In my simple study of these Greek words and their uses in Scripture, I was stunned to learn agapaō is used six times in an undesirable connotation. This eradicated my assumption that agape love is reserved for holy uses and phileō is the only love word used negatively. 

Humans can and do have agapaō for unholy, ungodly, and just down right sinful things. Each time the word “love” is used in each of the Bible passages listed below, it is agapaō or agape. Are you surprised?

• Matthew 6:24 tells us we can’t serve two masters; we will love one and hate the other. 
• Luke 11:43 is one of Jesus’ woes to the Pharisees. This woe was because they loved the chief seats and special greetings. 
• John 3:19 tells us that man loves the darkness rather than Light.
• John 12:43 warns that men love the approval of other men over the approval of God.
• II Peter 2:15 tells us that a group of people love the wages of unrighteousness.
• I John 2:15 tells us to not love the world or things in the world.

Humans can also have phileō love for unholy, ungodly, and downright sinful things.

• Matthew 6:5 tells us that the Pharisees love to pray and stand in the synagogues.
• Luke 20:46 tells us the scribes love special greetings and highest seats and chief rooms.
• John 12:25 tells us that he who loves his life will lose it.
• John 15:19 tells us that the world loves its own.
• Revelation 22:15 warns that those outside the holy city love lies.

Is it any wonder that God tells us again and again to love Him most of all? The greater number of references in the Bible is to agapaō Him, but we cannot ignore the references to phileō Him. 

If we don’t put all we have into both types of love for Him, we will quickly give first place to other things and people. When we do that, not only do we replace God, but we butcher the love we say we have for the very things we replaced God with. We must love God first, both agapaō and phileō. Only then can we love one another! 

If I’m even close in my fresh way of understanding love, then I propose the Christian community, as a whole, has put a great deal of undue pressure on its own, the one anothers, that was never meant to be endured. Because this pressure is, quite frankly, unattainable, we one anothers have missed a critical life question because we are too busy trying to answer a question that isn’t even supposed to be asked. (How’s that for a tongue twister?)

The erroneous question we are trying to answer is, “How do we climb from the level of philos love to the ultimate level of agape love?” The answer is simple: we can’t and we shouldn’t even be trying. Why? Because both agape and philos are from God and are God. They both flow from God and are to be returned to God. 

They are not two different levels of love. They are just two different ways to love God and love others. They complement each other and they need each other to form the whole beautiful and fulfilling forest of love. It is not a desperate climb from one level of love to another. It is a united journey of both types of love working together to complete God’s eternal purpose.

I think of it this way. I love my husband. By that I mean I dearly love him, a lot. The Bible calls this agape. But I am also very fond of him. He is my best friend. I like him. The Bible calls this philos. Both types of love complement each other and deepen our relationship. 

If I only agape him, we probably wouldn’t do much together or enjoy being in each other’s company. If I only phileō him, our marriage probably would not have survived the multiple scary and rough times we have faced. In our English terms, I really love my husband and I really like him, too. Both are essential for a vibrant and thriving marriage.

It is the same with our relationship with God and with one another. It is not whether we will either phileō or agapaō; it is a matter of will we do both and do them in the power and resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ? When that happens, the command to love one another (agape) and the command to have brotherly love (philos) are not beyond our reach, but rather well within our capabilities as redeemed children of God.

Discussion

• How can you begin to enjoy this aspect of God’s love toward you?

• How can you begin to share both agapaō and phileō love to those around you?

Below are samplings of positive uses of the New Testament word phileō which are translated as our English word, love. The second list is samplings of the New Testament word philos which are translated as our English word, friend. 

(Phileō)

John 5:20 For the Father loves (phileō) the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and the Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel.

John 11:3 So the sisters sent word to Him, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom You love (phileō) is sick.”

John 16:27 For the Father Himself loves (phileō) you, because you have loved (phileō) Me and have believed that I came forth from the Father.

John 20:2 So she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved (phileō), and said to them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.”

I Corinthians 16:22 If anyone does not love (phileō) the Lord, he is to be accursed.

