Ask the Pastors S8 E13: “What are the ‘four types of love’, and how is each relevant for us?”
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Welcome to Ask the Pastors, a segment of the West Hills podcast, where you have the opportunity to ask your questions and receive biblically grounded, pastorally sensitive answers from our pastoral staff. My name is Brian. I'm your host. I'm joined by our lead pastor, Will.
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That's me.
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And Pastor Thad. Hello. And today we are diving into love. It's not February, but it's okay.
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Let's dive into that love. Get all up in it. Come on.
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We're also recording from the office and not the car this week, but
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That's hopefully some better audio.
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Way less exciting for my physical wellbeing.
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Yeah. We edited all that out all the times you allegedly said I tried to kill you in the car.
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No, that was not me. It was Mark.
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All right. Now Brian's going to have to edit this out again. No, just kidding. I told him I don't care. We don't care. I don't really care if people think I'm a bad driver. I'm a great driver. I did it because you told me to. I'm not as Thad did. I'm just not as defensive of a driver as a lot of people are in us.
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Correct. You are
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Offensive. I like to think I'm an offensive driver. I am. Speaking of, love.
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We should not be offensive with our love.
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No. I think we should be. I think we should be on the offense with our love.
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Smothering people with it?
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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Brian,
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Do we
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Actually have a question? So Becca wrote in, she said, "What are the practical differences between the four types of biblical love?"
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But how do you pronounce her last name? That's the real question.
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That is the question.
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We were debating. Baudin. Baden. Bad win.
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That's not it.
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No, sorry. Go ahead. Thanks, Becca. Great question.
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How does this play out in our lives and in how we love others? I. E., how does it look to portray storage versus agape love?
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Did you say storage?
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Storage. Yeah. Tells you how much I know about these.
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I've
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Got a-
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Storehey? Is it a-
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I got bad news. I did the love for languages. Not four biblical
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Languages. Store
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Hay. Oh,
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You did the-
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I got five love languages to talk about. Five.
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Yeah. Which one did you leave out if you did four of the Gary Thomas' love? I thought it
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Was a mistake.
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Oh, God. We could talk about that too. Four or five. Yep. Four biblical loves and five love languages. No. Okay. Well, so I guess we should start by identifying them.
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What are they?
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And this was interesting to me. I didn't realize until honestly researching this that the idea of there being four types of love or the four loves, I think, was actually a title of a book that C.S. Lewis published back in the '60s. And so C.S. Lewis kind of made a bigger deal of these four types of words for love in the Greek language. But again, I didn't realize until recently searching for this, there's actually more than four words for love in the Greek language. And actually, I also didn't realize that two of the ones that Lewis identified aren't found anywhere in the Bible, that only two of the four that he mentions are explicitly found in the Bible. So the idea of there being four types of biblical love could be discussed, I guess, is a bit of a mischaracterization. However, Lewis, I think in that book, and again, haven't read it, but just kind of read some synopses of it, but sounds like he tried to map some of the other Greek words for love onto different things that he was seeing in scripture, even if the explicit word wasn't used there.
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Interesting.
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Yeah. So the four words, Eros is typically kind of class defined, thought of as romantic love, sexual love. But interestingly, one of them that's not found in the New Testament, Storge. Storge? It's
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Not
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That. It's not
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Storage
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Either. It's spelled like Jorge, so I don't know. Just kidding. Storge is typically thought of as like a familial love. Sometimes in some of the things I was reading, classified as thought of as affection or kind of a warm sort of tender kind of love sort of thing. I think another way I saw it characterized as kind of a natural love. The kind of love you don't have to think about or work toward or conjure up. It's effortless because it's just the kind of love that a mother or a father, the kind of love that ... I'm speaking for personal experience. My heart was filled with toward my daughter seeing her be born, for instance. All right. So maybe that's Gorge.
