What Is Love?
Is There A Definition?
As we now enter the month of February, I wanted to address one of the most important biblical characteristics that every Christian should possess, and that of course, is love. When we look at love in the Bible, there are many different definitions we find, many cases where we’re called to have it, many situations where God is defined by it, and many more instances where our culture today just doesn’t line up with it. All of these situations we will discuss this month and I think we will be shocked at the amount of things we have been taught about love that just aren’t biblical at all. To start all of this discussion, however, we must first begin by asking the simple question, ‘What is love?’ Now as some of you may know, 3 main kinds of love are discussed in the Bible, and all of these types of love are what we will actually discuss next week. The reason for this is because these definitions of love show us how we love, and don’t necessarily answer what love really is. As a matter of fact, if you were to pull out a concordance, look up the word ‘love’ and see how many times it’s used in scripture and what it’s defined as you’ll notice a stark difference between the Old Testament word for love and the New Testament word for love.
The word most commonly used for love in Hebrew for the OT is ‘aheb’ while the word most commonly used for love in Greek for the NT is ‘agape’. Do you know what both of these definitions say these words mean in their own language? That’s right, love. Now as I said, we will break down these types and definitions and comb through them with a finer brush in later posts, but at a glance, we can see that love is something that the reader should already have a foundational knowledge of. Whether you speak, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, or just English, the idea of love is something that everyone is expected to know to some extent. And while I think everyone could easily give a definition of what they presume love to be, I think we’re all also willing to admit that when it comes to what the Bible says about love, we don’t always hit the nail on the head. With all of that being said, I want to break down some of the biggest verses in scripture regarding love and see what type of foundation we can build before we dive deeper into this study.
Biblically Defined
To start, I want to address what I believe to be the greatest definition of what love really is. This is found in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 “4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails;” This is what I believe to be the best definition and the best source we have for what love should be according to God’s Word. Does the way you love lack any of these principles? Does the way our culture teaches us to love involve each of these steps? What about our own Churches? Do we as the body of Christ love like this? Because if we’re not, we’re not loving how God has created us. I know that might seem like a slap in the face, but love according to God is a big deal. It doesn’t take long while doing a study on love in the Bible to see how high our Lord prioritizes this characteristic for His people. As you read this passage, I want you to think of someone that you would say you absolutely love, no question. Now run it through the 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8 test. Are you always patient with them? Always kind to them? Never jealous of them? Never arrogant towards them? Never selfish with them? Not provoked by them? Never hold a record of their wrongs? Always truthful with them? Always bear hardship with them? Always believing in them and enduring with them? I’m willing to bet there isn’t a single person on this earth that you can honestly say you’ve 100% loved 100% of the time. And that’s of course because God’s standard for love is not what we’ve been taught.
God Is Love
Loving someone isn’t just something we do because we feel all tingly inside when we’re around them. It’s way more than that. It’s everything that God taught it should be in His word. Now I know you may be thinking, ‘That sounds incredible, but that’s also impossible! No one can love like that!’ And to that, I would say, that’s kind of the point. No one apart from the leading of the Lord’s Spirit could ever imagine loving someone like this because it’s impossible with our human nature. It’s only by the fruit of God’s Spirit that I believe we could ever produce such a love in our lives like this because this type of love is something only God can truly offer. In fact, that’s what this second passage points out beautifully. Look at what 1 John 4:8 says, “8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” That’s right, the very definition we used to describe a biblical type of love is a definition that fits our Lord to a ‘T’. This is why when we try and love without the Spirit of God in our lives, we are only fooling ourselves. There is only one being who can literally be described as love itself and that’s God. And as much as we want to say we always love others as 1 Corinthians 13 tells us, the truth is we fall short. I want to encourage you this month in your prayer time, to ask the Lord to help you love as He does. Ask God to produce in you a fruit of love that is only evident because of His Spirit inside you. As you do that, I think you will come to find yourself loving less and less like this world, and more and more like Christ.
Sources
[1] “Access Your Bible from Anywhere.” BibleGateway.Com: A Searchable Online Bible in over 150 Versions and 50 Languages., www.biblegateway.com/. Accessed 2023.
[2] The Strongest NASB Exhaustive Concordance. Zondervan, 2004.
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