The particular word translated love in Galatians 5:22 appears over 100 times in the New Testament. This frequency of use suggests very strongly that it refers to a very important concept. In all its occurrences in the New Testament, this type of love appears most often as a command. However, it is also an obligatory character quality. If we have trusted the LORD Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, this quality we must manifest. The obligatory nature of this character trait for all Christians is seen in the following illustration. The LORD Jesus spoke to His disciples in Matthew 5:43,44,46 and He said:
Ye have heard that it hath been said thou shalt love thy neighbor
and hate thy enemy, but I say unto you love your enemies, bless
them that hate you. Pray for them that despitefully use you. For
if ye love them who love you, what reward have you? Do not
even the tax collectors the same?
Love is given to us as a command in this passage. For example, the LORD Himself said, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” How do we love ourselves? Many popular songs deal with a different type of love than what we have in focus. The kind of love that is emphasized in the popular songs is a physical, sensual type. The love of the popular songs involves kissing, caressing, and holding or touching. Sometimes this type of love is necessary and good, but it is not what Paul is talking about in our passage in Galatians. Do you love yourself by kissing the back of your hand and uttering the words “Oh, I love me!” No, you do not love yourself with words, you care for yourself. You have demonstrated that care throughout the day. When you first got out of bed today you groped around until you made your way to the bathroom. There you got a...
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...t impossible to be a comfort to someone who needs comforting. For this kind of love is, indeed, inexhaustible! The hymn I am referring to is The Love of God and the verse that expresses the inexhaustibility of this love says:
Could we with ink the ocean fill
And were the skies with parchment made
Were every stalk on earth a quill and
Every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry
Nor could the scroll contain the whole
Though stretched from sky to sky.
That love sent Jesus Christ to Calvary for you and me. It is that kind of love that Jesus displayed as He went about healing and teaching. It is that kind of love that God wants to be manifested in you and through you by the Holy Spirit, because that kind of love is a character trait of one who has been purchased by the blood of Christ and is living for Him.
Solle explains that a “[r]eal encounter in love can only take place in mutuality, not in an asymmetrical relationship of dependence…we know God only if we also know how much God needs us” (184). Love requires mutuality and vulnerability; it requires letting oneself be known. If God is love, then God must allow God’s self to be known. Solle argues that God allows God’s self to be known most clearly in the relational, non-coercive and pacifistic nature of Jesus. She states “The only capital with which [Jesus] came into the world was his love, and it was as powerless and as powerful as love is. He had nothing but his love with which to win our hearts” (187). Solle explains that we know God needs us because God reveals God’s desire for relationship in Jesus and reveals God’s vulnerability in the
In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis addresses a position on love that is seldom heard, yet universally felt. Screwtape makes a very clear distinction between his ideal of love and true love. If we take what Screwtape thinks love is, and reverse the teaching completely, all that is left is the love that God approves of. The purest and most sought after love is God’s. Love has been divided by C.S. Lewis into five ways. One way, taught in The Screwtape Letters is “being in love”. The other four ways is taught through The Four Loves: Affection, friendship (philia), romantic love (eros), and Agape love. Understanding the difference between the lo...
One of the main scriptural points in the lesson is from Song of Solomon that expresses that the heart should not ‘arouse love until it so desires’ and argues that “this verse points to there being a right time for “love” to be aw...
The apostle John declared: “God is love.” In the Koine Greek, Agape love is that not only that love is from God, but that it is of God. God Himself loves. Love is one of the moral attributes of God Agape love is self-sacrificing. The LORD Almighty loved the world so much that He sent His only son, to death; death on a cross. .
Love by definition is an emotion explored in philosophy, religion, and literature, often as either romantic love, the fraternal love of others, or the love of God based on the definition found in The Encarta Encyclopedia. As I explored the definition by means of the Internet, books, and articles I noticed the definitions changed quite a bit, but yet had the same basic understanding. The definition I found in The Encarta Encyclopedia was probably the most simple and most basic. It refers to love in the whole aspect, which is Godly, fraternal, and romantic. All in which can only be defined by one word and that it love.
...ing my fellow human beings with love I am in turn helping myself with love.
[to the pagan,] "this command 'You shall love' will not only surprise him but will disturb him and be an offence to him. [p.41] It may perhaps offend you — well, you know it anyway, that Christianity is always accompanied by signs of offense. Nevertheless believe it .... Do not stop believing because the command almost offends you." [p.74]
What pops into your mind when you hear the word ‘love?’ Do you think of a person who loved you or someone you’ve admired? We, as human beings, are made to love. We even distinguish love as family, romantic, and selfless love: also known as, storge, eros, and agape. As much as we desire to love others, we hold high values of being loved by others. Humanity’s great appreciation towards love is so great, it is even portrayed in fairy tales. Little Mermaid is a story about a mermaid who exchanges her beautiful voice to human legs so that she could be with her true love, Sleeping Beauty is a story about a prince who strives to fight against the evil witch in order to save his true love from a deep sleep, and Beauty and the Beast is about a young lady who falls in love with a Beast, solely because of his good virtue and character. The most influential book to humanity, the Bible, also carries the message of love through the gospel. God’s love for human being is purely displayed through the life of Jesus Christ: Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection. Could there be mere connections between the gospel, fairy tales, and humanity under the topic of love? Jeanne-Marie LePrince De Beaumont’s Beauty and the Beast echoes the Evangelium by reflecting upon unconditional, sacrificial, and transformative love. Such love is demonstrated through Beauty’s action, motivation, and her relationship with others.
