How do you spell agape in greek

Jesus when asked "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law? John MacArthur explains that " Agape love is the greatest virtue of the Christian life. Yet that type of love was rare in pagan Greek literature. However, the New Testament declares agape to be the character trait around which all others revolve. MacArthur, J.

Wheaton, Ill. Wherever there is true love, there must be giving, and giving to the point of sacrifice. Love is not satisfied with giving trinkets; it must give at the cost of sacrifice: it must give blood, life, all.

And it was so with the love of God. We are to imitate God's love in Christ. The love that gives, that counts no cost too great, and, in sacrificing itself for others, offers all to God, and does all for His sake. Such was the love of Jesus--sweet to God, as the scent of fields of new-mown grass in June; and this must be our model. Not to those who love us, but who hate; not to those who are pleasant and agreeable, but who repel; not because our natural feelings are excited, but because we will to minister, even to the point of the cross, must our love go out.

And every time we thus sacrifice ourselves to another for the sake of the love of God, we enter into some of the meaning of the sacrifice of Calvary, and there is wafted up to God the odour of a sweet smell. Then take some time and meditate on the profundity of the truths inherent in agape love and please reconsider, for the sake of your testimony and for the sake of the glory of the Lord and His Kingdom. Kenneth Wuest describes agape love as follows these descriptions are gleaned from multiple different sections of his wonder Word Studies Wuest explains that phileo love is "an unimpassioned love, a friendly love.

It is based upon an inner community between the person loving and the person or object loved. That is, both have things in common with one another.

The one loving finds a reflection of his own nature in the person or thing loved. The Greeks made much of friendship, and this word was used by them to designate this form of mutual attraction. In contrasting phileo and agape love, we might say that the former is a love of pleasure, the latter a love of preciousness; the former a love of delight, the latter a love of esteem; the former a love called out of the heart by the apprehension of pleasurable qualities in the object loved, the latter a love called out of the heart by the apprehension of valuable qualities in the object loved; the former takes pleasure in, the latter ascribes value to; the former is a love of liking, the latter a love of prizing.

Agape describes the love of the Spirit-filled husband, purified and made heavenly in character. Agape is the love which the Holy Spirit sheds abroad in the heart of the yielded believer Ro note. The saint is to order his behavior or manner of life within the sphere of this divine, supernatural agape love produced in his heart by the Holy Spirit.

When this love becomes the deciding factor in his choices and the motivating power in his actions, he will be walking in love. He will be exemplifying in his life the self-sacrificial love shown at Calvary and the Christian graces mentioned in 1Co , - see notes 1Co ; ; ; That is the kind of love which God says one Christian should have for another.

Agape love speaks of a love which is awakened by a sense of value in an object which causes one to prize it. It springs from an apprehension of the preciousness of an object. It is a love of esteem and approbation. The quality of this love is determined by the character of the one who loves, and that of the object loved.

Every sinner is exceedingly precious in His sight. This preciousness of each member of the human race to the heart of God is the constituent element of the love that gave His Son to die on the Cross.

The degree of the preciousness is measured by the infinite sacrifice which God made. The love in Jn therefore is a love whose essence is that of self-sacrifice for the benefit of the one loved, this love based upon an evaluation of the preciousness of the one loved.

Wuest, K. Agape does not condone or gloss over sin in the one loved but actively, purposely seeks the welfare of the one loved. Philadelphia "love" springs from personal warmth and affection and God teaches it 1Th Agape love does not derive its motivation from the desirability of the object of one's affection but gives with no expectation of return unconditional so that if given and not returned then you don't stop giving it.

We have no capacity to generate agape love on our own. The Greek word for that kind of love is agape, and it is characterized by humility, obedience to God, and self-sacrifice. Drawing near: August 3. And that is exactly what Jesus Himself did on behalf of those God has chosen to be saved.

In the ultimate divine act of love, God determined before the foundation of the earth that He would give His only Son to save us. Chicago: Moody Press. Love is self-less giving, always self-less and always giving. It is the very nature and substance of love to deny self and to give to others We can only have such love when Christ is free to work His own love through us. We can only love as Christ loves when He has free reign in our hearts Loving is the supernatural attitude of the Christian, because love is the nature of Christ.

