A Crazy Little Thing Called Love!

by Rick Crigger

   Love is something we are all familiar with but have great difficulties with. Some people don’t want to be loved or they complicate it. Others think it’s a physical thing. We need to realize that love is the foundation of Christianity and the sole purpose for why Jesus died on the cross. I have noticed that there are four different types of love in the Bible, which I will be talking about in this article. Apparently love is very important to God for Him to have that many types.   

   Agape` Love is selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love; it’s the greatest love anyone could express towards someone. People today are under the impression that love is an emotional feeling. That is not necessarily true with agape` love. Agape` is the essence of love, not the feeling. Jesus Christ showed agape` love when He died on the cross for our sins. Christ didn’t want to be nailed to a cross. Who would! But Christ did what God required. John 15:13.“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends”. Agape` love is related to obedience, commitment and a need rather then a feeling. For example if your driving down the road and you see a person with a broke-down vehicle. You stop and ask what can I do to help! Maybe you are able to fix it? You don’t do this because you love working on vehicles. You do it because there is a need. Besides if you were in that position you would want someone to help you. Luke 6:31.“ Do to others as you would have them do to you”.

   Eros is the physical, sensual love between a husband and wife. The Greek word eros does not appear in the Biblical text, so we won’t concentrate on that at this time.

   Phileo means close friendship or brotherly love in Greek. I am sure a lot of people are familiar with this kind of love. Or are they? In this type of love you acquire a strong friendship, affection for and likeness towards that person, to put it in modern day translation a best friend. Later Phileo was translated into love in the New Testament and in some ways I think they should have kept it in the old translation. In our society today people consider love to be something sexual or physical, but that is not true you can love someone and care about them without those kind of feelings. The word love has been so manipulated, twisted and used that our younger generation doesn’t know the true definition. Love is an emotional feeling not a physical one.