In The Phantom Menace (1999) Yoda says this: “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” Yoda sees fear as the gateway that leads to other bad qualities. Naming and owning fear, Yoda implies, renders the rest less overwhelming.
In this closing section to yesterday’s passage, Paul also names a gateway emotion to myriad other things: love. If Yoda summarized Paul, he might say, “Love leads to knowledge, knowledge leads to insight, insight leads to righteousness.”
Love leads to knowledge because if you love someone, you pay attention to them. You notice when they struggle. Knowledge comes only from attentiveness born of love, informed by knowledge of God’s love as well.
Knowledge leads to insight (“to determine what is best”) because only from accumulated knowledge and fresh perspective do novel ideas come forth. An unjust situation or a seemingly entrenched position can be better named with more knowledge born of love.
Finally, insight leads to righteousness as you live differently than expected but in accordance with your knowledge of God. You live pure and blameless (there’s Malachi again with his refiner’s fire) because you have the knowledge and love that keep you connected with God and neighbor.
May we also start with love as the gateway habit to a chain of betterment for ourselves and our neighbors. And may that love for neighbors be informed by what God’s love looks like in scripture and what it may be calling us to do in the present.