‘Love may stem from something other than affection or passion.’

I think you’re right in saying that perhaps our definition of ‘affection’ here is different. I would argue that nothing can be done without affection and that whatever is done is done precisely because of some existing affection.

Something has to motivate us to action, and that something is always more than a cerebral acknowledgement of what truth is. To act in a certain way is to demonstrate what you believe, and what you believe is what results in affections.

What I’m saying in a confusing way is what Jesus said in a straightforward way in various places like Matt 12.34-35 (and others): You believe something to be true, which produces affections (the state of the heart), which produces words (which, in this case, stand in for all actions). Your actions are always only ever the fruit of something in your heart (Matt 7.12-27).

What you believe is what creates affections. Faith produces love for God, which means I’ll obey Christ’s commands (John 14.15; 15.14). Out of love for God flows love for others.

Again, though, I would want to put an asterisk on all of this like I did in the post and say that sometimes this progression is harder to see in our hearts right now because everything’s muddied by sin. Sometimes the order appears to even be backwards… but that’s a result of sin. What God calls us to is to have his heart: genuine love for others that results in genuine self-sacrifice for the good of others.

I don’t know if this is making things any clearer, or if I’m just rambling? Probably the latter.

I agree with you that love is more than merely a verb. What I was driving at in my comment on the last post was that “affection or passion” seems maybe a bit too narrow. It’s not that we necessarily need to incorporate verbs; rather, it seems to me that love may stem from something other than just affection and/or passion. But perhaps I’m wrong on that account.

Can we pray without affection? I think we can, though maybe that depends on how we define affection. We are to pray for our enemies and I think that may sometimes mean we pray out of obedience but without any true affection. So is it possible that sometimes the outer is motivated by another inner, in this case obedience and faith rather than affection? Can we be obedient out of our affection to God even when we have no affection for the other person?

I don’t mean to be contradictory. It’s your fault, really, for getting me thinking…