Monday, March 25, 2013

Perfect Love Casts Out All Fear


The scripture perfect love casts out all fear was burned into my brain when I woke up this morning. 
I knew there had to be a deeper meaning, but I didn't have time to look it up then. 
Pushing it back from the forefront of my head I went on to work where being the first of the week we had our staff meeting as usual. This always concludes with a prayer said by my boss. This morning at the end almost randomly he added in "God we know that your perfect love casts out all fear, Amen." 
My senses suddenly flooded back to that scripture from 1 John this morning. 

When I got back to my desk I looked it up, and found each of the words in the original greek. I wanted know the meaning of these words outside of the christian realm, what did they mean to the people John was writing to. 

The word perfect was Telios; It means grown up, mature and not swayed by childish thoughts or emotions. 
Love was Agape; Love born from a place beyond sexuality, a spiritual love that uplifts one another. 
Casts was the word exo/exw; It is a prefex added to the beginning of words to mean that it is casting that thing out side of the known boarders. 
It was added to Ballo/Ballw which means out side of the real of the known.
all was the word O meaning all, everything all forms.
and Phobos I thought was very interesting in it's self. Phobos isn't just a word meaning fear, Phobos was in fact in Greek religion the god of fear. He was born of love (the goddess Aphrodite) and war (the god Ares) and his temple was built out of skulls of beheaded enemies. (or so they say) 
Phobos was a concept that litteraly drove fear into the people associated with it. He was evoked when making war on some one, or when cursing them. 
knowing this it became a bit clearer to me what John was saying when he wrote this to the greeks.

Perfect love, a mature and unswaying love that has no strings attatched the physical banishes beyond all knowledge the concept of fear.

When we; knowing one another's faults love each other with strings no strings attatched we banish the things about another person that make us uncomfortable or uneasy. By loving each other with no strings attached despite others faults we break curses and we end war between our selves. 

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