Greek Word Study | 26: love (agape)

My personal definition of agape love is, "Love gives people what they need, not what they want; it does what is best for people, not what makes them feel good."

Thomas McCall has a very good definition of agape love: "Truly to love someone is to desire her well-being and to promote her true flourishing as much as you can."  (“I Believe in Divine Sovereignty,” Trinity Journal.)

Holman Treasury of Key Bible Words:

• We use the word love to describe all kinds of feelings—from adoration to lust.  The ancient Greeks had four words to express different kinds of “love”: 
• (1) eraō for “sexual passion,” a word not found in the New Testament; (My comment:  This is love based on sexual attraction.)
• (2) storgeō for “family devotion,” a word used in a negative sense in 2 Timothy 3:3 as “unloving”;  (My comment:  This is love based on affinity.)
• (3) phileō for “friendship,” a word appearing frequently in the New Testament; and (My comment:  This is love based on emotion; you love them because you like them, and you enjoy their company.)  Lewis Drummond writes, "Thus it (phileo) often reflects the idea of helping someone greatly admired.  (My comment: this is love based on affection).  
• (4) agapaō for “loving-kindness.”
• "The first three Greek words were used abundantly in Greek writings, but the fourth word agapaō (the noun form is agapē) was rarely used in Greek literature prior to the New Testament. When agapaō was used, it denoted showing kindness to strangers, giving hospitality, and being charitable."
• In the New Testament, the word agapē took on a special meaning. It was used by the New Testament writers to designate a “volitional love” as opposed to a purely emotional love, a “self-sacrificial love,” and a “love naturally expressed by God,” but not so easily by men and women. It is a word that speaks of compassion, regard, kindness, and true love. It is an unselfish love that transcends natural affinities. In short, it is a love that we don’t naturally have. It is divine.

In Experiencing Spiritual Breakthroughs, Bruce Wilkinson contrasts phileo and agape:

1. Phileo requires two people to appreciate each other, and agape doesn’t.  Phileo requires mutual respect; agape may be entirely one-sided. 
2. Phileo is conditional; if the conditions are not me, the love can end.  Agape comes with no strings attached; it is based on the internal commitment of one person to another. 
3. Phileo relationships may last for a certain time, and then stop due to changing relationships; agape exists period.  Not related to time. 
4. Phileo requires emotional attachment and personal affection.  Agape flourishes in the soil of commitment; any emotions only enhance it. 
5. Phileo can be a blend of both selfish and self-giving attitudes.  Agape always seeks the benefit of the other, often at the expense of self.   

In The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis defines the Greek terms for love like this:

1. Storge: affection
2. Phileo: friendship or brotherly love
3. Eros: sexual love
4. agape: sacrificial love

In his commentary on Galatians 5:22, William Barclay defined the four Greek terms for love like this:

1. Eros: the love a man for a woman; it is the love which has passion in it.  Never used in the NT.
2. Philia: the warm love which we feel for our nearest and our dearest; it is a thing of the heart.  
3. Storge: means affection and is specially used of the love of parents and children.
4. Agape: The NT word for love.  Not a word which classical Greek uses commonly.  “Agape, the Christian word, means unconquerable benevolence.  It means that no mater what a man may do to us by way of insult or injury or humiliation we will never seek anything else but his highest good.  It is therefore a feeling of the mind as much as of the heart; it concerns the will as much as the emotions.  It describes the deliberate effort – which we can make only with the help of God – never to seek anything but the best even for those who seek the worst for us.”

In The Servant, Jim Hunter defined the four Greek terms for love:

1. Eros:  feelings based upon sexual attraction, desire, and craving (not used in NT)
2. Storge’:  affection, especially between and toward family members (not used in NT)
3. Philos:  brotherly, reciprocal love.  The “You do good by me and I’ll do good by you” kind of conditional love.
4. Agape’:  a more unconditional love rooted in behavior toward others without regard to their due.  It is the love of deliberate choice.

According to the definitions above, erao depends on sexual attraction, storgeo depends on affinity, phileo depends on affection, while agapao is unconditional.

