We grow in love in stages and start with self-love and respecting the self, without which we will not know how to respect anybody else. Then God moves us to group love, family love, or the love of people who are like us. Many people do not get there; they do not know how to love their family or those close to them. From there, God moves us to universal love, where, unfortunately, a much smaller number of people arrive at.
As we see in politics and throughout the world, most people just get to the second stage of knowing how to love people who are like them: their race, their nationality, their religion, and their political party. When we remain at this stage of group love, we clearly do not create a healthy society.
In Acts 10 we see how Peter had to be taught by the Holy Spirit how to grow in love. Peter was at the stage of group love, and then the Holy Spirit fell upon the Gentiles! Peter looked around and said, “Oh my gosh! God seems to be for everybody and not just for the Jewish people!” He understood that it was okay to include Gentiles into what we eventually called the church.
In spite of this, most of church history has not really followed Peter’s insight. We pulled back into group think and group love.
Acts 10:34-35 “I see very clearly that God shows no favoritism. In every nation he accepts those who fear him and do what is right.”