Titus 3:15 All who are with me greet you. Greet those who love (phileō) us in the faith. Grace be with you all.

Revelation 3:19 Those whom I love (phileō), I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent.

These verses tell us:

• That God loves His Son, Jesus, with phileō.
• That God loves us with phileō. 
• That Jesus phileō those who followed Him, then and now.
• That Jesus disciplines those He is in phileō with.

(Philos)

Matthew 11:19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend (philos) of tax collectors and sinners!” Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.

Luke 12:4 I say to you, My friends (philos), do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do.

John 11:11 This He said, and after that He said to them, “Our friend (philos) Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I go, so that I may awaken him out of sleep.”

John 15:13-15 Greater love (agape) has no one than this that one lay down his life for his friends (philos). You are My friends (philos) if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends (philos), for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.

James 2:23 And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “AND ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS,” and he was called the friend (philos) of God.

III John 1:15 Peace be to you. The friends (philos) greet you. Greet the friends (philos) by name.

These verses tell us:

• That Jesus is a friend (philos) of sinners.
• That Lazarus was phileō by Jesus and Lazarus was Jesus’ philos.
• That we are Jesus’ philos.
• That a philos will lay down his life because of agapaō.

This was shocking to me! If agape is the highest form of love and God is only agape love, then what am I supposed to do with all these verses? Do God and Jesus still have to work on getting from the level of philos to that of agape? If they do, we are all in trouble!

These verses also tell us:

• That if we do not phileō God, then we are to be cursed.
• That Abraham was a philos to God.
• That we are to be philos with each other.

If Jesus is my friend, then philos must be on the same plane or level as agape because God is agape, but He is also philos. That is why He is able to lay down His life for us! Hallelujah! Can you imagine? We are not only to love God with a dearly love, agapaō, but we are supposed to love God with affection, kindness, and fondness (phileō). I am not being irreverent. God said it, not me! If we don’t “like” Him, we are to be treated as cursed.

This in no way implies a lack of reverence or awe. On the contrary, it broadens our understanding and responsibility of how we are to love God and to love each other, which brings us to another group of trees in our hike in the forest.

Discussion

What do you think of the concept that God likes (phileō) Jesus? That God likes (phileō) you? What do you think of the concept that you are commanded to like (phileō) God? 

Have you ever heard the anecdote, a person can’t see the forest for the trees? The idea is that a person hiking through a forest concentrates so diligently on the trees within that forest (the bark, leaves, root system, bug infestation, disease, and plight) that she doesn’t see the magnificent potential and impact of the entire forest. Because the hiker takes this limited viewpoint, her own experience within the forest is unreliable and any thoughts she may have about the trees she is so focused on is actually flawed and inadequate. 

That is the way I used to look at agapaō. I believed it was the elusive, eternal, unconditional love God dangles in front of us but we can never fully attain. I believed it was God’s perfect love and it was the highest level of love. As mere mortals, we could only scratch the surface of agape love and we had little hope of even doing that.

 It was also the way I looked at phileō love. I believed this was humanity’s best effort when it comes to love. It was finite and earthly. It was conditional and selfish in its deepest motives. Phileō love was just one level of love: below agapaō and just above eros or storge. Phileō was something I had to move beyond if I was going to love like Christ.

All I believed about love was not wrong; it just was not complete.

It was the trees without the forest.

What no one ever told me or what I didn’t correctly understand (either way I missed it) is phileō and agapaō are used in interchangeable ways. I was looking so intently at specific trees about love that I could not see the beauty of the whole forest of love. Therefore, my very basic assumptions about love were flawed and inadequate. I believed agapaō and phileō are on different planes or levels with the one being superior over the other. The reality of love is this.

• Love is not a matter of levels. (Trees)
• Love is not an either/or. (Differences in the trees)
• Love is both/and! (The whole forest!)

There is no doubt agapaō and its noun form agape is used more often in the New Testament than phileō and its adjective form philos. In fact, some quick math from our Greek definitions will show the former is used five times as often as the later. Does this matter?

