In the previous articles in this series, I argued something that initially felt almost unthinkable to me:

Jesus—not the Bible itself—is the ultimate revelation of God.

I argued that Scripture places Jesus above the text itself:

• Jesus is the Logos made flesh.
• Jesus is the exact representation of God.
• Jesus is the fullness of God revealed.
• Jesus is the one with all authority.

And because of that, I argued that Scripture must ultimately be read through Him.

Then in the previous article, I explored something even more surprising:

the Bible itself does not merely communicate through isolated facts, propositions, or surface readings.

Again and again Scripture communicates through patterns.

Through symbols.

Through themes.

Through layered meaning.

Through repeated movements.

Through echoes and theological connections woven throughout the entire story.

Not because later Christians invented those methods.

But because Jesus, the apostles, and the biblical authors themselves were already reading Scripture that way.

But this immediately raises a serious question.

If Scripture contains symbolic depth…

if it contains typology…

if it contains allegory…

if it contains poetic structures and theological patterns…

then what keeps interpretation grounded?

What keeps someone from simply making the Bible mean whatever they want?

That concern is legitimate.

In fact, the earliest Christians wrestled with the same concern.

And their answer was remarkably simple:

the center of interpretation was never arbitrary imagination.

The center was Jesus.

And because Jesus reveals God as agape love, love itself became the interpretive anchor of Scripture.

Not sentimentality.

Not vague niceness.

Not whatever feels emotionally comforting.

Agape.

Self-giving love.

The love revealed on the cross.

The love embodied in Christ.

Because the earliest Christians increasingly understood something that I think many modern Christians have unintentionally forgotten:

Love was not replacing Scripture.

Love was the lens Jesus Himself gave for understanding Scripture faithfully.

Where Did Love Become the Center?

I need to be honest about something.

Years ago, when I first began reading the church fathers, one thing in particular repeatedly bothered me.

They kept returning to love.

Again and again.

No matter what subject they were discussing:

love.

No matter what doctrine they were defending:

love.

No matter what difficult passage they were interpreting:

love.

At first, I honestly found it strange.

Because I came from a framework where the center of interpretation often felt like something else:

correct doctrine,

historical precision,

systematic categories,

proof texts,

or defending theological systems.

Love sometimes felt almost secondary.

Important, certainly.

But secondary.

So when I encountered the fathers saying things that sounded like:

“If your interpretation does not lead toward love, then you have misunderstood Scripture,”

part of me wondered:

“Where are they getting this from?”

It almost felt as though they had imported love into the Bible rather than derived it from the Bible.

Then I started noticing something that completely changed how I saw it.

Jesus Himself keeps placing love at the center.

Not occasionally.

Constantly.

When Jesus is asked about the greatest commandment in Matthew 22, He says:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

Then He immediately adds:

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

But then He says something that I had somehow read many times without allowing it to fully sink in:

“On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

All of it.

Not some of it.

Not the nice parts.

Not merely the ethical parts.

The Law and the Prophets.

The entire story.

Everything hangs here.

That statement began hitting me differently once I slowed down and really thought about it.

Because Jesus is not merely giving two important rules.

He is giving an interpretive center.

He is saying that love is not simply one command among many.

Love is the thing holding everything else together.

And then I started noticing that the apostles keep saying the same thing.

Paul writes:

“The one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” (Romans 13:8)

Then again:

“Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” (Romans 13:10)

Then John goes even further:

“God is love.” (1 John 4:8)

Not:

God possesses love.

Not:

God sometimes acts lovingly.

God is love.

And suddenly something clicked for me.

The church fathers were not inventing a lens.

They were following Jesus.

They were following Paul.

They were following John.

Love was not replacing Scripture.

Love was not competing with Scripture.

Love was the interpretive key Jesus Himself handed His followers.

And once I saw that, suddenly the fathers no longer felt like they were pulling ideas out of thin air.

They started feeling like continuers.

Jesus → apostles → church.

Again and again I kept finding the same pattern.

How Love Became the Church’s Way of Reading Scripture

Let us start with Irenaeus (who, as we noted in an earlier article is said to be connected as a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of the Apostle John.

Irenaeus famously wrote that “the glory of God is the human person fully alive”. He understood Jesus’ life as walking the path of divine love by fully uniting humanity with God, teaching that Christ came in the flesh to bestow unending grace and perfect His creation. 

Irenaeus’s vision of recapitulation by Jesus walking the path of love reads and interprets scripture through a specific set of lenses that said:

• God creates out of love.
• Jesus enters humanity out of love.
• Jesus restores humanity through love.
• God patiently matures humanity in love.
• Human life becomes participation in love.

Irenaeus increasingly saw the story of Scripture itself as moving toward this reality: humanity being restored through Christ into participation in divine love.

These were exactly the sort of things I had already been noticing inside Scripture itself.