It is rather difficult to speak of love in an original sense today. If someone were to ask an individual to define love, a common response would be, “love cannot be explained, it cannot be defined”. This answer would be acceptable if love was equally felt for and between all people. But anyone would have to agree to the fact that there are different degrees and levels of love. Someone would not love his or her family members the same way they would his or her spouse. Love varies between different levels of action and feeling, and a definition of each level must be discovered in order to understand its varying power. Martin Luther King Jr. felt the need to address this particular issue when discussing the principles behind the non-violent student movement for civil rights. King felt that a working idea of love was the keystone to the philosophy of a non-violent protest. Turning to the Greek language and idea of love, King was able to define three particular levels, eros, philia, and agape. His goal was to take one of these three levels and use it as the definitive quality of the non-violent movement.
Love is arguably the most powerful emotion possessed by mankind; it is the impalpable bond that allows individuals to connect and understand one another. Pure love is directly related to divinity. Without love, happiness and prosperity become unreachable goals. An individual that possesses all the desired superficial objects in the world stands alone without the presence of love. For centuries love has been marveled by all that dare encounter it. Countless books and poems have been transcribed to explain the phenomenon of love, but love surpasses all intellectual explanations and discussions. Love is not a definition, but rather a thought, an idea. This idea, the idea of love, burns inside us all. Instinctually, every soul on Earth is
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” These scriptures clearly point out God’s love. In George W. Peters book A Biblical Theology of Missions says this about God’s love, “Divine love is that impelling and dynamic quality in which God moves out of Himself and in which He relates Himself in all His beneficence and sufficiency to His creation. His love motivates Him eternally to communicate and to impart Himself to the object of His relationship” (59 & 60). Peters notes, love is: outgoing dynamic relationship (Romans 5:8), sacrificial active relationship (John 3:16), comprehensive relationship (John 3:17), and finally love is manifold relationship; which he says manifolds according to the character, conditions and needs of its object” (60). God is love. Also God is relational; Peter says on page 57, “God is a God of relationships”; the book of Ezekiel 37:27 says, “My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people” and Jeremiah 32:38 says, “ They will be my people, and I will be their God.” From these scriptures it is clearly known that God the Father desires intimate relationship with His people. The
What is love? I remember a time when “I love you” was the hardest phrase to say to the person you really had feelings for because you knew when you said those words it would change the course of your relationship forever. But what is the true meaning of love? “The dictionary defines love as a feeling of strong personal attach-ment induced by sympathetic understanding or by ties of kindred; ardent affection for one’s children; man’s adoration for God; strong liking; fondness; good will, al love of learning; love of country.” (Bell, pg. 10) According to Bell all of these definitions convey the outward appearance of love. He says that when looking at love that we need to take an inventory of our feeling to find out if we are truly displaying the type of love that God calls agape love. Bell says we need to ask ourselves the following questions: Do I return love? In any relationship love is a two way street. A marriage or relationship will not last very long if only one person is showing love and the other is not responding in kind. As a matter of fact, a spiritual relationship works in pretty much the same way. The bible says that God first loved us, but if we do not return that love to Him the relationship may diminish. As a Christian we must first love the unsaved person just enough to go to them and share the good news of the gospel. Then after that person has received the gospel of Jesus it is then up to them to accept it and return the love by giving their life to Christ. “Ministry is the first stage of this exchange of love.” (Bell, Pg 11)
To better understand the concept of "love", lets define the value of love. Love is the most valuable commodity in the world. We all need love just like a fish needs water. Without love, life would not be worth living. With love in our lives, we are empowered beyond belief.
What then is love? Over the years, society has pondered this question only to arrive to different answers. Who then deserves to be love? Some people love only those who are easy to love. Others, love people who they know will reciprocate their love. According Eagle Vision Ministry, there are different kinds of love: Storge love (love of a parent to child), Eros love (physical love), Phileo love (friendship love), and Agape love (God’s love). Agape love is a unique love that has nothing to do with emotional attachments. It is the kind of love that only God can place in the heart of an individual. It is the kind of love that permits a person to love their enemies. It is the kind of love that permits a person to do good to those who have harmed a person. It is the kind of love that permits a person to pray for those who are undeserving of his/her prayers. God’s shows Agape love because his love is unconditional; the Hebrew word “hesed” best describes the type of love of God has for people (4). One must understand God in order to reach love. In 1Corinthians 13:13, the bible says, “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” (NRSV) So what does God’s word has to say concerning the subject of love? In Matthew 22:34-40 the bible says, “When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ‘Teacher, which commandment in the laws is the greatest?’ He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two comm...
This was because He knew that love was the key to growing in their faith and living a life free from Sin.13 Love is only possible because God created it, He knew that humans needed love.14