Love

Jesus said: "'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 neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." Matthew 22:37-40

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Synopsis

In First Corinthians we are told that love is patient and love is kind; that it does not envy, or boast and isn't proud; love isn't rude or self-seeking or easily angered; it doesn't keep a record of wrongs; love always protects, it always trusts, always hopes and always perseveres; it never fails. God has a character of complete love and he calls us to love like he does.

Related topics

• God is love
• Translating love | Philia | Eros | Agape | Storge
• Mercy | Forgiveness | Grace
• Bible passages - 1 Corinthians 13

Comments, Personal Articles, Studies and Sermons

Love (discussion) (For short comments and opinions)

• Who do you love? A study of John 21:15-17 (carm)

For related quotations see Love (quotes)

Main article

Love is a word that is hard to define. In First Corinthians we are told that love is patient and love is kind; that it does not envy, or boast and isn't proud; love isn't rude or self-seeking or easily angered; it doesn't keep a record of wrongs; love always protects, it always trusts, always hopes and always perseveres; it never fails. God has a character of complete love and he calls us to love like he does.

Love in the Bible

One of the clearest themes in the Bible is the theme of love. The word is used on hundreds of occasions and there are hundreds of stories illustrating love.

God's love

The author of love is God. 1 John 4:8 says that "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." The pattern of God's love is clear through both the Old Testament and New Testament. Throughout the history of ancient Israel he repeatedly brings them help and good things, and this is despite the people repeatedly turning away from them. Ultimately, God has shown his love by sending Jesus who sufferred to save us.

Translating love

In the New Testament, the word love has been translated from three different Koine Greek words: philia, agape and storge. Philia is the brotherly love of friendship. Agape' is the love of choice of the mind - it is is unconditional, limitless, unbounded. And storge is the the natural affection of families.

Loving each other

Jesus said that the second great commandment was that we love our neighbours as ourselves. The account is found in Luke 10:25-27 just before Jesus tells the story of The Good Samaritan.

25 Behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested him, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" 26 He said to him, "What is written in the law? How do you read it?" 27 He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."

Later, in the Gospel of John, Jesus says

Greater love has no man than this - that he lay down his life for his friend. (John 15:13

Jesus shows us this love when he lay down his life for us.

Passages about love

Perhaps the most famous Bible passage about love comes from 1 Corinthians 13

1 If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but don't have love, I have become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal.

2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but don't have love, I am nothing.

3 If I give out all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but don't have love, it profits me nothing.

4 Love is patient and is kind; love doesn't envy. Love doesn't brag, is not proud,

5 Love does not behave itself inappropriately, doesn't seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil;

6 Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;

7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will cease. Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with.

9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part;

10 But when that which is complete has come, then that which is partial will be done away with.

11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things.

12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known.

13 But now faith, hope, and love remain--these three. The greatest of these is love.

Links

• Wikipedia - Love

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