It occurs to me that, having placed love at the center of the Christian life, I owe you some sense of how I define the term.  A technical discussion, yes.  But one I hope will be helpful.  (If you are truly allergic to technical discussions, feel free to skip to the last paragraph.)

In seeking to understand the biblical vision of love, we are both aided and hindered by the fact that the Bible is not written in English.  It is always difficult to conceptualize ideas conveyed in another language, and thus there is always a sense that whatever we are thinking when we say “love” in English, we are not quite grasping what the original writers were thinking when they penned their words in Hebrew and Greek (and a little bit of Aramaic).  Yet, the mere fact that the scriptures were authored in three languages (and translated back and forth between them) allows us to have several glances at in idea that – in any language – is beyond complete articulation.

As you may know, there are four words in ancient Greek that we properly translate into English as “love” – eros, philia, storge, and agape – and much ink has been spilled in recent decades trying to nail down the distinctions.  The general trend, which I think has proven unhelpful, has been to define each of these terms in contrast to the others, placing each one Continue reading