I. WHAT Agapē-Loving One Another Involves (v. 22b)
A. It’s to be agapē-love (“love one another”)
(cf. Jn. 13:34-35; Eph. 5:2)

B. It’s to be heartfelt (“from [a pure] heart”)
(cf. 1 Jn. 3:16-18)

C. It’s to be all out (“fervently”)

D. → How have you shown Christian love today that is beyond a token gesture,
mere sentiment, and word-only?

II. HOW Agapē-Loving One Another Is Possible (v. 22a)
A. What this purification is that took place (“Since you have…purified your
souls”) (cp. e.g. Num. 8:5-22; cf. Ezek. 36:25-27)

B. How this purification took place (“in obedience to the truth”)
(cf. vv. 2, 14; Rom. 1:5; Ac. 6:7; cp. 2 Thess. 1:8)

C. Why this purification took place (“for a love of the brothers without
hypocrisy”)

D. → Implies two insightful things
1) Unbelievers are incapable of true agapē-love (cf. 1 Jn. 3:14; 4:8)

2) Believers have no excuse for a lack of true agapē-love

III. WHY Agapē-Loving One Another Is Only Right (vv. 23-25)
A. We have an imperishable life-source to agapē-love

B. We have an ever-living life-source to agapē-love
(e.g. Ezek. 37)

C. → For the born again Christian, there’s always petrol in the tank to agapē-
love

Discussion Questions

1) What does it look like, in practical terms, for Christians to “fervently love one another from
a [pure] heart” (v. 22)?
2) In what way(s) do you find it hardest to love your church? What would happen if you saw
those challenges as opportunities to love well, rather than as excuses not to bother?
3) Do you tend to seek to love others through summoning up a desire to love, or by
remembering, enjoying, and expressing your new purified life in Christ? How could you do
the latter more and more?