| In America, we use the word “love” for many things. We tell our spouses and our children that we love them. We joyfully exclaim that we love pizza, ice cream, donuts, gardening, listening to music, or reading. We are called in Scripture to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. But what does it mean to “love” someone or something? The great scholar and apologist C.S. Lewis can help us with that. He wrote a book titled The Four Loves in which he explores the four different Greek words that are translated as “love” that appear directly or indirectly in the Scriptures. Each word has a slightly different idea of “love” that can be helpful for us. The four words are “storge,” “philia, “eros,” and “agape.” Let’s look at each one, starting with “storge.”
“Storge” is often defined as “affection,” and is considered the broadest love. This is the love children have for their parents, and vice versa. However, it’s not limited to just the parent-child relationship. Lewis states that “this warm comfortableness, this satisfaction in being together, takes in all sorts of objects. It is the least discriminating of loves.” This is also the general fondness we feel for our family, our friends, and fellow congregation members. This is also not the only love we feel for them. “Storge” can help animate the other loves, and it can “become the very medium in which from day to day they operate,” Lewis says. For example, romantic feelings may come and go in a marriage, but the general affection of one spouse to another, the love of being in each other’s company, the love that comes with having shared interests and history, can help keep the marriage stable. Marriages and friendships don’t live on “storge” alone, but “storge” can certainly help bolster them and keep the other loves from withering too quickly.
“Philia” is often defined as “friendship” or “brotherly love.” We still see it today in words like “Philadelphia (the city of brotherly love),” or “philosophy (the love of knowledge or wisdom).” This love can start with “storge,” but then move into “philia” when common interests or ideas are shared between two or more people. Lewis describes well the beginning spark of friendship: “The typical expression of opening friendship would be something like ‘What? You too? I thought I was the only one.’” This “philia” motivates us to help and serve our friends, and to stand beside them in common tasks and struggles. It spurs us on to continue talking with them and getting to know them, especially their thoughts and opinions on shared interests. This love has been mostly diminished and substituted today for internet chat rooms and social media, unfortunately. However, there are still pockets where this love thrives in real life, and it is an immense blessing to all who get to experience it. To have someone to talk about common interests, and to stand beside you when you need them, is something, Lewis says, “that gives value to survival.”
The word “eros” refers to romantic love. This is a passionate, “falling in love” kind of love, though it can (and should) go deeper than just feelings. This is the one our culture, I think, is most obsessed with due its strong emphasis on feelings as a whole. However, we miss something when we only consider the feelings of “eros” and miss out on its actions. “Eros” often leads to the actions we would associate with “agape” and “storge” love. It leads to a very strong desire to put another’s happiness above your own. This is the “spark” that can lead to “agape” and “storge” in marriage. We can be tempted to think that when the spark of “eros” is gone, then love has left entirely. But that’s not the case! Though “eros” rises and falls like all of our emotions, it doesn’t necessarily mean love is gone altogether! There is still “storge,” and “philia,” and last, but certainly not least, “agape.”
“Agape” is often defined as “self-sacrifice” or “charity.” This is the love that God has toward us. “Agape” is the word used in verses like John 3:16 (For God so loved the world…) and 1 John 4:10 (And this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us…) to describe the unconditional love God has given and shown to us in Jesus Christ, His Son. We often fall short of this love because it runs contrary to our sinful natures. This love is not primarily centered on feelings, but on actions of self-sacrifice for the good of the other. While this love is hard for us to live out, God Himself gives us this love in Jesus, and so it overflows in us by the work of the Holy Spirit. As the Spirit works in us, He uses and works with the other three loves as we seek to love our family, our friends, and our congregation members. “Storge” between congregation members can lead to exercising “agape” by sharing meals or resources with each other. “Philia” between a band of brothers or sisters leads to the “agape” of putting a pause on your life to go to their aid in a time of crisis or joy. “Eros” between husband and wife leads to the “agape” of doing the dishes for them or getting up in the middle of the night to feed the crying baby while letting the other spouse sleep. It is sacrifice for the good of the other, modeled perfectly for us in God sacrificing His Son, Jesus, for the good of our salvation.
So dear friends, let us love rightly, both on the “day of love” coming up this month, and every day of our lives. Let us not think of love only as “mushy, good feelings,” but as a gift of God, given to us in Jesus Christ, modeled by His sacrifice for our sins. Let us rest in that love, that “agape” of God, above all, and let it overflow and shape our love for others as well.
In Christ, Pastor Michael Onstad
Link to the February 2025 Newsletter |
