From: Mike Phillips (mphilli3@mail.tds.net)
Date: Mon Jun 24 1996 - 10:25:44 EDT
>  From: BibAnsMan@aol.com, on 6/23/96 11:23 PM:
>  II. FILEW in Scripture  (appears 21 times in verb form in the N.T.)
>  
>  The Father FILEI the Son (John 5:20).  Notice the close kinship stressed
here
>  in context of the previous and following verses.
>  
        Notice how this contradicts your premise.
>  Jesus' love of Lazarus is described by his sisters as FILEW (John 11:3) and
>  weeps over him; it is thus described by the Jews (11:36).
>  
        Ditto.
>  The disciple whom Jesus loved is described by this verb (John 20:2), as well
>  as the church whom God loves (Rev. 3:19).
>  
        Ditto.
>  If anyone does not FILEI the Lord, let him be accursed (1 Cor. 16:22).
>
        Ditto.
  
>  
>  FILEW seems to embody more of an affection between the related parties than
>  it does of the self-sacrificial love so characteristic of God's love for
>  those whom He loves.
        You cited several texts above which don't support this conclusion; 
either you have read them with different spectacles or your point escapes me.
I do not discount the latter possibility, but I find my own bias at present is
to 
believe the former.
>  Peter in the context of John 21 seems not to be able to
>  rise to the level of the divine self-sacrificial love since he has just
>  miserably failed to live up to that.  The Lord was able to teach him a
>  valuable lesson and humble him for service.  Peter could only respond with
>  the affection love, "I like you a lot," not the "Though all these fall away,
>  I will never fall away" self sacrificial love he earlier claimed. 
>
        As I recall, Peter's exasperated reply was finally "Lord, you know."  
This seems an appropriate reply at this juncture of this extended debate too
<g>.
 
Mike Phillips 
Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, Indiana USA
http://www.cts.edu (webmaster@cts.edu)
Hebrew Union College - JIR, Cincinnati, Ohio USA
http://www.huc.edu (a grad student)
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