Valentine's Day; 4 Loves

4 Greek Words for Love

2 used in the Bible

The Word Love.

English:  Applied to anything humans have any sort of affection or affinity.

Love pizza

Love your sports

Love your dog

Love Songs

Romantic Love 

Valentines Love

The word love has multiple meanings. 

That’s not bad. 

The Hebrew word is the same thing. 

The  'ahab  'ahabah

Hebrew Word  It’s more like our word for love.  Lots of meeting. 

'ahabah    אַהֲבָה

love

human love for human object

of man toward man

of man toward himself

between man and woman

sexual desire

God's love to His people

OT 

[Deu 6:5 ESV] You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

The Greek words for ‘love’

It appears that, in New Testament times, there were at least four different Greek words that we translate as the English word ‘love’. 

Storge  not found in Scripture

Storge (στοργή storgē) means "love, affection" and "especially of parents and children"[9] It is natural affection, like that felt by parents for offspring

[Eph 6:1 ESV] Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

[Eph 6:2 ESV] "Honor your father and mother" (this is the first commandment with a promise),

[Eph 6:3 ESV] "that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land."

[Eph 6:4 ESV] Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Eros Love

EROS: this Greek word was not used in the New Testament.  It refers to sexual love and probably derived its name from the mythical god of love.

In Song of Solomon; She is looking for him.  

[Sng 3:3 ESV] The watchmen found me as they went about in the city. "Have you seen him whom my soul loves?"

[Sng 3:4 ESV] Scarcely had I passed them when I found him whom my soul loves. I held him, and would not let him go until I had brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her who conceived me.

[Sng 3:5 ESV] I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the does of the field, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.

Chapter 4 begins with a description of Her beauty that begins with her face and moves downward.

It’s been suggested that this book is an allegory of Jesus Christ and His Bride. 

I would disagree.  

Scripture does compare Christ and the Church to a Husband and Wife. With Agape Love

[Eph 5:22 ESV] Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

[Eph 5:23 ESV] For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.

[Eph 5:24 ESV] Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

[Eph 5:25 ESV] Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,

[Eph 5:26 ESV] that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,

[Eph 5:27 ESV] so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

[Eph 5:28 ESV] In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.

[Eph 5:29 ESV] For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church,

[Eph 5:30 ESV] because we are members of his body.

[Eph 5:31 ESV] "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh."

[Eph 5:32 ESV] This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

[Eph 5:33 ESV] However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

This book is the celebration of the Love God has designed for men and women.  Just as God intended in the Garden.  Gen 2. 

The first marriage was officiated by God Himself and it was Holy and Good. 

[Gen 2:21 ESV] So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.

[Gen 2:22 ESV] And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.

[Gen 2:23 ESV] Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man."

[Gen 2:24 ESV] Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

[Gen 2:25 ESV] And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

Philos Love

phileō

to love

to approve of

to like

sanction

to treat affectionately or kindly, to welcome, befriend

Philadelphia city of brotherly love 

[Jhn 21:15 ESV] When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." He said to him, "Feed my lambs."

[Jhn 21:16 ESV] He said to him a second time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." He said to him, "Tend my sheep."

[Jhn 21:17 ESV] He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" and he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep.

Agape Love

of persons

to welcome, to entertain, to be fond of, to love dearly

the highest love of God 

[Jhn 13:35 ESV] By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

[Jhn 14:15 ESV] "If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

[Rom 5:6 ESV] For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

[Rom 5:7 ESV] For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die--

[Rom 5:8 ESV] but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

[Mar 12:30 ESV] And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'

[Mar 12:31 ESV] The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

[1Co 13:1 ESV] If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

[1Co 13:2 ESV] And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

[1Co 13:3 ESV] If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

[1Co 13:4 ESV] Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant

[1Co 13:5 ESV] or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;

[1Co 13:6 ESV] it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

[1Co 13:7 ESV] Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

[1Co 13:8 ESV] Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.

[1Co 13:9 ESV] For we know in part and we prophesy in part,

[1Co 13:10 ESV] but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

[1Co 13:11 ESV] When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

[1Co 13:12 ESV] For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

[1Co 13:13 ESV] So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

[Heb 10:24 ESV] And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,

[Heb 10:25 ESV] not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

We are to love the church ON PURPOSE.   Agape Love.  

Guess what, it’s inconvenient.   

These are not my suggestions, these are God’s commands.  

Agape Love

[1Jo 4:7 ESV] Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

[1Jo 4:8 ESV] Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

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