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Also, not in the New Testament, interestingly. However, and I'm pulling a lot of this from gotquestions.org, the negative term astour joy, unloving, is found once in two Timothy three: three, similar term, astorgus, no love without natural affection. King James version is found in Romans 1:31. So that's interesting. All right. Then you got ... Now we get to the actual, if you want to be really biblical about it, the real biblical loves are Philia and Agape. So Philia, as in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love refers to a brotherly kind of affection, friendship, comradery, companionship. The noun form of that word is sometimes translated simply as friend in the New Testament. I think it's only used, let me see, used 30 times total as a noun, 25 times as a verb in the Bible is what I found. And then once in Romans 12:10, the New Testament used the compound word filostorgos.
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So putting-
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Both of them.
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Yeah. Putting the filiate together with Storge love and using as a verb, a command in Romans 12:10 to be devoted in love kind of thing. All right. And then finally, agape is overwhelmingly the majority term, word for love in the Bible. 116 times is a noun I found 143 times as a verb. And I think we'll get into this, but a lot of people will make ... Paint Agape love and talk and characterize it as sort of distinctly, and I probably have in previous sermons, is distinctly godly kind of love and love either directly of or for God or from God in some way or God like love similar to ... I mean, and to be sure, all of your favorite passages that use the word love in the Bible are using the word agape, but also almost all the passages period in the Bible that talk about love are using the word agape or agapa, the verb.
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And so yeah, absolutely, for God so loved the world, John 3:16 or Ephesians two, because of the great love with which he loved us, all those kinds of passages are going to be agape or agap if it's the verb.
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But again, again, researching this, the idea that kind of love is distinctly for God is certainly not true for one thing, because we're called to agapaw one another, but even the idea that it's a godly and it's a ... And that somehow it can only come. I mean, for Shawn four says we love because he first loved us. Again, Agapa both times. So there is a sense in which ultimately, I mean, God we know is the source of all true love. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that you don't necessarily have to be regenerate, like filled with God's redeemed love in your own heart to be able to love people like that, even according to the Bible because Luke 6:32, Jesus says, "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them." Hear the word translated love as agope throughout the entire verse.
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So this was got questions.org pointing out. How can sinners show God's love for each other? If Jesus says even sinners love those who love them, again, is that a truly God-like love? Jesus said, John 14, greater love, sorry, John 15:13, "Greater love has no one than this, that he laid down his life for his friend." So Jesus defines love as self-sacrifice, putting the needs and the wellbeing of others above your own wellbeing, even at the point of death and sacrificing yourself for others. And yet he says in Luke 6:32, he uses that exact same word, Agape to say, "Even sinners love those who love them." In other words, I don't think that is a selfless, sacrificial kind of love that those sinners are ... That's just a, "Hey, I have these feelings of goodwill towards you. I want your life to work out well. You scratch my back, I scratch yours.
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We both at a rising tide rises all ships, lifts all ships kind of thing." Of course, if we can coexist in good harmony together, so he seems to be saying even sinners do that, but Jesus is clearly here pointing out and calling his followers to a different kind of love, and yet he uses the same word. I guess I say all that to just say, I do think from what I'm finding in my research at least, is we need to probably maybe be careful, maybe C.S. Lewis overblew the case a little bit in sort of saying, "Hey, here's this one distinctly Christian kind of love and don't make so much out of the kind of passages of the Bible that use this one versus that one because it does seem like there's some ... " As soon as you try and pin it down and say, "Well, this is Philly of love or whatever," then Jesus used it in a kind of context where it's like, wow, that seems like a more radical, like going beyond just brotherly love or something like that.
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So it's not maybe quite as easy as like, look at these nice, neat categories and gradation. It seems like there's a lot of kind of crossover spillover. So what do you want to add?
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Case closed? No. I think it's one additional helpful aspect to think about would be even how in our language, our English language with one another, even when we use that same word, love, just like in scripture, we mean different things with it. And so
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Like I- Love a good cheeseburger.
