All About GOD - Growing Relationships with Jesus and Others
Expressions Of Love - Introduction
With this series, we are now going to move outward... from the inner-most expression of Gods' love, into the other subsequent expressions of this "same" agape love we've been studying. For those of you whom have studied this subject of love with me since the beginning, I can't express how much I appreciate you so much. Your prayers and encouragement have inspired me to treat the Word of God with great respect and careful examination. I think, it is because of you, that I am reminded of Gods' rules about how to study His Word and how to treat it. And so, I thank The Lord for each and all of you for going along side of me in this journey.
I believed from the very beginning, that it was most important to start the study of love from it's source, God... His expression... His love for us... His definition of what it should look like from us... the relationship of Gods' love to so many other subjects, particularly us... and about our love toward Him and toward one another.
Today, I believe we are ready to move into some of the other expressions of love. In reality, we will not be leaving the "agape" love we have come to understand, because you will see as we get into these others expressions of love, that all of these must be expressed "under"... or "out of" agape love. What I mean is that, without God's love in us and expressed, first, back to Him... and then, toward our fellow man, that we cannot truly or correctly manifest them. Gods' Word will reveal to us that out from His pure love, abiding in us, these other expressions we'll be talking about, such as fellowship, or brotherly love, etc., will spill out into our experience with Himself and unto one another naturally in our experience.
Now... knowing the Greek words for the translations of the bible can be helpful to understanding scripture. However, I was reminded again in this study by both the usage and context of Agape and Phileo for the word love... that, it isn't all about the Greek... "thank you, Holy Spirit". The Greek language used three primary words for love: Agape, Phileo, and Eros and then there are a number of other relating words from the root word that these came from. Eros is hardly confused with the others because it consistently refers to intimacy or lust. But, with agape and phileo, scholars try to draw more interpretation from the supposed distinction between these from scripture... the idea being that the distinction between the two words for love in Greek is always consistent and clearly separate... therefore, the tendency of the King James translators to ignore this distinction and to translate these two very different words both as love is a failure of the King James Bible in translation. But, we would also have to go after the New International Version and in the Revised Standard Version because they too use "love" often for both words, and centuries later, they still don't see the need to use different words.
The standard teaching is that agape is the highest and purest expression of love. I agree with that, but Not because I believe there is a consistent distinction between Agape and Phileo. In "context", Agape is always used when referring to divine love and is used to express the essential nature of God (1 John 4:8). It is also used to describe the love we are to have toward God and one another.
Phileo, on the other-hand, is most often distinguished as being the more personal of the two terms and refers often to a brotherly love. This is seen in the naming of the city of Philadelphia, which means "the city of brotherly love."
But the truth is that both verbs agape and phileo are used interchangeably at times to render one... and also that there was one Hebrew word to express both Agape and Phileo... for example, in Genesis 37:3, where Jacob's preferential love for Joseph is expressed by agape but in the following verse by phileo. The verb agape in itself does not necessarily imply a loftier love; it does so when the "context" makes this clear and doesn't elsewhere, like, 2 Timothy 4:10, where we find Demas's regrettable love for 'this present world' is expressed by agape.
John uses the two verbs interchangeably in the statement that 'the Father loves the Son' (agape in 3:35; phileo in 5:20) and in references to 'the disciple whom Jesus loved' (agape in 13:23; 19:26; 21:7, 20; phileo in 20:2). It is precarious, then, to press a distinction between the two synonyms in those passages over the context of what is written.
F. F. Bruce, an accepted Bible scholar, points out that the scholars who make the distinction in the Greek to be of major significance do so because of their reliance on classical Greek. That is, they go to the Greek of Plato, Aristotle, and others and assume the distinctions there to be the same as in the Biblical Greek and this has shown to cause many errors in teaching. Biblical Greek was distinct from Classical Greek in many ways and we can see the biblical context of a word is the proof for what that word means in the Bible.
Agape and Phileo will occasionally be used in distinct ways, but when they are, the King James Bible clearly makes the distinction... sometimes by context and sometimes by a different translation (as when agape is translated as charity for emphasis), yet, are often of no great significance in the Greek. In Matthew 23:6, Jesus spoke of those who "love the uppermost rooms." The Greek word for love used there is phileo and in Luke 11:43, Jesus spoke of those who "love the uppermost seats." The Greek word for love there is agape. There are numerous examples of this in the New Testament and so we will stay close to the context as we move through our study and avoid getting trapped by holding up the Greek.
