In ancient Greek, the language of the New Testament, there were at least 4 words for love, depending on the type of love a person was referring to. There was philia (friendship), storge (family), eros (romantic), and agape. In our day, we simply use love for friends, family, and romantic partners, not to mention our use of it for music, food, sports, etc. What then is the type of love Jesus calls us to when He says to love God with all of our being and to love our neighbor as ourselves?
You may have noticed I left agape without a description. Agape is a self-giving, self-sacrificing, other-centered love. When 1 John 4:8 declares that God is love, it is declaring that God is agape. Of course, God calls us friends, He calls us family, there are even times when romantic love is used as an analogy of God’s love for us, but these aren’t the love that 1 John 4:8 is referring to. God is agape. God is other-centered. God is self-sacrificing. It is with this love that He calls us to love Him and others.
Matthew 22:37-40, where we find Jesus summarizing all of the commands as loving God and others, we see Him using this same word. We are to agape God and others with a self-sacrificing, other-centered love. But then to what extent are we to be other-centered towards others? Is it just my neighbors, family, and friends? In Matthew 5:43-48, again we find this word agape, only this time in relation to our enemy. Jesus says we are to agape the very people who seek to oppose and wrong us, after all, how is loving those who love us any different from the way others love? The way we love ought to be reflective of the way God loves, who died not only for those who would accept Him but for those who would reject Him as well.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t have any enemies. There aren’t people out to get me or that I am out to get. I do, however, have people that really annoy or frustrate me from time to time, people that I don’t enjoy existing in the same space with. If the spectrum of love runs from my neighbors, who I may or may not know, all the way up to people who are actively opposed or hostile towards me, then I must need to love the strangers who inconvenience me and the acquaintances that bother me. To be perfect is to love perfectly.
How do we do that? By spending time with the only one who has ever loved perfectly. I cannot do this on my own. When I try, I fail. In order to love others, to agape others, we must spend time with the One who is agape. It is by beholding that we become changed, not by my might or effort, but by the Holy Spirit. May we agape God the way He agapes us. May we agape strangers and family, friends and enemies, that all may know His agape.