When a Christian does not love he has to do so intentionally and with effort—just as he must do to hold his breath. To become habitually unloving he must habitually resist Christ as the Lord of his heart. To continue the analogy to breathing, when Christ has his proper place in our hearts, we do not have to be told to love—just as we do not have to be told to breathe. Eventually it must happen, because loving is as natural to the spiritual person as breathing is to the natural person.

Though it is unnatural for the Christian to be unloving, it is still possible to be disobedient in regard to love.

Just as loving is determined by the will and not by circumstances or other people, so is not loving. If a husband fails in his love for his wife, or she for him, it is never because of the other person, regardless of what the other person may have done. You do not fall either into or out of agape love , because it is controlled by the will. Romantic love can be beautiful and meaningful, and we find many favorable accounts of it in Scripture.

But it is agape love that God commands husbands and wives to have for each other Eph. Strained relations between husbands and wives, between fellow workers, between brothers and sisters, or between any others is never a matter of incompatibility or personality conflict but is always a matter of sin Loving others is an act of obedience, and not loving them is an act of disobedience. The absence of love has nothing at all to do with what is happening to us, but everything to do with what is happening in us.

Sin and love are enemies, because sin and God are enemies. They cannot coexist. Where one is, the other is not. It is completely unselfish. Saved Without A Doubt. Victor Books. Forbearing love could only be agape love , because only agape love gives continuously and unconditionally. Eros love is essentially self—love, because it cares for others only because of what it can get from them.

It is the love that takes and never gives. Philia love is primarily reciprocal love, love that gives as long as it receives. But agape love is unqualified and unselfish love, love that willingly gives whether it receives in return or not. It is unconquerable benevolence, invincible goodness—love that goes out even to enemies and prays for its persecutors Mt.

Giving of oneself to others is the epitome of agape love. Biblical love is not a pleasant emotion or good feeling about someone, but the giving of oneself for his welfare cf. Divine love is unconditional love, love that depends entirely on the one who loves and not on the merit, attractiveness, or response of the one loved. Christ did not simply have a deep feeling and emotional concern for mankind. Nor did He sacrifice Himself for us because we were deserving.

If we do not get, we do not give. Romantic, emotional love between husband and wife ebbs and flows, and sometimes disappears altogether. But loss of romantic love is never an appropriate excuse for dissolving a marriage, because the love that God specifically commands husbands to have for their wives is agape love Eph.

Titus ; etc. It is the love of giving, not of getting; and even when it ceases to get, it continues to give. Where there is the sacrificial love of willful choice, there is also likely to be the love of intimacy, feeling, and friendship philia Lovelessness is therefore more than a failure or shortcoming. It can only be exhibited by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. A believer has this love divine nature within Col and it is progressively manifest more and more as fruit by the Holy Spirit Ga as we obey God's truth.

Agape love willingly engages in self-sacrificing action to procure the loved one's highest good. Love's perfect expression on earth is the Lord Jesus Christ and He defines this sacrificial love for He left heaven, came to earth, took on a human form, was spit on and mocked, was crowned with a crown of thorns, nailed to a cross, abused, and had a spear thrust into His side.

He loved the church enough to die for her. That's sacrificial love. Donald W. Burdick gives the following excellent summary of agape love - " It is spontaneous Ed: While I agree, it still necessitates a choice to depend on the Spirit to enable me to display this "spontaneity. There was nothing of value in the persons loved that called forth such sacrificial love. God of His own free will set His love on us in spite of our enmity and sin.

It is not bent on satisfying the lover, but on helping the one loved whatever the cost. Nor is it mere words however eloquent. It does involve feeling and may express itself in words, but it is primarily an attitude toward another that moves the will to act in helping to meet the need of the one loved. Chicago: Moody, , page As noted below Barclay has labeled agape as unconquerable benevolence for nothing the other person can do will make us seek anything but their highest good and to never feel bitterness or desire for revenge.