Greg Laurie wrote, “There are three words for "love" in Greek. Eros is for physical attraction in which you want something from someone. Phileo is for friends and family and in this kind of love you give something but also expect something back. Agape is God's kind of love, where you give something that cannot be paid for ever and you do that without wanting anything in return.”

Tony Evans wrote, “The biblical concept of agape love involves giving of yourself for the benefit of another, even at your own expense. Biblical love is defined by passionately and righteously seeking the well-being of another. Biblical love is an act of the will and not just a fuzzy feeling in the stomach. That’s why God can command us to love one another. Love really has nothing to do with whether you feel loving at a particular moment. It has to do with the need of the person being loved, not the feelings of the one doing the loving.” (For Married Men Only: Three Principles for Loving Your Wife)

Dr. Ron Allen wrote this in his footnote in the Nelson Study Bible, “This word, agape, describes a love that is based on the deliberate choice of the one who loves rather than the worthiness of the one who is loved.  This kind of love goes against natural human inclination.  It is a giving, selfless, expect-nothing-in-return kind of love…  Our modern ‘throw-away’ society encourages  us to get rid of people in our lives who are difficult to get along with, whether they are friends, family, or acquaintances.  Yet this attitude runs in complete contrast to the love described by Paul.  True love puts up with people who would be easier to give up on.”

The Expository Dictionary of Bible Words (Hendrickson Publishers) says, "When God and Christ are said to love, agapaō conveys the idea of a deep, limitless compassion that is given through the supreme self-sacrificial actions of Christ on the cross in association with the mercy and kindness of God."

Mounce's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words defines it as, "God's undeserved love for the unlovely," and, "... Agape can be defined as unmerited and unwavering love."

The NLT Study Bible (Hebrew and Greek Word Studies, p. 2221) says, "This noun means the attitude or emotion of deep affection for another person, with a focus on loving action and not feelings alone."

The NKJV Word Study Bible (p. 1213) says, "God's love is described by agapao, which means unconditional love, preferential love that is chosen and acted out by the will.  It is not love based on the goodness of the beloved, or upon natural affinity or emotion.  Rather this is benevolent love that always seeks the good of the beloved."

John Piper writes, "Loving people means pointing them to the all-satisfying God…  Love has to do with showing a dying soul the life-giving beauty of the glory of God, especially His grace…  Not to aim to who God is not to love, because God is what we need most deeply.  And to have all else without him is to perish in the end.  The Bible says that you can give away all that you have and deliver your body to be burned and have not love (1 Cor 13:3).  If you don’t point people to God for everlasting joy, you don’t love.  You waste your life…  God loves us by liberating us from the bondage of self so that we can enjoy knowing and admiring him forever…  If it is true, as the Psalmist says to God, ‘In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore’ (Ps 16:11), then what must love do?  It must rescue us from our addiction to self and bring us, changed, into the presence of God.”  (John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life, 34-36.)

Piper continues, "For most people, to be loved is to be made much of.  Almost everything in our Western culture serves this distortion of love.  We are taught in a thousand ways that love means increasing someone's self-esteem.  Love is helping someone feel good about themselves.  Love is giving someone a mirror and helping him like what he sees.  This is not what the Bible means by the love of God.  Love is doing what is best for someone."  (John Piper, Don't Waste Your Life, 33.)

John MacArthur writes that agape love is "self-sacrificing service in the lives of others."

Lewis Drummond wrote, "Agape love speaks of intelligent, purposeful, giving love, for God bestowed the supreme gift when in love He gave Himself in the person of His Son to die for the sins of the world.”

Bill Bright writes that agape “is the purest, deepest kind of love, expressed not through mere emotions, but as an act of one’s will.  Agape love is love because of the character of the person loving, rather than because the object of that love is worthy.  Often times it is love ‘in spite of’ rather than ‘because.’” 

One definition of agape (source unknown) is, "Agape-love is a deliberate choice of the will, characterized by self-denial and self-sacrifice for the benefit of others, without regard to their due."

