The next book that we are reviewing in the “Confessional Perspectives” series, True Love: The Grace of Christian Fellowship, is written by James M. Renihan. This book had been previously published and is now republished as a part of this series for life in Confessional churches. Renihan is the President of International Reformed Baptist Seminary, distinguished Baptist historian, and has served in ministry in the local church and at the associational level. This book is brief—a hundred pages—and devotional as it presents a study of 1 Corinthians 13 for Christian love.
The book really consists of three main parts: chapter 1, chapter 2, and chapters 3–11. The final chapter, a conclusion, returns to some of the ideas from chapter 1. The summary below will give much attention to chapter 1 and more briefly describe the latter chapters.
In the first chapter, Renihan lays some important groundwork that is often forgotten in discussions of love. When people discuss love, they tend to immediately run to works or affections, but it is important to remember key affirmations regarding love that are made in Scripture and theology. First, love as it is often understood regarding the behaviors of rational creatures, falls under the category of law. In the famous declaration by the Lord, the sum of the law is to love God and love our neighbor. For this reason, Christians have often spoken of the “rule of love” (the Ten Commandments) alongside the “rule of faith” (the Apostles’ Creed). Second, love must be thought of alongside the gospel. It is because of the sanctifying work of God in us, as those who have been given new life from him, that we are able to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. This leads Renihan, third, to remind us that the God who works in us is the God who is love and has worked for us in the objective work of Christ. “Before any other love, God is love—the source and origin of all loves. The eternal mutual love of the Trinity is expressed toward humans, enabling and energizing our love” (8). Finally, God’s love toward us kindles in us a love toward him. The “personal affection . . . must not [be confused] with its fruits: duty worship, service, doctrine, etc. . . [The apostle John describes] the response that a believer gives to this great Object of affection, which is foundational to all true duty, worship, service and doctrine” (9). At the end of the book, Renihan returns to these themes, reminding the Christian that these things are essential for right thinking about the Christian life.
In the second chapter, Renihan gives a summary explanation of 1 Corinthians, situating it in the context of Act as well as outlining the basic structure of the book’s argument and the placement of the chapter on love. Though this contextual material may tempt the reader to skip the chapter, the themes he identifies here appear again through the rest of the book.
The rest of the book develops along the lines of 1 Corinthians 13 directly. It works one chapter at a time through grouped phrases and words of the passage. Renihan first draws out a definition of love, saying,
It is a combination of affection and action, or perhaps better, it is action suffused with affection. It is a holy attachment of one person to another (or to the truth, or the church) in which both heart and hand express the reality. It is the inward sense of longing, desire and delight, and it is the outward expression of appropriate words and deeds. (24)
The chapters that follow trace out Paul’s explanation of what this sort of love looks like if it is to be considered true love. Finally, in Chapter 10, Renihan says, “After listing fifteen aspects, positive and negative, of love’s actions, Paul concludes with this grand statement[: ‘Love never fails.’]” (88). The reason for this is that “God is love” and our Mediator united deity and humanity and “lived before men and women a perfect life of unqualified love, in the power of the Holy Spirit” (90). The means by which we grow in grace is always “rooted in the gracious work done for us by God in Christ. . . True Christianity is working Christianity—one that works not for justification, but in grateful response to the gracious work done by divine power” (95).
Renihan’s book is particularly suited to secret worship (i.e., private devotions). A Christian would do well to give themselves to take two weeks and, at one chapter a day, work through the book with 1 Corinthians 13 open. Coupled with prayer for the Spirit to identify areas for growth in love, whether in the home, the workplace, the church, or other extended relationships, the Christian would find themselves growing in these marvelous graces. As a church, this would be useful in identifying a spirit of arrogance, especially since Renihan carefully notes key areas where we—particularly Reformed Christians—tend to find ourselves embodying the Corinthian spirit.
Read alongside the more doctrinally focused works in the series (e.g., Riddle, and S. Renihan), this book would aid in kindling the heart that pursues such heady truths.