Though the one loved even injure us and insult us, agape will never feel anything but kindness towards him. Agape takes slaps in the face and still gives even as Jesus did saying Father forgive them. Agape is not withheld. That clearly means that this Christian love is not an emotional or sentimental thing. It is the ability to retain unconquerable goodwill to the unlovely and the unlovable, towards those who do not love us, and even towards those whom we do not like. Agape is the badge of discipleship and the landmark of heaven for "By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love agape one for another.

If we regard a person with agape , it means that no matter what that person does to us, no matter how he treats us, no matter if he insults us or injures us or grieves us, we will never allow any bitterness against him to invade our hearts, but will regard him with that unconquerable benevolence and goodwill which will seek nothing but his highest good. In the case of our nearest and our dearest we cannot help loving them; we speak of falling in love; it is something which comes to us quite unsought; it is something which is born of the emotions of the heart.

But in the case of our enemies, agape love is not only something of the heart ; it is also something of the will. It is not something which we cannot help; it is something which we have to will ourselves into doing Ed note: enabled by the Spirit Whose "fruit" in yielded believers is "agape love". It is in fact a victory over that which comes instinctively to the natural man. Agape does not mean a feeling of the heart, which we cannot help, and which comes unbidden and unsought; it means a determination of the mind, whereby we achieve this unconquerable goodwill even to those who hurt and injure us.

Agape , someone has said, is the power to love those whom we do not like and who may not like us. I n point of fact we can only have agape when Jesus Christ enables us to conquer our natural tendency to anger and to bitterness, and to achieve this invincible goodwill to all men.

That love can come to us only when Christ, Who is that love, comes to dwell within our hearts Agape is that quality of mind and heart which compels a Christian never to feel any bitterness, never to feel any desire for revenge, but always to seek the highest good of every man no matter what he may be.

If a man has agape , no matter what other people do to him or say of him, he will seek nothing but their good. Love is mentioned together with faith and hope in 1 Corinthians ; 1 Thessalonians ; Colossians ; Hebrews Gelpke in the Studien und Kritiken for , p.

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance charity, love. From agapao ; love, i. Affection or benevolence; specially plural a love-feast -- feast of charity -ably , dear, love. Surely an inspired text must be full of meaning: we can hardly think that so much as a single word in the Bible is insignificant or dispensable.

True enough. But we must never forget that God has spoken to us in the language of the people. Much of what passes for biblical interpretation, whether in books or sermons, implies that God has used an artificial, coded, or even esoteric language. We must recall this basic principle: the richness and divine origin of the biblical message are not compromised by the naturalness and simplicity of the form in which God has chosen to communicate to us.

Silva Ed. Not that everyone who knows these languages is immune from this temptation! And that role is not usually related to word meaning, but to sentence structure and the flow of argument. Greek and Hebrew study involves more than a mere ability to parse verbs and look up words in a lexicon or concordance or in one of several analytical tools in ways that can be taught in a matter of two to four hours of instruction.

It is the tracing of these connecting points in the syntax of a passage that is so vital in constructing sermons that reflect the original authority of the word of God. I as a Bible teacher try to live by the wisdom in this little point from the late Greek grammarian and seminary professor Rod Decker :.

I often tell my students that if you cannot show a local church audience the meaning of a passage from an English Bible, then you should think twice as to whether you really want to insist on a particular interpretation.

Whereas lovers are both preoccupied with each other, friends are both preoccupied with the same things. Friends, of course, care about one another, but it is similar interests that attract them to one another. Philia is often overlooked in modern culture, but it is exhorted in the Bible.

In Romans , Paul urges the believers to be devoted to one another in brotherly philia. Philia can be strongly associated with agape as well. Agape could be defined as charity. Agape love is unconcerned with the self and concerned with the greatest good of another. Agape requires faithfulness, commitment, and sacrifice without expecting anything in return.

This is the type of love the Bible speaks about the most. The New Testament references agape over times. To the Greeks, proper agape meant a general empathy or lovingkindness for all people. Though in the Bible, Christians are indeed expected to care for all in the name of Christ, Christianity took this a step further. Biblical writers used God as the standard for true agape.