Mark Dever wrote, "Love doesn’t always let.  Indeed, sometimes love prevents and sometimes love even punishes."

Jim Hunter writes, "In the English language we generally associate love with a feeling.  You know, I love my house, I love my dog, I love my cigarettes, I love my booze.  As long as I have good feelings about something I can say I love it.  We generally do not associate love with anything but positive feelings (Jim Hunter, The Servant)."  He goes on to write, "It does seem a little silly to try to command somebody to have a feeling or emotion for someone else.  So he apparently didn’t mean we should pretend bad people are not bad when they clearly are or feel good about people who act despicably.  Bu the is saying that we ought to behave well toward them (Jim Hunter, The Servant.)."

Biblical Principles About Agape:

1. God is the perfect example of love.  He does everything with love.  To learn how to love, we must study how God acts, and what God has said about love (1 Jn 4:8).
2. Love does what is best for people, not what makes them feel good.  It didn't make Peter feel good when Christ rebuked him and said, "Get behind me Satan."  But that was what Peter needed to hear, because he was opposing God's plan to redeem the whole world through the suffering of Christ.  (Mk 8:33)
3. Love gives people what they need, not what they want. Children do not want to be spanked, yet the Bible says that is what they need, and that's what makes spanking the loving thing to do.  (Prov 13:24)
4. Love is not a feeling, but an action based on a decision to do what is best for another, regardless of how you feel.  The Biblical description of agape in 1 Corinthians 13 expresses love not in terms of feeling and emotions, but actions.  The Bible tells us to love our enemies.  We certainly don't feel good about them; but we are commanded to act good toward them still (Lk 6:27). 
5. Our love for others must never cause us to compromise our love for God.  Jesus said our love for Him is to be infinitely greater than our love for our family (Lk 14:26).  In Acts the apostles disobeyed the government in order to obey God (Acts 5:29).  Daniel disobeyed the king's order to not pray to anyone other than the king for thirty days (Dan 6).  The greatest commandment puts love for God before love for mankind (Mt 22:37-40).  Love for God is obedience, and therefore to disobey God is not to love Him (Jn 14:15).
6. Love is unconditional.  We are not to love only those who love us, or only those people whom we like.  Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor (Mt 22:37-40).  Jesus teaches us to love our enemies (Mt 5:44; Lk 6:27).  Never does the Bible give conditions for our love -- "Love those who are nice to you...."
7. Love is impartial.  We are to love everyone, not just those that are like us, or those whose friendship can benefit us in some way.  James talked about loving the rich and the poor equally (James 2:8-9).  To teach love for one's neighbor, Jesus used the example of the Samaritan who stopped to help a Jew who was robbed and dying on the side of the road, even though Jews and Samaritans hated each other and kept their distance (Lk 10:25-37).  We are to love everyone (1 Thess 3:12).
8. The best demonstration of love is the cross of Jesus Christ, in which Jesus sacrificially gave and served His enemies so that they could be saved.  Jn 3:16; 1 John 3:16
9. The way to love is to sacrificially give and serve people without regard to their due with the ultimate aim of helping them move closer to God. Jn 15:13; 1 John 3:16; Eph 5:1-2. 
10. Love is our top priority.  The Christian life is all about love -- love for God and love for neighbor (Mt 22:37-40; 1 Peter 4:8).  
11. The goal of Biblical preaching is to help people grow in love (1 Tim 1:5).
12. Love is the key to unity. Col 3:14; 1 Peter 4:8
13. Love requires knowledge and discernment.  You must understand what agape is, and how God commands us to express it.  Philippians 1:9-11.
14. Love discriminates.  We are not called to love everything.  1 Jn 2:15 commands us to not love the world or the things of the world.  The Bible tells us to hate sinful behaviors (Rom 12:9), just as God hates sinful behaviors (Prov 6:16-19).  The reason we hate sin is because it prevents people from what they need most -- a loving relationship with their heavenly Father.  We are not to love money (1 Tim 6:10).
15. Love protects.  Pastors are called to guard the church against false teachers (Titus 1:10-13).  God institutes governments to protect good people by punishing evildoers (Rom 13:1-7).  The church is called to discipline and even excommunicate its members in order to protect the purity of the church (Mt 18:17; Titus 3:10).  Sometimes love must inflict harm against an evildoer in order to protect the innocent.
