All You Need is Love?

All You Need Is Love?

“Let all that you do be done in love.” 1 Corinthians 16:14 (ESV)

The Beatles said “All you need is love,” and then they broke up (shout out to Larry Norman, the original Christian rocker). We often use the word love as a vague catch-all, meaning something like “I have an affinity for.” We say, “I love pizza,” and then we say, “I love my wife.” But those are clearly not the same thing—or at least, they shouldn’t be.

I geek out on the origins of ideas and words. I’ve always been fascinated by where certain concepts emerge, what is influencing our use of language. Love is a particularly curious word study.

If you’re a Christian and you’ve been in church for any length of time you’ve likely heard some Greek words for love: philía, erōs, or agápē. There are more words in the ancient Greek world for love, but these are instructive.

Philía and it’s verb form philéō, is the main word used for love in the ancient world. Think of the city, Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. Philéō, to love, is the most important word for love in the ancient world. It has to do with mutuality, affection, and shared life. Eros, where we get our word erotic, has to do with attraction, longing, and desire. Agápē was a rarely used word that served as a generic stand-in that overlapped meaning with other words like philía.

Now, here’s the cool thing. When the early Christians were writing about Jesus and giving instructions to the churches, they primarily used agápē, seemingly because it was an empty vessel, so to speak, a rarely used marginal word with vague meaning. The available alternatives didn’t quite catch what they had seen and experienced in the love of God through Jesus Christ. It’s like they had to invent a whole new word, but didn’t need to because they could invest agápē with renewed meaning.

The Classical Greek conception of love, expressed primarily with philía, is a public virtue that, according to Aristotle, involves a reciprocity and symmetry. Friendship exists only where affection is recognized and returned. One cannot be in philía alone. If the regard is not mutual, there isn’t friendship, but simply goodwill. Philía assumes shared values, relative equality, and mutual exchange. The relationship is sustained because both parties give and receive. Nothing in the New Testament denounces or devalues philía, but the word breaks down in the context of a God who selflessly sacrifices his only begotten Son for the world.

Philía can’t be used for love between humans and deity, because gods are not equal with humans. Gods are immortal, powerful, and often aloof. Humans are finite and vulnerable. Divine favor is often transactional.

The love revealed in Christ is qualitatively different. The word agape is filled with new content by the story of Jesus, love expressed not through reciprocity, status, or mutual benefit, but through concrete costly action for the good of others, including enemies (imagine that!). God’s love in Christ is giving, serving, forgiving. Agápē, in the New Testament, became shorthand for a radical new understanding of love: indiscriminate, generous, and grounded in God’s own character, culminating tin the confession in 1 John that “God is agápē.”

For Athanasius, the fourth century bishop of Alexandria, the Incarnation reveals the deepest truth about God: divine love is self-giving love. God creates out of goodness, redeems out of love, and gives without being diminished. In Christ, God moves fully into our condition so that we might be restored to life itself. This is why Christian agápē is outward-moving love. It is not moral heroism or self-erasure, but participation in the very life of the Triune God—a life that gives itself away.

So, “All You Need Is Love?” Yes. The Beatles were right, but not the way they thought they were. The Apostle Paul wrote, “Let all that you do be done in [agápē]” (1 Corinthians 16:14 ESV). And this agápē isn’t sourced in us, we can’t produce it. This quality of love is a gift from God that we must receive. And when we do, when we know the God of love and the love of God, we’re free to live in that love and share that love with others, with everyone, because we’re called to do everything in love.

Video Version: https://youtu.be/k8ZvAISWMEk