As we approach Valentine’s Day, our thoughts and hearts turn to love. People often use the word love casually in everyday conversation: "I love this weather.” “I love football.” “I love chocolate." Love can be defined in many different ways. As Christians, we have a somewhat unusual definition of love based on the example of supreme love we find in Jesus.
The Bible indicates that love is from God. In the 1st letter of John, we are told that “Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.” (1 John 4:8) If God is love, and we are made in the image and likeness of God, then we are capable of loving in a Christian way.
Greek, the language of the New Testament, uses different words to describe and define love. The most commonly used Greek word translated love in the New Testament is agape. This is the kind of love God has for us: it is a non-partial, sacrificial love, best described in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” The gift of God's Son as a sacrifice for sin was for all humans, regardless of who we are, that we might live with Him for eternity.
The term agape is rarely used in ancient manuscripts, but was used by the early Christians to refer to God’s love for humanity, which they were committed to reciprocating and practicing toward God and within their community.
Love in the secular world is usually conditional and based on how other people behave toward us. Agape love, on the other hand, goes deeper: It requires a relationship with God through Jesus Christ; it gives and sacrifices, expecting nothing back in return.
Perhaps the best-known biblical chapter on love is 1 Corinthians 13: “Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails…”
This is a description of agape love. The description perfectly fits God's love toward us, and should be the way we love each other and God.
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