Almost two-hundred years ago, Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote the poem, “How Do I Love Thee?” A beautiful poem and an excellent question. The answer will certainly vary based on the country, culture, even language of the person posing the question—love means many things to many people. In our culture the word “love” has a tremendous range of meaning—everything from loving tacos to loving our spouse! We love bands, movies, sports teams, celebrities, and video games…we also love our spouses, parents, children, country—and we love God—the same word…love! We can even use it as a euphemism for sex (making love). When threatened by someone we consider inferior, we can use it in a menacing way, “I’d love to see you try it!” We use it in slogans: “Make love, not war,” “Love is love,” and “Love wins.” We have dozens of colloquialisms, “love is blind,” “love child,” “love handles,” “a face only a mother could love,” and so on.
Sometimes we use other words to try and mix it up a bit—I adore you, I am devoted to you, I would die for you—but there is nothing quite like someone looking you in the eyes and saying, “I love you.” It is quite ironic that the English language has a vocabulary of just under one quarter of a million words and yet we have essentially one word for the most powerful experience a human can have. Besides these complexities and limitations, there is another aspect of love in our culture that confuses it even more.
One of the most difficult problems we face in understanding love is the way the word is often used to serve a particular agenda. For instance, in the minds of some, to love means to agree with them—to disagree reveals that your love cannot be true. For others, to love means to accept them unconditionally—to do anything else would be judging and if there is anything that is truly not loving it is judging (according to many).
All of these complexities have made their way into the Church as well. For many Christians, to love another means exactly what was said above—embracing another person unconditionally, whether their behaviors or beliefs are biblical or not. I recently read two statements on a social media platform that demonstrate this position perfectly, “Jesus did not call us to be right, he called us to be loving,” and “I am utterly convinced that God will have all kinds of grace if we got the theology wrong. I am not entirely sure how God will take it if we got the loving other people, seeking justice, and choosing mercy part of life wrong.” The fact of the matter is that the Bible is crystal clear that both bear equal weight—to have one and not the other is not acceptable to God…we will consider this more carefully in the paragraphs to follow.
Defining Love in the New Testament
The Bible was originally written in other languages—the Old Testament was written primarily in Hebrew with some portions in Aramaic. The New Testament was written in an ancient form of Greek called koine (pronounced, koi-nay, meaning “common”). Miraculously, the Hebrew that is used in modern Israel is the same Hebrew that was spoken more than two thousand years ago. However, though there are similarities, the Greek of the New Testament world is not the same as modern Greek.
As of 2022 all of the Bible has been translated into 724 languages. The New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,617 languages. Individual books and smaller portions of the Bible have been translated into 1,248 other languages according to Wycliffe Global Alliance.[1] Scholars of all languages work diligently to choose words from their own language that best represent the meaning of the word in the original text. As you can imagine, this can be very trying at times. Nevertheless, the majority of modern translations, regardless of the language, represent the meanings of the original words in a way that is accurate and trustworthy.
It is interesting that love is one of those words that is challenging to represent adequately in English translations. In the Greek language of the New Testament era, there are no less than three words that we might translate with our one word “love”—two of these words are found in the New Testament. Of the three, the one that does not show up in the New Testament is the Greek word, eros (pronounced, air-oss), meaning sexual love…this is where we get our word erotic. The next two words will take a more careful explanation since they appear many times in the New Testament.
The first of these words is phileo (pronounced, fee-le-oh). This word love means to have a deep affection for, to hold in very high regard, it can even mean to kiss. It is the word that often describes the love family members have for one another. In fact, our famous Pennsylvanian city, Philadelphia, literally means, “city of brotherly love” in Greek (phileo – dearly loved, adelphos – brother) and comes from a city named in the New Testament. Phileo is used about twenty-five times in the New Testament in a variety of contexts (see Matthew 10:37, Mark 14:44, John 12:25, Titus 3:15).
Webster’s dictionary defines the English word love this way: strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties, attraction based on sexual desire: affection and tenderness felt by lovers, affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests.[2] This definition makes our English word quite similar to the Greek word phileo—both are primarily driven by some level of emotion.
The most common word for love in the New Testament, showing up over two hundred times, is agape (pronounced, ah-gha-pay). This is one of the most significant words in the entire New Testament and, when understood correctly and practiced, is one of the most powerful concepts in Christianity. Because of the limited options we have in English, both the words phileo and agape are translated the same – love. However, agape is so much more powerful than a feeling-based concept—the translators of the King James Bible tried to express this by translating the word as charity (not too bad). Some have explained it as unconditional love, but this definition actually does more harm than good.
A little history regarding this word will be helpful. Though it was a word in the Greek language of the past, it was very rarely used because the Greeks believed it was a kind of love that was unachievable. In other words, the meaning of this word was so exalted, few Greeks believed they could practice it. Consequently, it is very uncommon in the literature of that day. However, Christians realized it was a word that clearly expressed the nature of the love Jesus Christ practiced and called his followers to practice. It was adopted by the New Testament Church and used extensively in both writing and speaking. Subsequently, for the past two thousand years, the word has been most closely associated with Christianity.
I have studied this word for decades and the definition I find best is, agape love means to intentionally choose to do what is in the best interest of another person whether we feel like it or not. There are three very important elements of this definition that we must look at more carefully.
