why would a cattleman destroy the uninfected heard?
Job 9:22 This is one thing, therefore I said it, He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked.
the infected yes, the uninfected No!
Mt 13v
28: He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?
29: But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.
30: Let both grow together
until the harvest:
and in the time of harvest
I will say to the reapers,
Gather ye together first the tares,
and bind them in bundles to burn them:
but gather the wheat into my barn.
the God of love will burn the tares?
We are hoping here, to be speaking the truth in love, so that all can be edified, built up. As followers of Jesus, we hope to be effective members of His church, or body, prayerfully coming against the gates of Hell. We, of course, cannot succeed in this without His help, because it is something, and we can do nothing without Him.
So, is He helping? He warns us that there is a condition on His helping. If we do not receive the love of the truth, instead of helping us, He will delude us.
"And this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments." We are commanded, as regards truth, to "be diligent to show ourselves approved, a workman who need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."
"Confusion" means "fused with." It is from the devil, not God, and it happens when the meaning of two different words are fused together. In this case, we have salvation and love being fused together in meaning.
So, to restore God's helping us, let us rightly divide the meaning of these two words of truth.
He defines love as already stated. It is keeping commandments. But what is salvation? It is the end of a problem, present or threatened.
All seem agreed that salvation is conditional. We do not escape problems unless we meet God's conditions.
Does this mean that God's love is conditional? Only if we have reason to believe that His love is proportional to His salvation. I personally have neither prophetic nor scriptural reason to believe this, but perhaps someone else has heard God speak to this issue, or knows a scripture that would affirm such a thought.
The problem I hope He will help us with, is to help us see His ways of viewing our lives, in contrast to our own ways. We, of course, being often carnal, think of eating and drinking and breathing as our life, but He stresses our freedom and responsibility. When our eating, etc is destroyed, we feel unloved, even when that destruction is honoring our choices and responsibility. So, God sees this destruction as loving us, as fulfilling our freedom of choice.
He, of course, hopes that we will make different choices, and is grieved when we reject His wisdom and ways. That is love, too. But He will not let that grief on His part become a weapon in our hands by which we can force Him to yield to our opinions and ways.
So, there's my effort at peacemaking, and increasing understanding. It is written that the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. And, understanding, according to Jesus, is critical if the seed sown is not to be eaten up by the birds of the air. It is clear in scripture that failing to rightly divide words of truth will make edifying converation impossible.