16. Love is empowered by the indwelling Holy Spirit.  Gal 5:22-23. For this reason we need to be continually filled with the Holy Spirit (Eph 5:18).  
17. Love is how the world will know that we are Christians.  Jn 13:35
18. We can determine how to love someone by considering how we would want to be treated (Mt 7:12; Lk 6:31).
19. Love is evidence of genuine salvation.  1 Jn 4:7-8
20. Everything the Christian does must be done with love.  We must never act in an unloving way, even in war, even in discipline, even in conflict (1 Cor 16:14; Eph 5:2).
21. We must seek to ever grow in love.  Phil 1:9; 1 Thess 3:12-13;
22. Love is not defined by the response of the loved.  John Piper writes, "Love is not defined by the response of the loved.  We live in an emotionally fragile age.  People are easily offended and describe their response to being criticized as being hurt.  In fact, we live in a time when emotional offense, or woundedness, often becomes a criterion for deciding if love has been shown. If a person can claim to have been hurt by what you say, it is assumed by many that you did not act in love.  In other words, love is not defined by the quality of the act and its motives, but by the subjective response of others.  In this way of relating, the wounded one has absolute authority.  If he says you hurt him, then you cannot have acted lovingly.  You are guilty.  Jesus will not allow this way of relating to go unchallenged.  Love is not defined by the response of the loved.  A person can be genuinely loved and feel hurt or offended or angered or retaliatory or numb without in any way diminishing the beauty and value of the act of love that hurt him....  Feeling unloved is not the same as being unloved....  God is God and the loved one is not God.  The judgment of the wounded loved one is not absolute.  The decisive thing about our love when we stand before God is not what others think of it, but whether it was real."  (John Piper, What Jesus Demands, p. 218.) 
23. Love hates.  John Piper writes, "Love hates the evil that destroys the ones we love.  We cannot claim to desire the good of the beloved and be indifferent to what destroys him."  (John Piper.  What Jesus Demands, p. 221.)
24. It's okay to love yourself.  In fact, it is expected, and it is important (Mt 22:39; Eph 5:28-29).  John Piper writes, "All of you have a powerful instinct for self-preservation and self-fulfillment.  You all want to be happy.  You all want to live, and to live with satisfaction.  You want food for yourself.  You want clothes for yourself.  You want a place to live for yourself.  You want protection from violence against yourself.  You want meaning and pleasant activity to fill your days.  You want some friends to like you and spend some time with you.  You want your life to count in some way.  All this is self-love.  Self love is the deep longing to diminish pain and increase happiness....  This is common to all people....  To hunger for food it not evil.  To want to be warm in the winter is not evil.  To want to be safe in a crisis is not evil.   The want to be healthy during a plague is not evil.  To want to be liked by others is not evil.  To want your life to count in some significant way is not evil."  (John Piper, What Jesus Demands, p. 257.)

Misconceptions About Agape Love

1. Agape love is not the same as liking someone.  You’re supposed to love people even if you don’t like them.  You don’t have to like someone to love them.  Think about a parent.  Does a father always like his children?  Not when they are being disobedient.  But he still loves them.  
2. Agape love is not the same as approving of someone’s behavior.  You can love somebody and hate their sin at the same time.  Is it unloving for a husband to disapprove of his wife’s behavior?  What if she was using drugs?  What if she was abusing the children?  What if she was unfaithful?  A husband can love his wife even if he disapproves of some of her behaviors.  
3. Agape love is not the same as agreeing with somebody.  You can disagree with somebody and still love them.  I don’t agree with my wife on everything; I think she’s wrong on some things; but that doesn’t mean I don’t love her.
4. Agape love is not being a doormat.  Love doesn’t mean that you always have to let the other person have their way.  Love knows how and when to say, “No.”  Love has boundaries.  Love has consequences.  Love is tough.