Who Is My Neighbor?. Samira Izadi Page
water without getting my lips wet. In Greek, the language of the New Testament, there are six words for love:
Philia (ϕιλία): affectionate regard and friendship, usually “between equals.”
Eros (ἔρως): passion or love expressed physically; from which we get our word erotic.
Agape (ἀγάπη): the love of God for humans and of humans for God. Agape is used by Christians to express the unconditional love of God for his children. Thomas Aquinas explained it as, “To will what is good of another person.”1
Storge (στοργή): tender affection, particularly of parents and children.
Pragma (πράγμα): a model of love as two people may demonstrate during a lengthy marriage or partnership.
Philautia (φιλαυτία): self-love.
The kind of love we ought to have for our neighbor is agape. Agape love is of and from God. It centers on goodwill for another person and is based on God’s moral preference. Agape love is seen by what it does. However, this love does not mean allowing people to do whatever they want. It is about God’s preference. In simple terms, the question is always, what does God want? To love (agape) means to want what God wants for another person. But it goes further. Agape love is the moral essence of God. It is the same word used when we read, “God is love.” Agape love has the power to generate or regenerate (1 John 4:8).
What does God’s love generate? What are God’s purposes? I can best answer those questions through a simple practice I use. I interpret everything in the Bible in light of the gospels. Everything in scripture finds its meaning based on the eternal purposes of God who is Agape. Let’s explore this further through a few verses from the Gospel of John.
John 3:13 tells us, “No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.” It means no one fully knows God’s will and purposes or what God wants except Jesus. John 3:16 unfolds the truth of the ages: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” The word for love here is agape. What is generated by this love is eternal life. This agape is not just for one person or group, not just for the Church or for Christians, but for the world. Consider for a moment the magnitude of this proclamation. No other religion uses this depth of love. At the heart of the one true God is a heavenly parental care for every man, woman, girl, and boy for all times and that they should live with God forever.
John 3:17 continues: “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” Here we see God’s purposes for sending his son into the world. God desires that all people would be saved, not condemned. God’s love is not a Western creation perpetrated upon the world. It is an incomprehensible expression of the Creator for all creation so that every person in every nation should know God and God’s love for them. As ambassadors of God, we are obligated to give this message to people across the five continents, and especially to those whose access to this message of agape love has been hindered or forbidden. We know that the character of God does not allow partiality. His love is no less for people in Syria, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, India, the Philippines, Venezuela, Cuba, or the Congo than it is for people in Las Vegas or Detroit.
Agape is a missional love. This is the kind of love the Apostle Paul calls for in 1 Corinthians 13. He says if we do not have this regenerating, active, moving, life-giving love for the entire world, we do not have agape love, and, in that, we have nothing and are nothing useful for the Kingdom of God. Remember, we have established that agape is the moral essence of God. And when we have this love, we have the presence of God through the Holy Spirit at work through us.
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