Now, I've already pointed out that Phileo is a brotherly love, for one thing... but we will see, later in our study, several other expressions of the word. Before we begin, we must consider that we should examine surrounding and relating scriptures to get the fuller understanding of the subject. Our study will take us to words like Koinonia or Fellowship, but as I said earlier... these will all spill out from Gods' love. Looking at a scriptural principle of this:
But concerning brotherly love [for all other Christians], you have no need to have anyone write you, for you yourselves have been [personally] taught by God to love one another. 1 Th 4:9 (Amp)
In this verse, the Greek word for "brotherly love" is, as you would expect, philadelphia while the Greek word for the verb "love" is agape. What Paul is saying here is, "I don't need to write to you to tell you how to have brotherly affection, for you are taught by God to agape one another." If we will accept the instruction of God to let agape freely flow through us in an agape manner, one of the rewards will be to receive, in time, phileo love where we never expected it. I hope you will continue in this exciting and deeper examination of love with me. An old song came to mind, while preparing this introduction... "What the world needs now is love sweet love. That's the only thing that there's just too little of." Yes, the song does really go back in time, but how relative the words are for today. I leave you with the following verses to consider, until next time, as we continue in the study.
But understand this, that in the last days will come (set in) perilous times of great stress and trouble [hard to deal with and hard to bear]. For people will be lovers of self and [utterly] self-centered, lovers of money and aroused by an inordinate [greedy] desire for wealth, proud and arrogant and contemptuous boasters. They will be abusive (blasphemous, scoffing), disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy and profane. [They will be] without natural [human] affection (callous and inhuman), relentless (admitting of no truce or appeasement); [they will be] slanderers (false accusers, troublemakers), intemperate and loose in morals and conduct, uncontrolled and fierce, haters of good. [They will be] treacherous [betrayers], rash, [and] inflated with self-conceit. [They will be] lovers of sensual pleasures and vain amusements more than and rather than lovers of God. For [although] they hold a form of piety (true religion), they deny and reject and are strangers to the power of it [their conduct belies the genuineness of their profession]. Avoid [all] such people [turn away from them]. For among them are those who worm their way into homes and captivate silly and weak-natured and spiritually dwarfed women, loaded down with [the burden of their] sins [and easily] swayed and led away by various evil desires and seductive impulses. [These weak women will listen to anybody who will teach them]; they are forever inquiring and getting information, but are never able to arrive at a recognition and knowledge of the Truth. 2 Tim 3:1-7 Amp
Jesus predicted this would happen:
And the love of the great body of people will grow cold because of the multiplied lawlessness and iniquity, Mat 24:12 (Amp)
"What the world needs now is love sweet love. That's the only thing that there's just too little of."
I love you.
I believed from the very beginning, that it was most important to start the study of love from it's source, God... His expression... His love for us... His definition of what it should look like from us... the relationship of Gods' love to so many other subjects, particularly us... and about our love toward Him and toward one another.
Today, I believe we are ready to move into some of the other expressions of love. In reality, we will not be leaving the "agape" love we have come to understand, because you will see as we get into these others expressions of love, that all of these must be expressed "under"... or "out of" agape love. What I mean is that, without God's love in us and expressed, first, back to Him... and then, toward our fellow man, that we cannot truly or correctly manifest them. Gods' Word will reveal to us that out from His pure love, abiding in us, these other expressions we'll be talking about, such as fellowship, or brotherly love, etc., will spill out into our experience with Himself and unto one another naturally in our experience.
Now... knowing the Greek words for the translations of the bible can be helpful to understanding scripture. However, I was reminded again in this study by both the usage and context of Agape and Phileo for the word love... that, it isn't all about the Greek... "thank you, Holy Spirit". The Greek language used three primary words for love: Agape, Phileo, and Eros and then there are a number of other relating words from the root word that these came from. Eros is hardly confused with the others because it consistently refers to intimacy or lust. But, with agape and phileo, scholars try to draw more interpretation from the supposed distinction between these from scripture... the idea being that the distinction between the two words for love in Greek is always consistent and clearly separate... therefore, the tendency of the King James translators to ignore this distinction and to translate these two very different words both as love is a failure of the King James Bible in translation. But, we would also have to go after the New International Version and in the Revised Standard Version because they too use "love" often for both words, and centuries later, they still don't see the need to use different words.
The standard teaching is that agape is the highest and purest expression of love. I agree with that, but Not because I believe there is a consistent distinction between Agape and Phileo. In "context", Agape is always used when referring to divine love and is used to express the essential nature of God (1 John 4:8). It is also used to describe the love we are to have toward God and one another.
Phileo, on the other-hand, is most often distinguished as being the more personal of the two terms and refers often to a brotherly love. This is seen in the naming of the city of Philadelphia, which means "the city of brotherly love."
