Love is genuine when it conforms to God’s will. In Romans 12:9 the apostle Paul writes: Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.
Throughout the whole of the preceding passage, Romans 12:3–8, love functioned as the presupposition for serving each other, in accordance with God’s will, in the one body of Christ. Now Paul expressly names it. It must not be feigned. Sincere love demands a genuine abhorrence of evil, because it hurts your fellowman. Only when you adhere to that which is good, do you love your neighbour sincerely. An ethics which highlights the importance of man’s disposition also presupposes a normative ethics.1
9 Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.