I’m In
Love
Love is a
popular subject today. Never before in history have we heard so much about it
yet seen so little of it in action. Often we use the word rather loosely. For
instance, a person may say he loves his family, his new car, or even pepperoni
pizza! Hardly anyone specifies the kind of love he means. Newspapers have been known to headline “love murders” or “love
suicides”—a rather strange concept indeed! It is obvious that the word “love”
means different things to different people. Yet love is a foundational concept
in the Christian gospel as well as the single most important ingredient in a
successful marriage. We therefore ought to find out what love really means.
In the last chapter we spoke of spiritual maturity. It is not by
accident that we selected love as our next subject, for both concepts are
closely related. Like maturity, love is a process rather than a state. People don’t actually “fall in love”; they grow into it instead.
Maturing love involves growing from a state of receiving much and giving little
toward a state of cheerfully giving everything and demanding nothing in return.
This whole process is a part of maturity.
A baby must be loved or it will die. It receives love, but it has
none to give in return. The cuddling which mothers interpret
as an expression of love is really only the baby’s intuitive effort to
get food and gratify self. Newborn babies love only themselves. As the baby
grows, however, he becomes more aware of his mother. She cares for him, feeds
him, and provides companionship for him through most of his waking hours. This
new awareness involves growth and development. A child’s first expressions of
affection will therefore usually be directed to his
mother.
Soon the
father comes into view, and the child’s world broadens to include this new
authority figure. Later he begins to reach out to brothers and sisters, then to
playmates (usually of his own age and sex). Soon he’ll
want to be in a gang of his peers, most of whom will probably idolize some hero
of their own sex. Then he explodes into adolescence, and peers of the opposite
sex are no longer dreaded enemies but attractive and alluring friends. One day
the announcement is made, “I’m in love.” Is it really love?
What has happened? What is love?
As you
probably know, the Greeks had at least three different words for love, each
describing a different aspect or level of love. Since we have only one word for
love in English, we will face some degree of confusion in interpreting the
biblical uses of the Greek words unless we learn the distinctiveness of each.
The first
word, eros, is found in secular Greek literature but is never used in the
Bible itself. Eros is totally human love. It
often refers to sexual love, as the English word “erotic” implies. The basic
idea in eros is getting something for yourself.
While it may involve a genuine feeling for someone else, that feeling is
kindled by the attractiveness of that person and by the excitement, pleasure,
and satisfaction which we believe that person will
afford us. Eros poses as love for another but is actually love for
oneself. It says, “I love you because you make me happy.” Its foundation is
some characteristic in the other person that pleases us, such as beauty, charm,
warmth, kindness, or talent. If that characteristic is taken
away there is nothing left, and it dies. This kind of love looks primarily for
what it can get. It may give a little, but the motive is usually to get
something in return for what it gives. If it fails to get what it wants, it may
turn to resentment, bitterness, or hatred.
Unfortunately,
many young people choose a life partner on the basis of
eros. Emotional involvement based on body chemistry reaches its full
potential very rapidly, and the intensity of the eros causes it to be misconstrued as genuine love. The couple may know very
little about each other, but they insist that their love will carry them
through. Unfortunately, it usually doesn’t, since it
was never true love in the first place. The romantic bubble bursts when the
“ideal” person turns out to be far less than ideal—thoughtless, rude,
unromantic, inattentive, and unshaven! Since neither partner will be getting
what he expected, both will probably want to call it quits, and another marital
disaster will be added to the towering pile.
It is my practice to interview couples who ask me to marry them, and then to provide the premarital
counsel which I deem appropriate. If some glaring problem is uncovered, I
endeavor to deal with it to the best of my ability. After talking to Dave and Betty I had serious misgivings about marrying them at all.
It became obvious that Dave’s main desire in marriage was the gratification of
physical desires. Betty was closing her eyes to this because of her
determination to escape an unpleasant situation at home and because of the flattery she felt from Dave’s attentions.
In a private
session with Betty I warned her as tactfully as I
could against marrying immediately. Maybe time would help them understand each
other better and bring things to the surface that should be
dealt with before the pressures of marriage complicated them. And certainly if Dave loved Betty he would be willing to
wait a little while for her. But Betty became
indignant and told Dave of my insinuations. They decided to have nothing more
to do with me, and instead asked someone else to marry them. I lost touch with
Dave and Betty after that, but subsequently I learned that two years and two
children later Betty was a divorcee, struggling to finish her education while
providing for her children. Eros had failed to sustain their
relationship.
Unfortunately,
it isn’t easy to avoid a pitfall like this, for our whole culture is geared to
convincing us that eros is love, that being loved is more important than
loving, and that being loved depends on being attractive. So
we buy suits, dresses, hair spray, toothpaste, mouthwash, makeup, deodorant,
and other assorted aids to make us more attractive, so that hopefully someone
will fall in love with us and make us happy. This exaggerated emphasis on eros
accounts for a large percentage of all broken marriages.
The “Playboy
philosophy” is eros in action. It holds that a woman is an attractive
plaything for a man’s gratification and pleasure, and that sexual approaches
are synonymous with “making love.” But love is more
than sex. No relationship built on the physical alone can last very long, for
physical desires are subject to satiation and loss of interest. When this
occurs, the relationship will begin to deteriorate rapidly unless an intimacy
of spirit and soul has also developed.
Marriages
established only on eros will probably experience
difficulties from the start. The courtship and engagement periods should instead be used to establish communion of spirit and
soul. Then the physical union after marriage will be the crowning glory of a
growing relationship rather than the worn-out link of a decaying relationship.
