Skip to main content

Love Is Love?

              Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble. (I John 2:10)


            Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. (Romans 13:10) 

            Love is love.

 

            The last of the quotes above is popular today. The idea seems to be that if you love someone, it doesn’t matter who you love; it’s still love. The problem with this is that the definition of “love” is assumed. In one sense, one doesn’t love pizza, kittens, certain songs, one’s children, one’s job, one’s neighbor, and one’s spouse, all in the exact same way.

            In Os Guinness’s The Call, he discusses “two contrasting views of love that have shaped Western searching for the past three thousand years.”[1] The first is eros. This is the love that seeks to be made happy through the possession of a loved object. This is the love of the person who says, “I love ______ because _______ makes me happy, fulfilled, laugh, etc.”

            The second view of love is agape which, as Dallas Willard describes it, seeks the good of the beloved. Happiness is found in doing what is in the best interest of the beloved.

            Rarely, the two are not at least intertwined. We can act in the best interest of the bellowed because it is in the best interest of the beloved while simultaneously checking to see if anyone is noticing what a good person we are or even to prove to ourselves we are good people. I must admit that I spend a lot of time in this continuum, and I’m rather afraid of where I am between the extremes of complete eros and complete agape. I suspect the times when I am closest to agape is when I do something to help without thinking about it.

            Another aspect of this is that we’re learning – or we’re supposed to be learning – the agape end of the continuum. When you learn to do something,  you tend to think about it a lot.  You might watch yourself in a mirror, or ask someone to critique your work. This means that as we learn, we may focus more on the act of love than we do on the person we are supposed to be loving. The same is true when we teach others to love. This is to be expected and excused because learning is a process that requires attention. But the goal is to reach the point where we seek the best interest of others because that’s what we do – even if it means foregoing our own pleasure.


[1] Guinness, Os, The Call (Nashville, TN, W. Publishing Group, 1998), p. 12

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Virgin?

           Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)           This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 1:18)           But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”            “How will this be,” Mary asked the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Saved?

  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:28-30) “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ ” (Matthew 7:21-23) Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written: “So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.” (Romans 3:4)   What conclusion do you draw when someone who was raised in a Christian family and church, perhaps even playing a significant role in a chur...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more