can achieve that. However, unless you are promoting “well-being” for others because you are a believer I do not see why others would do it? unless they truly believe in making the world a better place that way. People that have the loving character are promoting “steadfast love” but does that entail love that is always there and being contributed? If that is the case then this person is also constantly working on giving love as well and although it might be in their character, it may be a life long work in progress for them as well. The exemplars show love often but they also have to practice love in usual AND unusual cases which is situations like loving your enemy. SO although it maybe in their character, it may still be a hard task at times and I think that is something no one will perfect in this life.

This blog has allowed me to reflect on my perspective of loving others to promote overall well-being. Of course, if every day I did an act of kindness towards another person I could make it into a habit. So when does it go from promoting well-being to just a personal habit. I at times find it had to show love all the time and maybe that it my own fault because I am not living the way God would want me to live. But I think people who do promote well-being through acts of love each day go unrecognized while like the blog said a person who does one heroic event gets the spotlight. However, this may not be the case because again those who are “exemplars” are promoting their overall well-being for themselves and for others. Their are not expressing love for the fame and spotlight.

It’s an aspect of human if they practice anything it does get better in. But the effort is what I want to examine. Take in aspect of a nonbeliever in God, the world suck and to them it takes so much to do an act of love and that doesn’t make a different. Why does one need to keep practicing the act of love when “I scratch you back you scratch my back” doesn’t work? What’s the point of keep practicing? Why does one need to put in an effort then?

I like the emphasis on practice. I believe that like athletes, we must practice in order to train ourselves in following Christ and doing His will. The more we do it, the better we get and the more natural it becomes for us. I don’t mean to say that we can do it on our own without God, but we do need to get in certain habits to be people who exemplify God’s love.

It certainly would seem that some people have a stronger inclination to show loving actions than others. Why this is I don’t think is really answered. A behavior you do repetitively is probably going to eventually become habit, thus creating a nature of love. But this still doesn’t explain why some people decide to make it a habitual behavior and others do not. All children seem to have naturally loving spirits, at least all I’ve ever worked with. I wonder what it is that makes some people go from that to remaining images of Christian love while others stray the other way. I do agree that the mundane everyday acts of love do greater good for society as a whole, and do more to represent Christ, than the occasional heroic act of love.

I have been in athletics since I was a little kid. I totally can relate to practice makes perfect. I think this could apply to practicing love all the time. I believe there has to be motivation for what you are practicing for. I love athletics so it was easy for me to have that desire to get better. Loving all the time is something that I believe only God can do. I still believe we should try our hardest to become exemplars in love.

I agree that I would rather have someone in my life that practices being loving on a day-to-day basis. Although I believe that some people are put on this earth to have that one extreme love moment, like in Gran Torino. I am a big believer in the notion of ones destiny, but I also believe that we have a choice to follow our destiny or pick an alternate road.