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I love tacos. I love a buffalo chicken sandwich. Me
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Too.
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That is agape
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Love
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For me.
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Don't ask me how it compares to my love for my kids. I'm just kidding. I'm
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Just kidding. And so I think also like culturally where people want to define love on their own derms, that we do have certain different categories for what love actually means. I'm with you on thinking it's perhaps a little overblown. My joke at the beginning of the five love languages, I think that it can sort of be helpful in some ways, but like also that can also change and I wouldn't necessarily want to pin someone in a certain category with our love. I would say though, as we think about this idea of, and Becca's question, how does this play out in our lives and how we love others? I think that's a really important question for us specifically as believers because Jesus says they will know you are my followers by your love for one another. So in that sense, we need to think about how is it we should interact with one another, even though there are different words used for love, although very minimally like Eros, I'm only using that kind of love in some very specific-
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You don't erase.
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I don't errosion. And so again, thinking about that, but there's-
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But Jesus does if Song of Solomon is an allegory for Christ in the church. Well,
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That's a whole nother follow up ask the pastor
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Question. Torrent love affair, Jesus in the church. Sorry, go ahead.
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But we should think, how is it that we as Christians, and we could bring it even more localized or we could go broad of how do we love one another within our specific church context? It is one way in which I thought about this also, how do we love others outside of the church context who don't share the same type of love and yet we're called to show love for them. So I don't know if you had a specific direction you were thinking about going, but ...
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Well, one other, just looking back at my notes here, I mean, one other thing I found really interesting about all this, because again, if you've heard, if you're familiar with this concept of the four loves or whatever, which if you hung around the church long enough- I've heard a dozen plus
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Sermons on
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Different
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Loves.
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And that's interesting too, right? Like to think about a topical, maybe it wasn't topical, but- Oh no,
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It
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Very much topical. "Hey, we're going to take these one at a time and it's like two of them aren't even in the Bible." Anyway, but just that I thought it was really interesting that this idea that, because again, we're typically trained to think because the Bible uses it the most in our favorite passages, one Corinthians 13, the love chapter, it's all agape, right? It's all, love is patient, love is kind, love does not envy, does not boast. All that is agape, but it's really interesting that Lewis points out at least that Phileo love is, in his opinion, actually probably closest to what will experience in heaven toward one another because, and again, I haven't read it, so I'm not going to pretend to know what he means by that per se, but if I had to guess, I'd say that it's because we're commanded to Agapao, everyone, like Jesus says, "Love your enemy." Matthew five, "Love your enemy, pray for those who persecute you.
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" I mean, that's the same, again, word, because this idea, as we do say, often in sermons and should, because it's true that love is a choice. Love is more, again, at least Agape love, is more than just, it's not a feeling, it's not ... Maybe you could say Eros isn't quite that way, or even, yes, Dorge love is not that way. It's like, I mean, yeah, my heart was flooded for this love for my newborn daughter holding her for the first time. I didn't feel like that was a choice. It wasn't like I decided right then and there, "I'm going to do anything for this child." It's like it was just there. So maybe there is something to these distinctions, but anyway, just Lewis's point that Agape love by virtue of it being a choice and a command of something that we're called to choose with regard to anyone, even our enemies, that you maybe could even make the argument that, I mean, if Phileo love is the closest to what, if he's right and what we'll be experiencing forever in heaven, at least with one another, then is that an even higher form of love potentially just that I think of that filet of love is the kind of, again, affection, brotherly sort of bond of trust that takes time to develop in the context of a close, tight-knit, warm relationship over time.
