What Is Love Essay

What does the word “love” mean? Love comes from the Latin word "amo," and according to the Long Man Dictionary of American English, love is an emotion normally used when speaking about feelings and caring for someone. Now, love as we tend to say, does not come from the heart, but instead through a chemical reaction, which happens in the brain. But, no matter how unromantic that sounds, love is still a very strong feeling and its meaning is amazingly difficult to define. Hence, "love" is misunderstood and is constantly misused. Nonetheless, in the Christian Greek Scriptures, the Bible teaches with clarity about love, because in the ancient Greek dialect, love was broken down into four simple words: agape, philia, storge, and eros.

In 1 John 4:8, the apostle John identified God's most important quality by writing, "God is love." Therefore, agape refers to love guided by will, thus, governed by God's principles. In the Bible, Jesus spoke of two foremost principles. The first, is written in Proverbs 3:6 - “In all your ways take notice of him, and he will make your paths straight.” This first principle, explains the most important purpose of human life - to consider God in all our decisions and to serve Him faithfully. Along with, Matthew 22:37,38, explains how loving Jehovah God with all our heart, soul and whole mind is the greatest first commandment. The second principle, is in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. In this text, Paul describes the many different ways we can love our neighbors. Also, Matthew 7:12; 22:39, describes how applying this second principle includes imitating God’s way of treating people. Therefore, agape is indeed love guided by principles that we consciously and intentionally live by.

In Greek, the verb phileo means t...

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...principles will remain morally clean. For married couples, Jesus, in Matthew 19:6 said "what God has yoked together let no man put apart." Therefore, rather than remaining together as long as there is a mutual attraction, we need to be loyal to our marriage. Nonetheless, eros is a Greek word which means to have a romantic love.

To conclude, in the ancient Greek language, love was broken down into four simple words. Agape, is love guided knowingly by principles. The verb phileo, means to have affection, though not inspired by our sentiments, while its noun, philia is defined as friendship. Storge is the natural affection that exists between family and eros, even though is not mentioned on by the inspired Bible writers its meaning means a romantic love between a man and a woman. In the end, these are the four easily understood words the Greeks used to define love.