If you made the dreadful mistake of marrying on the basis of
eros alone, however, there is some encouraging news for you. Love can
grow. It won’t grow automatically, but it will grow if
you cultivate it. The only hope for your marriage is to move on to higher
levels of love.
Philia, the next higher level of love,
relates to the soul rather than to the body. It touches the human
personality—the intellect, the emotions, and the will. It involves a mutual
sharing. The closest word in English would probably be “friendship.” While the
noun form is used only once in the New Testament,55
the verb “to love, to like” and the adjective, “loving, devoted” are used many
times. This is the degree of affection which Peter
claimed for Christ when the Lord asked, “Peter, do you love me?” Peter
responded, “You know that I like you,” or “You know that I’m your friend.”56
There is
some eros in philia. We choose friends because of the pleasure we
derive from being with them. There are personal qualities in them that we
appreciate, intellectual and cultural interests that we share, and mutual
self-expression that we find satisfying. We derive something enjoyable from the
relationship, but we are also willing to give our fair share. This giving is
not free from selfish motivation, but the selfishness is
largely obscured by a sense of togetherness. Philia is a higher
level of love than eros in that “our” happiness is involved rather than
merely “my” happiness.
Many
comparatively happy marriages are built on philia.
In fact, it is a good idea if a husband and wife are friends. I know some
husbands and wives who say they love each other but aren’t
even friends! They really do not seem to enjoy each other’s company. A marriage
cannot survive unless love has grown at least to the philia level. If
you are a young person contemplating marriage, you should take the time to
discover whether you truly like the person with whom you intend to join
yourself for life. A few months is not long enough to
learn the little faults and shortcomings that might irritate and exasperate you
after marriage. You have heard that love is blind, but in reality
only eros is blind. It closes its eyes to faults, laughs off
shortcomings, and rationalizes potential problems. Philia, on the other
hand, honestly faces all these things and decides whether they are overshadowed by constrasting strengths. If they are, philia
determines to live cheerfully with the weaknesses in the everyday give-and-take
of life.
Philia is love’s halfway mark—give a
little, get a little; a fifty-fifty proposition. A
couple can make it on this kind of love as long as each one does his part and
the circumstances of life remain fairly steady. If one
partner fails to contribute his share, however, or if unusual stress is
introduced (financial crisis, serious illness, in-law tensions, sexual
problems, child-rearing problems, etc.), the friendship suffers. Philia can’t take the strain. It finally becomes selfish and
demanding, and comradeship turns to conflict. The only hope for stable,
successful, fully satisfying marriages is to grow to the highest level of love.
That level
of love is agape. It does not seek pleasure for itself, but instead
delights in giving. It is not kindled by the merit or
worth of its object, but originates in its own God-given nature. Agape
keeps on loving even when its object is unresponsive, unkind, unlovable, or
completely unworthy. It desires only the good of the one loved. It lives to
make the loved one happy, whatever the personal cost or sacrifice. It doesn’t give fifty percent and expect fifty percent in
return. It gives one hundred percent and expects nothing in return!
Watch out
for counterfeits! Some will try to give this kind of love in order to get more
love in return. It may appear to work this way, but that is not the motive of
true agape. Some may try to give pseudo-agape because they enjoy
the ego-satisfaction of being considered benevolent or
of having someone dependent on them. True agape is totally unselfish and
uncalculating.
You say,
“But that’s not even human.” You’re right! No human
being in the world can originate true agape. Agape
is given by God alone. In fact, God Himself is agape.57
The Bible is filled with descriptions of God giving,
sacrificing, and providing for sinners like ourselves.58
When we receive Jesus Christ as our Savior, God pours His agape into our
inner being: “We feel this warm love everywhere within us because God has given
us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.”59 God’s love is then displayed in our daily
experience.
But how
do we actually display the love of God? We know we need this kind of love in
our homes if we want them to be truly Christian and genuinely happy, but we
simply do not seem to be able to give it. Instead, we display an insatiable
hunger to be loved, a craving which psychologists say
is basic to human living. We try every means we can think of to get the love we
crave, but most of our efforts only backfire and further alienate the one whose
love we seek. We’ve learned by bitter experience that
we cannot make someone love us.
The solution
is found in God’s Word. “We love him because he first
loved us.”60 God’s love for us generates love in our own
hearts. Is your heart filled with bitterness,
resentment, or hard feelings? God loves you, just as you are, in spite of your
sinful, selfish attitudes and acts. God loves you! Contemplate His love, enjoy
His love, revel in His love, drink deeply of His love, thank
Him for His love. The wonder of it all may make your sins even more hideous and
vile in your own eyes, but you will confess them, and in love He will forgive
and cleanse you, and the wonder of His forgiving love will overwhelm you even
more. Soon you will find yourself abandoning your entire being to Him, letting
Him fill and control you, letting Him live His life through you. Then real
love, agape, will flow through you to those around you, for the fruit of
the Spirit is agape.61
The result will be a new you, one who knows how to love in the highest and
noblest sense of the word.
Our motive
for this transformation should not be to change those around us, but this will
nevertheless be the effect over a period of time. The
principle we have just discovered from God’s Word is that love produces love.
Other passages teach the same truth. “A man will always reap just the kind of
crop he sows!”62 When we sow love we
reap love. “If you give, you will get!”63 When we give love we
will receive love. We need to open our hearts to the love of God and let Him
express His love through us to our partners in marriage. He will use it to
transform our marriages into the beautiful relationships He planned them to be.
58 Cf. John 3:16; Romans 5:8; 1 John
3:16; 4:10.
as of 8-2005