Many authors and commentaries are quick to point out that since agape is used far more often than phileō, it is agape that God is emphasizing and the love we should try to achieve. However, if we follow that line of thinking, we better start hearing a lot more sermons on God’s wrath, judgment, and hell because these are mentioned a whole bunch throughout Scripture. Or conversely, we can say we don’t have to pay much attention to being gluttonous because it is mentioned only three times from cover to cover.

We cannot and should not ignore passages such as I Corinthians 13, the great love chapter. There is no doubt that God expects us to understand and obey agape love. As we learned in chapter two, when God repeats something, like the commandment to agapaō (love) one another, we better pay attention. But what I have missed, and maybe you have too, is God’s holy intention for us to phileō (love).

I was taught if a person hasn’t moved from the lower level of phileō to the highest level of agape or if they can’t stay at that highest level, well then they just aren’t a very good one another!

I was also taught phileō is used negatively to denote a prideful or selfish love of man loving things or people. It is used this way in Scripture, but only nine times.

On the next page are samplings of positive uses of the New Testament word phileō which are translated as our English word, love. The second list is samplings of the New Testament word philos which are translated as our English word, friend. 

Discussion

In your own words, explain the similarities and differences between agapaō love and phileō love. 

In order to get this love thing right, let’s do the obvious and look at the definitions of the Greek words that are translated as our one word love in the English language. 

1. Eros (n)-Greek word for sexual love or desire. This word is not used in the Bible, but that does not mean sexual desire is wrong. (More on that in a bit.)
2. Storge (n)–Greek word for the natural love and affection of a parent for their child. This word is also not used in the Bible, but we know that familial love is very important to God.
3. Phileō (v)-Greek word with a basic meaning to approve of, to like, to treat with affection, to treat kindly, to welcome, to befriend, or to be fond of. 
   1. This word is used 22 times as love in the New Testament and its root, philos is used 29 times as friend.
   1. A form of these is philedelphia and is translated as brotherly love or brotherly kindness five times in the NT.
4. Agapaō (v)-Greek word, when used of persons, means to welcome (seen that before), to entertain (that’s interesting), to be fond of (seen this before too), and to love dearly.
   1. You can also agapaō a thing. Does that surprise you? It did me. When used of a thing, it means to be well pleased, to be contented at or with a thing.
   1. This word is used 135 times in the New Testament and seven times as beloved. Its noun counterpart, agape, is used 116 times in the NT.

We need to get one of these words out of the way right now. Even though the word eros is not found in the original Greek text of the Bible, it is not a dirty or ungodly concept. On the contrary, God intends for His creation to enjoy a sensual, sexual relationship within His design: one man and one woman for a lifetime in marriage (Genesis 2:24). 

But, as man will do, the Greeks took what God created as holy and good and ceremoniously stripped away (pun intended) all the holy aspects of sexual desire and dragged it into the filthy gutter of man’s unholy and debased imagination. This is the direction the Greeks took when they sullied the concept of sexual desire with the formation of their little “g” god, Eros, and the prostitution temples built to honor him and his female counterpart, Aphrodite. It is little wonder that the first century Christians were as confused about godly sexual desire as we seem to be in the 21^st century (Hebrews 13:4).

This book is not intended to be a sexual intimacy help book, but I would like to make a few observations about eros (sexual desire) and then we’ll move on. First, sexual desire is not applicable to loving one another, unless the one another is your spouse, in which case it stays where it belongs in the marital bed. I, for one, am very glad for sexual desire. It makes me smile. Just being honest! The key is to keep it between my hubby and me for life.

Second, if the only love you have in your marriage is sexual love, you won’t have much of a foundation for building a life-long relationship. But you probably already know that. Bodies, minds, and emotions grow old and so does sexual desire when that’s all there is. 

Conversely, if you don’t have any or very little sexual desire in your marriage, your life-long relationship is missing a vital and exciting piece, one that God never intended to be missing. Paul tells us you are tempting fate if you leave out “the marriage bed” in your marriage. 

Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. I Corinthians 7:5

Praise God, He can and will help you to put sexual desire in the proper perspective within your marriage and guide you in your lifetime relationship. He will help those of you without a spouse to keep that desire where it belongs…put away…for now. The concept of sexual desire is not sinful, but rather good and well pleasing when it is kept within God’s parameters of marriage. Our problem is we put the majority of our emphasis and effort into eros and very little thought and energy into phileō and agapaō which are the very foundation of loving one another.

 

We’re finally here! The word we’ve all been waiting for. The word we all long to hear and the word we all wish we could get right more often. I am excited! This is going to be a glorious yet challenging three chapters. “Wait! Three Chapters?” you ask. Yep. Three! I thought about cramming it all into one, but that proved to be a ludicrous idea which led to another ludicrous idea…that I could teach or discuss or even just chat about love at all. 

Then God reminded me that He agrees. In no way, shape, or form am I an expert on love, except for maybe on how not to love. And guess what? Neither are you. And neither is anyone who claims that they are or that they’ve got this love thing down. The only expert is God!

God also reminded me, yet again, that I am not writing as an expert or someone who has perfected loving one another. I am simply sharing my life notes from Jesus’ course on the Art of Loving One Another. I know I’m not the only one trying to pay attention and wanting to do well throughout life. So get out your own life notes and let’s share, shall we? Notice, I said share, not compete or condemn or compare. I am slowly learning there is a difference. 

Love is the most sought after commodity in the world. Don’t believe me. Just watch a little television, surf the Internet for a while, or browse through your local bookstore. From the very creation of man, humans have been on a quest for love. Everyone has an opinion about it.

• “At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.” Plato
• “You know you are in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” Dr. Seuss
• “All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.” Leo Tolstoy
• “Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” Aristotle
• “Do you love me because I am beautiful, or am I beautiful because you love me?” Cinderella
• “Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love.” Albert Einstein
• “I hold it true, whatever befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most. ‘Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.” Lord Alfred Tennyson
• “If Jack’s in love, he’s no judge of Jill’s beauty.” Benjamin Franklin
• “All you need is love.” John Lennon and Paul McCartney
• “Love sought is good, but giv’n unsought is better.” William Shakespeare
• “Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.” Charlie Brown

The ancients talked about love, wrote about love, sang about love, and mused about love. Modern man does the same with just a few different twists. We email about love, tweet about love, text about love, fly airplane banners about love, and build billboards about love. And occasionally, we still write in the sand about love and send the message in a bottle about love because it’s just so romantic. But even with the oceans full of discussions about love, humans cannot agree on the most basic thing about love. What is it?

We love chocolate, pizza, and apple pie. We also love broccoli, spinach, and green beans. We love the $.99 taco and the $100 filet mignon. We love our Reeboks and our five inch stilettos. We love our slim jeans and our little black dress. Or at least we love the idea that we could be a size so we could love those! We love our jobs, our neighborhoods, our places of worship, and our homes. We love our week on the beach and our nap in our cozy lounge chair. We love our SUV and our 10-speed bike. We love Sax Fifth Avenue and the flea market down the street.

We love Gone with the Wind and The Little Mermaid. We love Shakespeare and Charlie Brown. We love Matt Damon and Meryl Streep. We love Casting Crowns, Celine Deon, John Newton, and the Beatles. We love Beth Moore and Kay Arthur and at the same time, love Oprah Winfrey and Judge Judy. We love George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and we love Shrek and The Little Engine that Could.

We love our best friend and the lady who sits next to us in choir. Oh what is her name? We love our pastor and our choir director, and we love the little gal who gets our Starbucks order right every time. We love our kids and grandkids, and we love that childhood friend we haven’t seen in fifty years. We love our high school sweetheart and now we love our spouse. But what it all comes down to is this:

We are in love with love!

Discussion

List some popular songs or movies about love. Compare or contrast the theme of these songs and movies with the biblical definitions of love discussed in this chapter.