You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.”
But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons [and daughters] of your Father who is in heaven. For He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?And if you greet only your brothers [and sisters], what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48)
Every Christian tradition agrees on one issue. Love is a fundamental principle of God’s Kingdom and Christian faith.
Love of God and neighbor is the Great Commandment on which all other commandments of God depend. (Matthew 22:37-40) Our faith works through love. (Galatians 5:6) We are to speak the truth in love. (Ephesians 4:15) People will know we are disciples of Jesus by how we love one another. (John 13:35) And the list goes on ….
I write about the importance of love often. I have also written about the continued shrinkage in the number of Americans who identify as Christian. In this column, my purpose is to show how our misunderstanding of biblical love and its importance is a primary cause of that shrinkage.
The New Testament uses two Greek words for “love” – “philia” and “agape.” Both describe something the Lord wants us to have, but there is one particularly important distinction between them.
“Philia” refers to the love someone has for their own people – family members, friends, and other people with whom they have significant things in common. This type of love has a sense of reciprocity and mutual benefit. An offshoot of “philia” – “philadelphia” – combines “philia” and the Greek word for “brother” five times in the New Testament to describe the love we are to have for our sisters and brothers in Christ.
Agape love, on the other hand, refers to the type of love God has for every person on this planet and the type of love He wants Christians to have for everyone He loves. The Great Commandment is about agape love of both God and neighbor, and this agape love of neighbor is different than philia love because it does not include a sense of reciprocity or mutual benefit. It does not require us to have anything in common beyond the fact God loves us all. Agape love is unconditional. It comes from the Holy Spirit dwelling within us (Romans 5:5)
Agape love is revealed perfectly in Jesus and well described in the scriptures of 1 John, 1 Corinthians 13, and the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) Agape love is selfless, serving, and sacrificial; kind and patient, but unrelenting; forgiving of wrongdoing, but never celebrating or empowering sin; inviting and encouraging, but when necessary the tough love of discipline (Hebrews 12:5-11) Agape love is for friend, foe, and stranger (Matthew 5:43-48).
The two most challenging truths about agape love are, first, that it cannot simply be lip service. We must love in truth and deed (1 John 3:18). Second, if we do not get agape love right, we are nothing, have nothing, and gain nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)!
1 John 4 expresses the most heartrending truth about agape love. God is agape love, and those who do not love with agape love do not know God (1 John 4:8).
One of my favorite bible passages is Acts 2:42-47 because it describes a Church in its infancy filled with agape love for God, each other, and everyone else in their communities. Because of this, they had the favor of all the people and the Lord added daily to their number those who were choosing to trust Jesus and receive everlasting life.
Tragically, however, much of the Church has lost the love they had at first (Revelation 2:4) We see today, with many wonderful exceptions, the same problem we have seen throughout history where the ways of the world – greed, politics, racism, nationalism, fear, and hate – penetrate the Body of Christ, displace agape love, and replace it with the philia love we can much more easily have for those think like, look like, believe like, behave like, and vote like us.
As Jesus so powerfully said in His Sermon on the Mount, “Even the Gentiles do that.” Why surrender lordship of your life to Jesus when Christian love is no different than non-Christian (Gentile) love?
The key to seeing the United States truly become “one nation under God” is a Body of Christ demonstrating the agape love of God every day in every way to everyone. Nothing else will work.
God bless you and God bless America.