First is the phrase, intentionally choose. Agape love is based on a choice not a feeling. It does not need to be void of feelings, but it is not dependent on feelings at all—it is a decision, an act of the will. If a starving Christian who has a bit of food sees two hungry children, one his own son and the other a complete stranger, as an act of agape love he feeds both—he has feelings of love for his own son and gladly feeds him, the other he gladly feeds as well, though he may have no feelings of love, having never seen the child before. This is agape love. It is to consider the situation and make a choice with intention—a choice that will benefit the other and glorify God.
Secondly, it is a choice to do what is in the best interest of another. This is where we often run into trouble in our culture. As I referenced above, love is often understood to mean agree with me, accept me unconditionally, or even do what I want you to (or else!). However, to do what is in another’s best interest often means not agreeing with them or accepting them unconditionally. As followers of Jesus Christ, agreeing with much that is acceptable in our culture or accepting as appropriate the life choices that some of our friends and loved ones make is completely improper and, from our point of view, unhealthy, dangerous, or simply sinful.
Sadly, many Christians often make kneejerk assessments and toss out hurtful opinions—this is clearly not in the best interest of another person. However, through patience, prayer, and careful consideration, we who follow Jesus must arrive at a conclusion that is demonstrably biblical and then have the courage to stand on it. This is sometimes costly, but why would we contribute to the damage we believe someone is bringing on themselves? This would most certainly not be an act of love. It is important that Christians learn how to express care and support for the person, without compromising what we know to be biblical truth. This may be unacceptable to those we are trying to love, but that is their decision to make.
Lastly is the phrase, whether we feel like it or not. This statement is the essence of choice. If we love only those who love us, what difference have we made? (see Matthew 5:46-48). Agape love is expressed in acts of kindness, service, and compassion to anyone and everyone we encounter, whether it is smiling at someone and kindly greeting them or taking food to someone who needs it. Race, color, creed, sexual orientation, or political affiliation do not factor into it—we express agape love simply because this is a person created by God in his own image.
I can (and should!) bring food to a hungry Muslim (for example)–to express agape love to someone does not require that I agree with their religious perspective, political views, or personal choices. It does not mean that I am compromising my own faith because I am serving (loving) someone who stands in stark disagreement with my convictions and world view; it simply means, as I said above, I am choosing to do what is in their best interest…is this not the essence of the gospel? What they believe or how they behave are irrelevant when it comes to expressing agape love, it is what we believe and how we behave that is our motivating force.
Love Everyone?
Many times over the last year or more, I have heard Christians say that the most important thing we can do as followers of Jesus is to love other people. This sounds good to the ear and pleasing to the heart, but I always feel a bit confused by it. This challenge to love everyone never comes with an explanation of how we are supposed to love other people—is it the American way or the biblical way? The two, indeed, are not the same.
When an American (Christian or otherwise) hears the charge to love another person, we typically think this means we are somehow supposed to feel good about them, befriend them, accept them. This is indeed a challenge when many of those we are being asked to love are not only dismissive of our faith, but often hostile toward it. Consequently, we can feel obligated to “tone-down” our convictions and be “more accepting” of people—que sara sara, to each his own, love is love. We forget that the Scripture says, “Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). Many of us would rather err on the side of grace—this certainly makes us more agreeable to our culture, but may put us at odds with God, who expects us to manifest both grace and truth at all times.
How did Jesus show love? With grace alone? The fact that most of his messages included some form of the word repent should give us a clue (see Matthew 4:17, Luke 13:3, 5)—repent intrinsically means, “you must change course because your current direction is taking you away from God and toward destruction.” Repent is a powerful biblical word. There are many times where a Gospel writer records Jesus expressing both grace and truth. In John 5:1-14, the apostle records a story where Jesus heals a severely disabled man (grace) and then warns him to stop sinning or something worse may happen to him (truth). Also in John (8:1-11), there is a story of Jesus forgiving a woman who was having sex outside of marriage (grace) and then tells her to leave her life of sin (truth).
In John, chapter 8, Jesus has a heated dispute with some of the Jewish leaders. They have made several extreme allegations against him. At one point Jesus says, “Everyone who sins is a slave to sin, but if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed (grace). Why can’t you understand what I am saying? Why will you not accept my words? Because you belong to the devil and not to God (truth).”
Admittedly, these are hard words to hear coming from our Lord, but Jesus never compromised truth, to do so would endanger those who were listening to him. Even in the softer expressions of Jesus’ preaching, grace and truth remained juxtaposed—“Come to me, all who are weary and burdened (grace) and learn from me (truth)” (Matthew 11:28-30). In a more general sense, that is, as an invitation to the world, Jesus says, “Whoever believes in me is not condemned (grace), but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son” (truth) (John 3:18).
The apostle Paul tells us to be “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). The apostle Peter also tells us to “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have, but do this with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15). In both cases, we are to speak the truth, but do so in love and with kindness. Despite how our culture is pressing to redefine love as agreement and acceptance, as Christians we can love and not agree or accept. Let’s talk about how to do that in part two of this article.
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(C) 2015 D. Edwin Cohea/Coheasive Concepts
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[1] Bible translations – Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Bible_translations
[2] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/love