Patterns.

Echoes.

Stories being fulfilled and transformed in Jesus revealing God is Love and demonstrating how to walk in that Love.

Again, the point was not detached information.

The point was Jesus as the living, breathing, walking example of Love itself.

The Earliest Christians Did Not Read Scripture Flatly

One of the biggest misconceptions modern Christians often have is assuming that the early church read the Bible the same way many modern Western Christians do now.

They did not.

The earliest Christians inherited Jewish meditation practices, symbolic reading traditions, typology, layered interpretation, and Christ-centered readings directly from the apostles themselves.

When they read Scripture, they were not merely asking:

“What happened?”

They were asking:

“What is this revealing about Christ?”
“What does this reveal about humanity?”
“How does this point toward restoration?”
“How does this reveal the character of God?”

This is why the fathers often sound foreign to modern readers.

They are not reading Scripture like modern post-Enlightenment literalists.

They are reading it like disciples of Jesus.

And once I began realizing this, many things that once confused me suddenly began making sense.

Origen: Scripture Has Depth Beneath the Surface

One of the clearest examples of this is Origen.

Now before some readers panic because Origen is controversial in some circles, slow down for a moment and actually consider what he was trying to preserve.

Origen noticed something many modern readers still struggle with:

large portions of Scripture become morally and spiritually confusing if read only at the surface level.

He argued that Scripture often intentionally pushes readers beyond literalism into deeper spiritual reflection.

In other words:

the difficult parts of Scripture were meant to force deeper meditation.

That does not mean the text becomes meaningless.

It means the meaning is deeper than the surface.

Origen believed Scripture functioned much like a human being:

• body,
• soul,
• spirit.

So for Origen there was a literal level of meaning But it was not the deepest level or most important level as compared to the soul and spirit which were what the scriptures were about and dictated how the body should be read, was used and what it was about.

And honestly, once I understood how the apostles themselves were already reading Scripture this way, Origen no longer sounded bizarre to me.

He sounded consistent with Paul.

Consistent with John.

Consistent with the way Jesus read Scriptures as pointing to himself and the Love of Gid revealed in him for the salvation of all of humanity.

In fact Origen basically taught that on the fundamental level the aim of the Holy Spirit in inspiring Scripture was not to convey historical events, but to reveal mysteries concerning Christ and the salvation of humanity.

Basil the Great and the Transformation into Love

The drive of scripture toward Agape Love as its central point and aim point becomes even clearer in Basil the Great, one of the church fathers who has deeply influenced me personally.

What I appreciate so much about Basil is that he constantly ties theology to transformation into love.

For Basil, Scripture was never merely about acquiring information.

It was about healing the soul.

Restoring humanity.

Forming people into the likeness of Christ.

And this is crucial because modern Christianity often reduces biblical interpretation to:

being technically correct,
winning doctrinal arguments,
or defending systems.

But for Basil, the point of theology was participation in divine life through love.

Reading Scripture wrongly was dangerous not merely because it produced intellectual error.

It produced malformed people.

People who became harsh instead of merciful.
Violent instead of compassionate.
Proud instead of humble.

For Basil, if reading Scripture was not producing Christlike love, then something had gone wrong.

And honestly, that sounds remarkably close to Jesus Himself.

Because reading Scripture rightly was supposed to shape people into Christlikeness.

And if Christ Jesus reveals God as agape love, then Scripture rightly understood should be moving people toward love as well.

Augustine and the Rule of Love

Then I came to Augustine.

And Augustine said something that honestly felt almost shocking.

He writes:

“Whoever thinks that he understands the divine Scriptures, or any part of them, but interprets them so that it does not build up the love of God and neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought.”

I remember reading that and just sitting there for a moment.

Because Augustine was not saying:

“If you get a fact wrong…”

He was saying something much more radical.

If your interpretation does not move you toward love of God and love of neighbor, then you have misunderstood the purpose of Scripture itself.

And suddenly I realized Augustine was not inventing something new.

Jesus says all the Law and Prophets hang on love.

Paul says love fulfills the law.

James calls Love the Royal Law of God’s Kingdom

And of most importance

John says “God is Love”.

Augustine was preserving a trajectory that was already there.

Jesus → apostles → church.

Love was not replacing Scripture.

Love was becoming the way Scripture was meant to be understood.

Love Is Not an Optional Lens

And this exposed something I increasingly realized about myself.

I — and I suspect the vast majority of Christians — inherited a theological system and a hermeneutic that quietly taught something very different from what Jesus revealed.

We were told that God is love…

sometimes.

In some circumstances.

Toward some people.

Until certain conditions are violated.

We may never say it exactly that way, but that is often how we function.

So we begin reading Scripture through that same framework.

Love becomes one interpretive principle among many.

Justice here.

Wrath there.

Love over here.

Exceptions somewhere else.

