Agape Love

Grace to You.org ^ | 1997 | John MacArthur, Grace Community Church

[metmom]

“. . . And in your brotherly kindness, Christian love” (2 Peter 1:7).

Sacrificial love proves genuine faith.

Classical Greek had three common terms for love. As we saw yesterday, phileo (philadelphia) is the love of give and take, best expressed in friendship. Eros is the love that takes—one loves another strictly for what he or she can get out of that person. It is typical of the world’s sexual and lustful desires, which are always bent toward self-gratification. Agape is the love that gives. It is completely unselfish, with no taking involved. This is the highest form of love, which all the other virtues in 2 Peter 1 ultimately lead to. It seeks another’s supreme good, no matter what the cost. Agape was exemplified perfectly by Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf.

But what does this highest type of love look like? A brief survey of the one anothers in the New Testament gives an excellent picture. We are commanded to:

Edify one another (Rom. 14:19). “Serve one another” (Gal. 5:13). “Bear one another’s burdens” (Gal. 6:2). Submit to one another (Eph. 5:21). Forgive one another (Col. 3:13). Instruct one another (Col. 3:16). “Comfort one another” (1 Thess. 4:18). Rebuke one another (Titus 1:13). Encourage one another to do good (Heb. 10:24-25). Confess our sins to one another (James 5:16). “Pray for one another” (James 5:16). “Be hospitable to one another” (1 Peter 4:9-10).

The Lord Jesus Christ was involved with individuals. He was a true friend who caringly, lovingly, and sensitively interacted with feeble, needy, and unimportant people and made them eternally important.

Nevertheless we still find people spiritualizing love into a meaningless term. “I love so-and-so in the Lord” really means, “He irks me, but I guess I have to love him if he’s a believer.” Don’t let yourself say that. Instead, display genuine love.

Suggestions for Prayer

Thank God that Christ showed agape love toward you on the cross.

For Further Study

Memorize one of the verses in the list of one anothers, and apply it at every appropriate opportunity.

[Fantasywriter]

It is possible to properly define agape and elevate it without denigrating eros. In the original Greek, eros was neither lustful nor selfish. It was simply the love between a man and a woman. God created the husband-wife relationship to be a loving, respectful union. It is a real-life example of eros.

The point being that yes, agape is the highest form of love, but there’s nothing dirty or inately base about eros. God created male and female, and the ideal love a married couple share is a blessed thing.

[metmom]

Studying God’s Word ping

[metmom]

Good points.

It is interesting how that there is always that subtle implication that sex is somehow wrong or sinful.

I’ve seen it stated that the lust etc is wrong but marriage is the only context in which sexual activity is OK, thereby implying the sex and desire is wrong aspect instead of sex is good but wrong outside of marriage.

It sends a different message.

[Fantasywriter]

I think the confusion arises between the similarity of the English word, ‘erotic,’ to the Greek word, ‘eros.’ Certainly they’re related, but they’re very far from synonyms. Erotica inherently involves lust, but eros doesn’t.

To see a good depiction of eros, one needs go no further than The Song of Solomon. Yes, it was written in Hebrew, and the word ‘eros,’ never occurs in it. Yet it’s a beautiful and accurate depiction of the Greek concept of eros. *And* it’s God’s imprimatur on that type of love—a celebration of it.

Agape is certainly higher and more eternal. But in this life, there’s nothing wrong with eros in its proper place.

[MHGinTN]

Selah