But the truth is that both verbs agape and phileo are used interchangeably at times to render one... and also that there was one Hebrew word to express both Agape and Phileo... for example, in Genesis 37:3, where Jacob's preferential love for Joseph is expressed by agape but in the following verse by phileo. The verb agape in itself does not necessarily imply a loftier love; it does so when the "context" makes this clear and doesn't elsewhere, like, 2 Timothy 4:10, where we find Demas's regrettable love for 'this present world' is expressed by agape.
John uses the two verbs interchangeably in the statement that 'the Father loves the Son' (agape in 3:35; phileo in 5:20) and in references to 'the disciple whom Jesus loved' (agape in 13:23; 19:26; 21:7, 20; phileo in 20:2). It is precarious, then, to press a distinction between the two synonyms in those passages over the context of what is written.
F. F. Bruce, an accepted Bible scholar, points out that the scholars who make the distinction in the Greek to be of major significance do so because of their reliance on classical Greek. That is, they go to the Greek of Plato, Aristotle, and others and assume the distinctions there to be the same as in the Biblical Greek and this has shown to cause many errors in teaching. Biblical Greek was distinct from Classical Greek in many ways and we can see the biblical context of a word is the proof for what that word means in the Bible.
Agape and Phileo will occasionally be used in distinct ways, but when they are, the King James Bible clearly makes the distinction... sometimes by context and sometimes by a different translation (as when agape is translated as charity for emphasis), yet, are often of no great significance in the Greek. In Matthew 23:6, Jesus spoke of those who "love the uppermost rooms." The Greek word for love used there is phileo and in Luke 11:43, Jesus spoke of those who "love the uppermost seats." The Greek word for love there is agape. There are numerous examples of this in the New Testament and so we will stay close to the context as we move through our study and avoid getting trapped by holding up the Greek.
Now, I've already pointed out that Phileo is a brotherly love, for one thing... but we will see, later in our study, several other expressions of the word. Before we begin, we must consider that we should examine surrounding and relating scriptures to get the fuller understanding of the subject. Our study will take us to words like Koinonia or Fellowship, but as I said earlier... these will all spill out from Gods' love. Looking at a scriptural principle of this:
But concerning brotherly love [for all other Christians], you have no need to have anyone write you, for you yourselves have been [personally] taught by God to love one another. 1 Th 4:9 (Amp)
In this verse, the Greek word for "brotherly love" is, as you would expect, philadelphia while the Greek word for the verb "love" is agape. What Paul is saying here is, "I don't need to write to you to tell you how to have brotherly affection, for you are taught by God to agape one another." If we will accept the instruction of God to let agape freely flow through us in an agape manner, one of the rewards will be to receive, in time, phileo love where we never expected it. I hope you will continue in this exciting and deeper examination of love with me. An old song came to mind, while preparing this introduction... "What the world needs now is love sweet love. That's the only thing that there's just too little of." Yes, the song does really go back in time, but how relative the words are for today. I leave you with the following verses to consider, until next time, as we continue in the study.
But understand this, that in the last days will come (set in) perilous times of great stress and trouble [hard to deal with and hard to bear]. For people will be lovers of self and [utterly] self-centered, lovers of money and aroused by an inordinate [greedy] desire for wealth, proud and arrogant and contemptuous boasters. They will be abusive (blasphemous, scoffing), disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy and profane. [They will be] without natural [human] affection (callous and inhuman), relentless (admitting of no truce or appeasement); [they will be] slanderers (false accusers, troublemakers), intemperate and loose in morals and conduct, uncontrolled and fierce, haters of good. [They will be] treacherous [betrayers], rash, [and] inflated with self-conceit. [They will be] lovers of sensual pleasures and vain amusements more than and rather than lovers of God. For [although] they hold a form of piety (true religion), they deny and reject and are strangers to the power of it [their conduct belies the genuineness of their profession]. Avoid [all] such people [turn away from them]. For among them are those who worm their way into homes and captivate silly and weak-natured and spiritually dwarfed women, loaded down with [the burden of their] sins [and easily] swayed and led away by various evil desires and seductive impulses. [These weak women will listen to anybody who will teach them]; they are forever inquiring and getting information, but are never able to arrive at a recognition and knowledge of the Truth. 2 Tim 3:1-7 Amp
Jesus predicted this would happen:
And the love of the great body of people will grow cold because of the multiplied lawlessness and iniquity, Mat 24:12 (Amp)
"What the world needs now is love sweet love. That's the only thing that there's just too little of."
I love you.
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