There's five different words that describe love when you look at the Greek and the New Testament, when it talks about the word love: philos, storge, eros, mania, and agape.
Philos Love
Philos means friendship love. It's the type of love that friends have. It's like if you think of children and they have their friends at school or their friends in the neighborhood, their friends in church. And there's this friendship that goes on. It's about people that maybe know each other for years and years. And they have this friendship where they care for each other. But it's not a deep love.
Storge Love
Storge love is an affectionate love that slowly develops from friendship based on similarity. Storge is an affectionate love that slowly develops from friendship based on similarity. After a while, it just seems like there's something developing in that friendship. And what happens is there starts to be an affectionate type of love. This is not an eros love where there is sexuality going on.
Eros Love
hat's a sexual love. Sex tied to love and love tied to sex isn't wrong when it's under the guidelines of marriage. A husband and wife can have a pure sexual love. And so there's nothing wrong with the sexual love. The problem is when it's outside of agape love, when it's outside of storge love, when it's outside of the type of love that God desires for us to have, it becomes sin, it becomes wrong.
For some people everything they do is driven by sex. In their reality, if there's no sex, I don't love you, if you don't have sex with me I do not want you. Do you think that's love? If you don't have sex with me, then I don't love you. And so that type of eros love, that sexual love, is all based upon emotions. It's all based upon feelings. It's all based upon hormones. And it has nothing to do truly with love.
Mania Love
This is an obsessive love. This is a love that's an obsessive love that's based upon attraction and anxiousness, obsession and destruction. Listen to me, a mania love is kind of like that person who chases and stalks after somebody else and they're obsessed with that person. It is all self-centered. It becomes destructive.
Agape Love
God wants us to have agape love. What's agape love? Agape love is a self-sacrificing love. It is a love that loves the unlovely. It's a love based upon commitment and not emotions. Listen, again, agape love, that's God's type of love. It's a self-sacrificing love. You will give of yourself to others. You're more concerned about others than you're concerned about yourself. But hear me out. If you don't take care of yourself, you can't love others. If you're not becoming healthy and whole, how can you love somebody in a healthy and whole manner?
Agape Love is a self-sacrificing love. A love that loves the unlovely. It's a love that loves the unlovely. It's a love based upon commitment and not emotions.
Agape Love is a 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 love:
Love is patient. Love is kind and is not jealous. Love does not brag and is not arrogant. Does not act unbecomingly. It does not seek its own. Is not provoked. Does not take into account a wrong suffered. Does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
Application
Ask yourself the following. In our homes, in our churches, in our communities, in our nation, how much do we see Agape Love being manifested? How much are we seeing those who call themselves Christians manifesting God's love towards others. Just maybe it is time WE ALL REPENT AND START MANIFESTING THE LOVE OF GOD TO OTHERS.
Since Standing in the Gap is focused on the community of Fairfield Bay and America how about praying that there would be more of the love of God flowing from each of us to others? How about praying that Christ Followers will flood their communities with Agape Love?
You can listen to What is Love-Part One Podcast or read the What is Love-Part One Transcript.
Richard Dover (PreacherRichD) is the founder of Creating Futures. Richard has been involved in ministry for over for over 43 years. Some of the areas of ministry he has been involved in is addiction and sober housing ministry, community development, evangelism, jail & prison ministry, pastoral counseling, police chaplaincy, Radio & TV ministry, street ministry, youth ministry. Richard was a youth leader, an outreach pastor and senior pastor. He was also an Executive Director of a faith-based sober housing program.