Love Is the SolutionНамуна

What is love and its different meanings?

Is love a feeling or an action?

Today we mostly use the word love to describe a feeling or an emotion. This is a very broad or generic way to view this word. However, the Bible uses three different words for love: eros, philia and agape. Let’s look at the different ways in which they are used.

Eros is the love of consumption. It means becoming one with something, mostly referred to as erotic or romantic love between partners. This love often motivates people. Philia is the love of cooperation. It is the love of collaborating and working together. Both eros and philia can be motivated by self-interest, self-gratification, and self-preservation. Even if others are the focus, eros and philia are both trying to satisfy the desires of the one doing the loving. It is giving for the purpose of getting something in return. Then lastly, there is agape, the love of creation—the love God demonstrates towards humanity. The meaning of this word is in sharp contrast to the other two. Agape points to completely self-sacrificing love. It is the word used most frequently in the New Testament to describe love. Agape means action—acting in a selfless, loving way towards others. It is not based on how we feel.

The best metaphor for agape is how a parent loves a child. You love your newborn baby, not because it can do anything for you. There is no reciprocation. By loving a newborn, you turn it into a fully functioning person who can live up to its potential. By giving this Godly love, you turn them into something they are capable of being.

In the same way, by participating through love in another being, we can help transform that person into what they are capable of being. Agape made (created) you. It’s because you only received the agapeic love of God through others that you were transformed into a person with your identity. Because of agape and how other people devoted themselves and participated in you, you became a person. The child, receiving the agape love, is consuming the love the adult is giving them. For the child, this is egocentric. For the parent, it is sacrificial. The person giving agape cannot be the “center of their own attention.” Jesus’s life demonstrated this love. And so, too, did his death. Agape, therefore, is sacrificial in nature.

Agape is also forgiving. You for-give it; you give before the person earns it. You are giving of yourself for someone to become more. We get for-givenness (agape) from God by for-giving other people. We receive agape from God to the degree to which we give it to others. We are vessels or stewards of agape when we give others love before they can earn it. And the more we forgive, the more we are forgiven (Matt 6: 14-15).

Agape can bring about a radical transformation, changing one’s direction and orientation. This is called metanoia—the journey of changing one’s heart, mind, self, or way of life. As we move from receiving it to giving it, our personal life course is being radically transformed, and our lives can undergo a fundamental re-orientation.

We become the vessels through which agape “creates” other human beings. We are radically transformed if we become conduits for this process whereby we love others with no interest or return on it for ourselves. Agape is God. And we are becoming like God if we manifest this love unto others. We can participate in this daily and manifest God to a fallen world.

It flows through us if we participate in it and selflessly love others. If we love others in our community this way—the sick, poor, widows, orphans, homeless, modern-day “Pharisees,” and your “enemies,”—they can themselves experience this transformation, metanoia.

Jesus’s death exemplifies this sacrificial forgiveness that is at the core of God as agape. Jesus’s death enables us to internalize that sacrificial love and empowers us to transform other human beings. But even if God gives it and demonstrates this, it is still up to us to receive it. We must open our hearts and minds, receive His love, and internalize it for it to change us and flow through us.

We find it hard to acknowledge the reality of agape. We like to tell ourselves the story that we are self-made, self-directed, self-secure, self-sustaining, and independent. Pride in our lives makes us want to earn redemption and righteousness for ourselves. We want to be the saviors in our own stories. But agape challenges this pride in a profound way if we soften our hearts, repent, and turn to God.

Our interaction and participation in this world are fundamentally transformed if we experience agape. Take the time today to meditate on the agape love of God. Receive that love and become a conduit for it.

Let it transform you and those you encounter.