And because we occasionally apply a “love hermeneutic,” we think we are doing well.

We think:

“See? I read parts of Scripture through love too.”

But that was precisely where I began realizing something had gone wrong.

Because agape love is not conditional.

Jesus does not reveal a God who is loving only in certain moments or toward certain kinds of people.

Jesus reveals a God who loves enemies.

Who forgives from the cross.

Who moves toward sinners.

Who eats with outsiders.

Who tells us that the Father sends rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous.

Who tells us to love expecting nothing in return because that is what God Himself does.

And then John says something staggering:

“God is love.”

Not:

“God acts lovingly sometimes.”

Not:

“Love is one of God’s many attributes.”

God is love.

Which means love is not simply another interpretive tool sitting beside all the others.

It cannot become one lens among many.

It becomes the center.

The anchor.

The guardrail.

The thing that governs every other lens.

Because Jesus did not merely teach love.

Jesus embodied it.

Jesus revealed it.

Jesus demonstrated what God has always been like.

And if Jesus is truly the fullest revelation of God, then agape love cannot become something we apply occasionally to Scripture when it feels convenient.

It becomes the thing through which everything else must pass.

Every text.

Every doctrine.

Every interpretation.

Every tradition.

Every inherited assumption.

Everything.

Augustine Became a Warning for Me

Ironically, Augustine also became one of the people who forced me to wrestle with this most deeply.

Because Augustine gave us one of the clearest statements on the love hermeneutic I have ever encountered.

And yet Augustine also arrived at theological conclusions that I personally find difficult.

That created tension for me.

How could someone articulate something so profound and still sometimes arrive at conclusions that seemed inconsistent with the very principle he stated?

And honestly, Augustine unintentionally became a warning for me.

Not because Augustine lacked brilliance.

Not because Augustine lacked faith.

But because Augustine reminds me how easy it is for all of us to affirm the right center while failing to consistently allow that center to govern everything else.

Augustine inherited Platonic and Manichean assumptions from his world just as I inherited assumptions from mine.

And if I am honest, I have watched myself do the exact same thing.

I have watched myself approach Scripture already believing certain things:

God must act this way.

Justice must look like this.

Power must operate like this.

Scripture must function like this.

And without realizing it, I was quietly asking Jesus to fit into assumptions I inherited rather than allowing Jesus Himself to redefine them.

That is exactly what I am trying to guard against.

Because this is not about adding another interesting interpretive tool onto systems we already have.

This is not:

“Here is one more lens.”

This is:

“Everything else must submit to the lens Jesus gave us.”

Because if Jesus truly is the fullest revelation of God, then every assumption remains open to correction by Him.

Mine.

Yours.

Our traditions.

Our churches.

Our systems.

Everything.

Learning the Hermenuetic of Love from the Fathers Without Repeating Their Mistakes

As Augustine himself demonstrates, the church fathers did not always apply these principles consistently.

They were human.

They carried assumptions inherited from their cultures, philosophical backgrounds, fears, and theological systems just as we do today.

Sometimes they saw clearly.

Sometimes they did not.

But that is precisely the point.

Because there are moments where we can watch them doing something remarkable.

We can actually watch them rereading Scripture through the lens of Christ and agape love in ways that moved beyond flat surface readings.

They used allegory.

They used typology.

They followed repeated patterns.

They traced symbolic movements.

They connected themes and echoes across Scripture.

They looked beneath the surface of stories toward the realities they believed those stories were ultimately revealing.

And they sometimes did this in ways that ran directly against what a merely flat reading of the text would appear to suggest.

Not because they believed Scripture could mean whatever they wanted.

Not because they were dismissing Scripture.

Not because they were trying to escape difficult passages.

Quite the opposite.

They believed they were taking Scripture more seriously.

Because they believed Scripture itself had taught them how it wanted to be read.

Jesus had taught them.

The apostles had taught them.

The text itself had taught them.

And because of that, they refused to read Scripture in ways that would ultimately portray God as something other than what Jesus revealed Him to be.

They refused to interpret Scripture in ways that made God cruel.

They refused to interpret Scripture in ways that made God inconsistent.

They refused to interpret Scripture in ways that moved them away from love of God and love of neighbor.

Because they believed that if God truly is agape love, then Scripture cannot ultimately be understood in a way that contradicts agape love.

Not at its deepest level.

Not in its final meaning.

Not in the revelation toward which everything was pointing.

And what surprised me most was discovering that they did not merely do this with easy passages.

They did it with the hard passages too.

They did it with judgment.

They did it with wrath.

They did it with violence.

They did it with destruction.

They did it with texts that seem, at first glance, completely incompatible with the God revealed in Jesus.

And that is where our conversation now has to go.

Because if Jesus truly is the fullest revelation of God…

what do we do when parts of Scripture appear to tell a very different story?