One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: ‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’ Jesus replied: ‘“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.’
Matthew 22:35-40 (NIVUK)
I had a fascinating conversation with my therapist the other day. She claimed love is not an emotion, and that “being in love” is a biological state that lasts for about 18 months to two years, and is meant to keep us together and to reproduce. I strongly disagreed with her. She sort of got close to convincing me, and then challenged me to see what the bible says about it. So here is what I found out:
In modern-day English, we only have one word for love, encompassing all types of love. But in the original languages that the Bible was written in, there are 4 different words for the 4 different types of love. Agape, Eros, Philia and Storge. Let’s have a look at each one in turn, and try and draw some conclusions.
Agape
This is the love that God has for us, a love so strong that it can never be broken. We are inherently fallen and covered in sin and most unlovable. Our nature is to rebel against God. God CHOOSES to love us, he CHOSE to to die on the cross so that he could have a relationship with us. Why would He CHOOSE to love those that CHOSE to turned their backs on Him, those that said we don’t need you? I still cannot comprehend this. But I am looking at this with human eyes, eyes that struggle to forgive others and struggle to put others first. However, one day I will meet Him, and know his love better, maybe then I will get a better understanding.
Eros
Eros love is romantic/sexual love between husband and wife. Within this there is being “in love”, as my therapist claims, this is a biological state for about eighteen months to two years, is this what we call lust? This is to ensure you stay together and reproduce. But once this “Honeymoon” period is over. It becomes a choice to love your spouse. Each day you have to choose to love your spouse. It is not always an easy choice to make. My late parents were married for 67 years, I remember some huge arguments usually about my siblings and me, but sometimes my dad’s coffee was too hot or he could not find his reading glasses because my mum had moved them and they were not where he left them. I asked my late Mum about this and she said, she loved my Dad very much but it was damn hard work EVERY DAY to choose to continue loving my late dad.
So what’s the secrect – Husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church …… However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:28-33 In other words: choose to love and respect each other. I can testify to this, I have been married twice and divorced twice. I married for selfish reasons, the first was because I was lonely and at my sexual peak. The second time was again because I was lonely. Both times it was to satisfy my need for love and not to love my wives. And when that didn’t happen I chose to stop loving my wives. I did not love either of them as myself, I thought to highly of myself Romans 12:3, so how could either of my wives respect me!
Philia
To love one another with brotherly love with a strong feeling of attraction. This is usually used for your Christian/Church family and close friends. This should not be confused with Eros love, which seems to happen all to often in our “modern” world, as shown by the ever increasing rate of divorce. But I digress! Though we cannot choose are biological family, you do choose your church family and your close friends. Jesus choose his 12 disciples, his closest friends. He actually sort them out to call them to follow Himself. What a close and strong love was that.
Storge
This is familial love, or instinctual love, such as the love of parent towards offspring. This is the exception (that proves the rule?). This a built in instinct, so that parents don’t abandon their children. It is confusing, because my parents have long since passed away, I still miss them every day. Yet, they did more emotional damage to me than the rest of my friends put together. Yet I can honestly say I loved them very deeply, and oddly enough my Father who was a stern military man, the most. If I look back would I have chosen to love them? But of all my earthly friends I loved them the most. Years after their passing I am still trying to work out why!
Agape vs Storge
God has chosen to Love us, why? Who knows? We are created by Him in His Image, but we were created with the freedom of choice to love Him or not, unfortunately we choose not to. But those of us who have heard of Jesus and have chosen to rekindle that love, God is our Father, and he is our Father in the most incredible relationship and unsurpassed love. We call him Father and he is.
But, as I said above, I now realised I loved my late biological father and that he loved me and I still miss him five years after his passing. My biological father was a coolish, distant military man, and he barked orders at my siblings and me. But God the Father is far from this, if we choose to love him, he lifts up His robes and runs passionately towards us and embraces us closely, in a no holds barred fashion. He kills the fatted calf and feasts with us, for all eternity.
You see, in conclusion, God’s love for me is a choice that God made, my biological father’s love for me was instinctual. Both loves have created in me a love for both my fathers, one born out instinct and the other a choice born out of revelation.
One born out revelation, causing me to “Love the Lord [my] God with all [my] heart and with all [my] soul and with all [my] mind.” And the other, born out instinct to “Love [my] neighbour as [myself]“.