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And so anyway, I just thought that was really interesting, that we're never called to have filet of love toward our enemies or frankly, even toward, I don't know, I don't know. I'm not going to say that because I could get fact check on that. I mean, yes, no, we are called in the church to have that kind of brotherly affection toward one another. We're called to the filet of thing, which man, frankly, that might be as hard as being called to the agape with enemies outside. I don't know. I mean, that's an interesting question. What's harder to make the decision to act in another's best interest even if they're trying to kill you and they're your enemy and they hate you, but you don't have to be friends with them. You don't have to like them while you're doing it. Or is it harder to be called to the kind of love, filial love with those inside the church who are just weird or just sinful in different ways than you are that make you so annoyed and you're just like, "Look, we can be in the same church and worship together, but I am not hanging out.
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" I don't have the warm and fuzzies towards you, not particularly ... I hope we're not seated next to each other in heaven. If you go deep at all in any church, you're going to meet people like that. And so that's a high, that might be just as challenging as the call to agapo everyone. So anyway, I thought that was just an interesting ... Anything else on this you got? I have one more thing, but you go first. Well,
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Yeah, I'm thinking as you're talking of how this plays out in the church and specifically a filet ofloveish in my head. But specifically in the one another commands of scripture and that if, again, none of us lives those perfectly, but if we were, it would manifest in some way of looking like fileto love, of bearing with one another, of encouraging one another, of lifting up one another and thinking of how it is. And that is very difficult when you think of what a church really is. It is sinners who are saved by grace, who are seeking to live together, and yet we're still affected by sin. We're still struggling in our fight against sin. We're trying to grow in our sanctification and our love for God, and yet we still offend one another, we still hurt one another, we still speak unkindly to one another, and love what it should be, is able to forgive, to keep showing up, to not reject, because it's very easy to ... That person is weird, and so I'm going to avoid them at all costs.
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That person offended me, and I'm not going to seek reconciliation, which takes a sort of supernatural love, which again, I saw a lot of people pointing to the same thing you mentioned, of
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The love from God, like it being this kind of supernatural love in agape, which is true. It does take a little bit of supernatural of the spirit's work in us, but to seek to achieve this sort of brotherly, familial love that doesn't take effort, I think that's where you should ideally get the closest ... If we're conceding that Lewis is right about filet of love, that a glimpse of heaven, not just in our Sunday gatherings as we're singing and preaching and praying, but also in how we're interacting with one another, not just on Sundays, but also throughout the week, specifically with believers, if that's truly what the type of love will experience without the result of sin in our lives.
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Yeah, that's good. The last thing I was going to add is, to me, by far the most interesting passage in the entire Bible, New Testament ... It'd be interesting too- Interesting
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Passage in the whole New
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Testament? No, on this issue of the Four Loves. But no, it would be interesting to think about just pausing for a minute, and I didn't go deep on this, but this Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, and to look at ... Because obviously the Old Testament's written in primarily Hebrew, but when you try and translate it then into Greek and map the Greek onto it, in what situations did those translators use which of the Greek words for love in the Old Testament? That'd be interesting. But anyway, but in the New Testament, the most interesting passage on highlighting, I think that maybe perhaps if we can make some distinctions between these types of love that explicitly brings it to the foreground, if you're a Greek reader, is John 21:15 through 17, and the famous story of a lot of Bibles will call it something like Peter's reinstatement or something, Jesus reinstates Peter or something like that, restores Peter or something like that, that Peter had last interaction with Jesus directly was during the crucifixion when Peter had denied him three times and some will read this encounter as, again, Jesus' way of restoring Peter to good relationship with him or something like that.
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I'm not going to preach all sermon on that and respond to that, but the specific interaction of the Greek is so fascinating, which again, if you're just reading an English Bible, you miss all of this. And this was probably one of my earliest kind of tastes of how much an academic and more studious approach to the Bible can really unlock a lot of depth of scripture to you was like freshman year of Bible club at my high school, not a Christian school, but we had a Bible club and we had a senior girl who was in, I don't know, like thinking about maybe going to college to study Bible or something like that. And anyway, she did a little devotional just for our little 20 minute lunch thing and did a devotional on this passage and pointed out for us that what was really going on in the Greek there and it was fascinating to me because I'd heard this story multiple times growing up in the church, but where Jesus says, "Peter, Peter, do you love me?
