Читать книгу Beyond the Horizon - Harry A. Renfree - Страница 41

February 04

The concept of love can be a complex one. The word love has only four letters, but we can find all sorts of baffling definitions and examples for love. For instance, a person might say, “I love chocolate.” We might say, “I love my country, or city, or countryside.” Someone has asked, “Can we feel it in our hands? Does it know how to speak? Is it only written on the heart?”

Greek was the language of the original New Testament. The Greek language is rich in words meaning love. The problem with English is that we really only have one word . . . that’s why people love all sorts of things. There are about five words for love in Greek. Two of them are prominent in the New Testament—agape and philia. Agape is God’s love toward us, and it is the love we have for God (or should have) and also the highest love we can have for one another. Philia describes only human affection, and it too is a good word. Brotherly love, indeed the name of Philadelphia, “the city of brotherly love,” is derived from the Greek philia.

The great love chapter of the Bible, the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, centers on the Greek agape and concludes this way. “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” And of course the greatest demonstration of love—agape love—was that of Jesus in going to the cross, dying for us so that we could be freed from the bonds of sin and live with Him eternally.