What is love? (Why do I even find myself thinking about this?) I mean its not like it should be all that complicated. I rather like the thought of keeping it simplistic, and keeping love as love, but then which love am I really talking about? Do I have what it takes essentially to profess the real form of self-sacrificing love for anyone? Or will I stumble and fall. I mean, philia, the format of love that deals with friendship, yeah, that’s easy. I can pass into that form of caring rather quickly, but to step into the danger zone of agape love, the format of love that Jesus most exemplified, yeah right.
The problem is expressing the forms of love in English. I can’t even properly do it in Japanese. Something in me, screams that I should express philia in words in English… but who can really turn to their buddies (either male or female) and say “I love you guys” ? I mean, do you realize how completely facetious that sounds? Or on the other hand it could be misinterpreted in various ways as a form of sexual attraction which can and should be differentiated from eros, which is the format of love pertaining specificially to the human experience of romance. Romance, of course, is not wholly devoid of a sexual love, but far from being the focus, it acts a singular aspect of Love (eros).
So, I guess what it comes to is this: English cramps my style. Seriously, the greeks had philia(friends), agape(sacrificial), eros(romantic) and storge (I like pizza). All we’ve got is “Love” and “like”. Oh and most of the time it is typical to use Love the same way we use “like”, so we effectively only have one way of expressing love. Does it come down to a need for actions to speak louder than words? I hope not, there just has to be a way to express it.
I propose a modification of a certain quote:
The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians
Who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and are armed by their lifestyles.
That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.
That is only slightly different from the original but I think it emphasizes more the onus for consistency and example to come from us Christians. We are armed by our lifestyles in the true mantra of St. Francis: preach always, when necessary use words. A teaching well reflected in 1 Peter 3:15.
What it comes down to is this.
φιλια We need to love our friends (philia)
στοργε We need to let go of our love of things (storge)
αγαπε We need to die to ourselves and live for God (agape)
εροσ We need to love otherworldly based in our walk in this life (eros)
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends; 1 Cor 13:4-8 (All of these “Loves” are Agape)
Then note that this is Jesus’ most explicit commandment:
John 15:12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
But what you don’t know because of English is that He is asking us to (Agape) love. Meaning he is asking us to sacrifice for others, not just (philia) love. He did it on the cross for all of us, maybe we can too learn to take up our yoke. After all, He tells us that His “yoke is easy and (his) burden light.” (Matt 11:30)
Go and set the World on Fire. /_0\/3 4/_/_
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