Many of us are aware of what is called the Greatest Commandment in the Bible: “To love God with all your heart, soul and mind and to love your neighbour as yourself,” picking up soundbites from the Old Testament.
To this, Jesus added a NEW Commandment: “To love one another as I (God) have loved you”. In both commandments, the Greek word for ‘love’ is agape. This is more than friendship or romantic love, it is based on the love that God has for us. Someone once wrote, “Agape cannot be defined outside the New Testament understanding of the selfless actions of almighty God toward His creation.”
Both are commands of God to the Church, and therefore if we are members of a local church: to us specifically. It is often said that we can choose our friends but not our family. The same applies to our Christian family. Within eleven verses in John chapters 13 and 15 the command to agape each other is stressed powerfully. If we name ourselves as followers of Jesus Christ, it is therefore something that we cannot ignore!
One of the marks of a thriving church, irrespective of size, is to sacrifically agape each other, even to the point of laying down our lives for each other as 1 John 3:16 highlights. Our love for each other is the mirror that reflects the love of Christ.
Baptist Minister, David Hewitt, some years ago wrote a book entitled “The Power of Love,” in which he mentions that the New Testament includes far more exhortations to express agape love to each other than to be engaged in evangelism, “Effective Evangelism is the overflow of such love” is the conclusion that he reaches about having agape love for each other that is real and sincere.
Rev. Graham Warmington
Toilet Twinning
During recent open days at Westbury and Dilton Marsh, visitors were invited to “lob a loo roll,” the simple game involved seeing who could lob the loo roll the farthest and still get it into the loo – a good opportunity to practise one’s aim!
It was a good bit of fun, the result was that by taking part it was possible to raise enough funds to twin the toilets at All Saints Westbury and at Holy Trinity Dilton Marsh – so, if you get the opportunity, go and take a look to see what the toilets look like. It’s a bit of a strange notion ‘Twinning toilets’ and you may ask why-ever would we do it, the reason is that by doing so we are enabling toilets to be built in countries where girls and young women are particularly at risk from male predators. Toilets really are something that we take for granted in this country and yet we have plenty – in each of our homes, our churches, cafes, shops, on the motorway, on campsites and many other places.
To us it is inconceivable that a village would be without a toilet, but then, many villages and homes across the world are still without running water.
Sometimes when we think about the issues many face across the world, we don’t know how we can make a difference but thanks to toilettwinning. org.uk we can make a start by twinning our own toilets. Wouldn’t it be amazing to see our public toilets twinned with community toilets from across the world, and know that for us every time we spend a penny we are helping someone else to be safe spending theirs?
