“Now concerning love of the brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anyone write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another…”

Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:9

If our love of one another is cold, if we call social pleasantries (which are actually quite distant) as examples of our love. Then we are deceiving ourselves and one another.

To really love someone is to spend entire Christian gatherings speaking with them back and forth.

Brotherly love involves a good deal of conflict, it involves confession of sins back and forth. It is giving of things, it is in helping our brothers and they us. It is not a distant hand shake and a “how you doing?, and a “boy that was a good sermon”

If we don’t get past a distant periodic hand shake and a “how you doing?” God is not able to teach us as Christians how to love one another. God cannot get to teaching us because of coldness, we won’t allow it, our collective tradition of coldness prevents him.

Hearing sermons accomplishes close to nothing spiritually.

A two-hour banquet and face to face gathering can be more spiritual than 500 hours of sermons.

Most sermons are like a nagging wife or husband, like a constant dripping on your ceiling of a leaky roof. Forever reminding us to do things we already know to do, but never quite giving us the ability to do them.

But Jesus does give us the ability, he teaches us the impossible then he empowers us. And he miraculously does both through fellow Christians. I hear and see Jesus in fellow Christians, even immature ones. Even ones I don’t enjoy being around.

Brotherly love is defined by the ecclesia. It is seen exclusively in the gatherings of Christian brothers and sisters.