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" And Jesus is asking, do you agapao me and Peter says, "Yes, Lord, you know I fileto you second time, Jesus." Well, and then Jesus says, "Feed my lambs or whatever, and then tend my sheep and then feed my sheep, whatever." But there's a whole sermon to be preached there about that. It's a fascinating three verse interaction of what Jesus is doing with, and why does he change the feeding my lambs? He starts with lambs, then tending my sheep, then feeding my sheep. It's like there's a clear distinction there in what's happening with the sheep and the lambs and the feeding and the tending and it's not all interchangeable. And I think the love thing most obviously is not interchangeable specifically in that interaction where Jesus is asking you a very direct question about second time, Peter, do you agape, agap me. Peter, yes, Lord, you know I filet of you.
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And then the third time Jesus switches his verb and he says, "Peter, do you filet on me? " And then it says, "And Peter was grieved to his heart and he gets all upset." And a lot of times the way that you hear that story explained if, I don't know, maybe the pastor didn't care or whoever's doing the devotion, like didn't know the Greek or whatever, it's like that they'll explain or paint it as Peter, that Peter thought that Jesus didn't believe him, like Peter was grieved because, "Well, Jesus, I just told you two times, don't you trust me? I know I denied you three times," and this is again part of why Jesus is having him affirm his love three times, but that Peter was grieved because Jesus no longer trusts me, my ward isn't good anymore. And so when I'm telling you, "I love you, don't you believe me?
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" I think it's not that. I think there's something different going on there. I think that there's something to this distinction of those two loves there where ... And again, I'm not having to preach the sermon right now. So when we go through John and I do, I'll have to obviously make up my mind on how to interpret that. But depending on which of those two loves you think is the higher love, again, traditionally we'd say agape. So according to that, traditional, I would say Jesus is calling Peter to this agape love. Do you love me with the love of God? And maybe Peter feels so much shame for having denied Christ, that he doesn't feel worthy of affirming that, yes, Jesus, you know I love you in that way because I denied you three days ago. So how can I possibly tell you that I love you like that?
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And then so the third time Jesus lowers the bar as a way of saying, Peter, whatever you can give me, I love you and it's more about my agape for you than whatever kind of love you've got for me and you're still my rock and you're still going to feed my sheep and da da da da. So maybe that's it. Or maybe if you want to flip it a little bit maybe like Lewis did and say that Phileo is even more heavenly and anybody, we're called to agape everybody, maybe it's that Peter is actually, Jesus is saying, "Do you choose to love me? " And Peter's actually saying, "It's more than that, Jesus. I love you like a brother. I have this warm ... I don't filet, I love everybody, but this is how I love you. " And so anyway, I'll leave it with that.
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But it's a very rich interaction that there's so much going on there that we could spend more time on. But I mean, that to me is the kind of best passage to really think through this question of the different types of love. You want to weigh in on that one at
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All? I'm just going to say, when the youth group gets to this passage in November, you can come do it for us.
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Let's do it. That'll give me a chance to do my homework on that and make up my mind about which of those is going on. So yeah, cool stuff.
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Well, thanks Becca for your question. That's it for this week's episode of Ask the Pastors. Remember that you can submit your questions by visiting the info bar at West Hills or by submitting them online through our website at www.westhillstl.org. And join us next week, redress the question, how do you respond to Christians who have come to believe in universal reconciliation? Basically what is a biblical view of hell? Talking about Kirk Cameron a little bit as well.
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Let's do it.
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And if you enjoyed this week's episode-
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Make sure you watch Left Behind, the whole thing before.
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And read the series. Study up. Hit the like button, subscribe, share it with a friend. Thanks so much for listening and we hope to catch you right back here next week.
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Phileo, y'all.
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Agape for me.