The Love Expected of Us | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: The Love Expected of Us | Previous Challenge Entry
By Gp Njoku
03/17/15
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Everyone at one point or the other must has either experienced or shown love. As common as it is, explaining love to a novice is quite a task. Gather a crowd of people from different backgrounds, it will take hours before any collective definition of love is reached.
Following a long debate in church one day, I decided to embark on a personal study about love. As a church member, I love my Pastor, as an employee, I love my Boss, as a son I love my parents- and indeed family, as a business man, I love my business partner. Some lawyers claim they love their client, students who claim to love their teacher aren’t uncommon either. Proclaim of love among couples is as common as between God and man. It seems to me that for love to exist, there must first be a relationship. So, what’s love then?
In contrast to Oxford Dictionary, I have found love to be “simply keeping or adhering to the beneficial boundaries of a relationship” As debatable as this definition is, it has helped me in understanding love. I love my parents if I obey them, since obedience is within the boundaries of that relationship. My sister loves me as long as she corrects me when I do something wrong because that is within the boundaries of the relationship. In this two context, obedience and correction are acts of love. As relationships differ, so is love. The love that exist between business partners is obviously different from child-parent relationship. I am sure you will agree with me that the love between couples isn’t the same as with a teacher and-student. I must mention that love between born again believer and a sinner is quite different from that of a judge and accused. So relationships can be a product of familiarity, connection, family, romance or supernatural (creation).
According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Four_Loves), C.S. Lewis identified four main types of love (Storage, Philia, Eros and Agape) each corresponding to the love based on familiarity, family, romance and supernatural respectively. With Eros universally accepted as romance or lust, and arguments around different form of storage love disregarded, scholars have concentrated most of their time and resources on differentiating between agape and phileo.
David Ragan wrote a piece (http://www.learnthebible.org/agape-and-phileo.html) on scholars’ fascination on agape and phileo using John 21:15-17. Ahead of other similar write up, I am personally attracted to his because of the conclusion. “I have seen people go on forever about agape and phileo and totally miss the really significant points”.
But for those interested in keeping it simple, what really is the difference? First you need to read and believe 2 Timothy 3:16 (All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness). Most scholars base their argument on Greek word and corresponding nearest English translation; not necessarily on God’s inspiration. It really does not matter how many languages one understands, without God’s inspiration, one cannot understand the scriptures. Ministers who due to lack of inspiration fail to convey their messages to the congregation aren’t uncommon nowadays.
Personally, when I want to understand something I just let my spirit do the explanation. Having said that, here is my spirit’s explanation of agape and phileo. Agape is simply the love between God and man, while phileo is love between men. Eros and storage may not have appeared in the bible because the term phileo covers them. During creation God, created man and established a relationship with man. For man, simply adhering to the beneficial boundaries of that relationship is exhibiting agape love. This includes a born-again preaching to a sinner or showing any act for the purpose of connecting the sinner to God. In fact, any act of love centered on adhering to God-man relationship is agape love. Eve was created as a companion for Adam, then came man to man relationship. Any act of love based on sorely on man existence is phileo. This could be storage, eros or whatever term it adopts.
The evidence is in Matthew 22:37-39 Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (agape). This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself” (phileo).
In conclusion, God practices agape (loves us), we should practice agape (love God) in tandem with phileo (love man).

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