What is Love Anyway?

"A love only the branch of a willow tree could conjure."

What is love anyway? ~ Howard Jones

What's love got to do with it? ~ Tina Turner

The Beatles said "All you need is love" - and then they broke up. ~ Larry Norman

In the movie Obsession (full movie review coming soon), Nikki talks about "a love only the branch of a willow tree could conjure". For me as a Jesus-follower, that language gets me thinking about a different tree that conjures and commissions a different kind of love.

So in this post, I want to work through what the Bible teaches about love and eventually attempt a meaningful definition of that love. We'll talk about:

1. Why words matter.

2. Why "love" matters most.

3. What Jesus teaches about love.

4. How that changes everything.

5. Attempting a definition of Christ-like "love".

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1. WHY WORDS MATTER.

   
   

"Words create worlds." ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity, Introduction)

Did you know that your vocabulary - the words you use and your definitions for those words - shapes the structure of your thoughts about a topic? The words we use - usually the words our culture hands us and trains us how to use - can either cloud or clarify our thinking on a topic.

For instance - Russians are faster than non-Russians at distinguishing between different shades of the colour blue. Why? Because in Russian, there are different words for light blue and dark blue. That nudges the mind of a Russian person to pay more attention to blue things. A Russian-speaking person cannot say "Hey, look at that blue car" without knowing which word for "blue" they are going to choose.

"To have a second language is to have a second soul." ~ Charlemagne (c. 748 – 814, att.)

Words don't just communicate stuff "out there", they wire our thinking "in here".

Words are powerful. Which makes sense since Genesis tells us that God created our world through words, speaking everything into existence (Genesis 1). And John's Gospel tells us that those acts of creative speech were actually God creating the world through the Word, who was with and who was God (John 1:1-3, 14). Our universe exists and is held together by, and is ultimately redeemed, rescued, and restored by the Word of God who is Jesus (Colossians 1:15-20).

So this truth should come as no surprise to Christ-followers:

Words create worlds.

Everything I'm talking about is summed up in something called "Linguistic Relativity Theory" (or the "Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis"). It suggests that the words we know and use become the building blocks for our thoughts, or at least ways for us to crystallize our intuitions or sensations into communicable ideas. The idea is debated, but what we all know is that different languages can expand or constrict our ability to communicate certain ideas.

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Implication: the more we broaden our vocabulary, the more we expand our thought-universe. We can think new thoughts when we learn new words.

Christian discipleship, for instance, includes learning new words and new meanings which can unlock new thoughts and new ways of being in this world. Theological words like "Trinity" or "Sovereignty" or "Calvinism/Arminianism/Open Theism" or "Righteousness" or "Theosis" or "Perichoresis" - some of these words may sound like gobbledygook to you, and they did to me too. But when I learned them and their meaning, it was like unlocking a hidden level in a video game. My mental world expanded into new thinking. And now there's no going back.

But like all good things, the world-shaping power of words can be a tool that is used for unhealthy ends if we do not steward our words carefully, biblically, Jesusly. (There I go, making up a word to express a thought.)

So - when I call myself an "idiot", or you call yourself a "victim", or we all call that other guy a "loser", or everybody calls that leader a "monster", we are programming our minds to view reality and define humanity in a certain way.

And there is no word that is more important to get right than the word "love". Understanding real love opens up our minds to seeing new realities, and getting love wrong closes us off and blinds our minds to what is most important.

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2. WHY "LOVE" MATTERS MOST.

   
   

Getting our understanding of "love" right matters because we build our most important relationships on this idea. When we get married we promise to love, honour, and cherish until death do us part. What are we promising? We tell our children that we love them. What are we telling them? The family unit is, apparently, founded on the idea of "love".

Spiritually, at least for Christians, "love" is at the centre of our...

• THEOLOGY. (God is love.)

• ETHICS. (Love God, love neighbour, as we love self.)

• SELF-UNDERSTANDING. (We were made by love, for love, to love.)
  

And here is where Jesus really steps up to the microphone...

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3. WHAT JESUS TEACHES ABOUT LOVE.

Jesus is the ultimate Love Guru. Everything he teaches, about God, about us, about how we should live, is rooted in the idea of love.

The Bible has a few words that might get translated “love”, but two of the most central are the Hebrew word hesed and the Greek word agapé. Hesed and agapé are Old Testament and New Testament covenantal parallels. Together, these words describe a love that is loyal, steadfast, trustworthy, merciful, sacrificial, and unconditional.

Here are seven things Jesus taught about love...

1. The dual command - Love God with everything you've got, and love your neighbour as yourself - sums up the whole Hebrew Bible.

‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” ~ JESUS (Matthew 22:37-40)

2. The Golden Rule - treat others the way you want to be treated - is another way of summing up the entire Hebrew Bible.

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. ~ JESUS (Matthew 7:12)

3. Jesus-followers should go beyond what is in seed form in the Old Testament (Exodus 23:4-5; Proverbs 25:21) to full-blown, always-chosen enemy-love.

Love your enemies: do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. ~ JESUS (Luke 6:27-28; cf. Matthew 5:43-48; Luke 6:27-36)

4. Jesus-followers should go beyond the Golden Rule to the Platinum Principle - loving one another in the way Jesus has loved us. So Jesus not only teaches about love, he shows us what divine love looks like. And he reminds us, we can only pass on what we have first received.

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. ~ JESUS (John 13:34-35; cf. 1 John 4:19)

5. Ultimately, God shows us what his love looks like through Jesus.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ~ JESUS (John 3:16)

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. ~ The apostle John (1 John 3:16)

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ~ The apostle Paul (Romans 5:8)

6. We love Jesus by following his teaching.

Anyone who loves me will follow my teaching. ~ JESUS (John 14:15, 21, 23; 15:10)

7. Self-sacrifice for the good of another is the greatest love.

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ~ JESUS (John 15:13)

Note: Jesus says "friends" here, because he is addressing his friends, his disciples. But as the apostle Paul notes in Romans 5, Jesus also died for his enemies, and thereby made us his friends.

8. Notice that Jesus always directs his love and our love toward persons, not things. In the New Testament, the agapé family of words words are used over 300 times, and almost always relate to persons. Sometimes it relates to things, and in those cases it is usually disordered and destructive (Luke 11:43; John 3:19; 12:43; 2 Timothy 4:10; 2 Peter 2:15; 1 John 2:15; Revelation 22:15). To be abundantly thorough, there are a few times where agapé has positive non-personal uses: referring to loving righteousness (Hebrews 1:9) and loving Christ's appearing (2 Timothy 4:8), loving the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:10); and loving life (1 Peter 3:10). Loving something is possible, but loving someone is the primary goal.

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4. HOW THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING.

   
   

Notice Jesus commands love. This suggests that love is deeper than mere emotion. We can't command feelings. Emotions are responders, not acts of the will. Love must be something more than a feeling.

Love is not always doing what makes us FEEL good;

Love is doing what IS good, sometimes in spite of how we feel.

Emotions are like a thermometer. They go up or down in response to their environment. That environment may be external circumstances or internal mental monologue, thoughts, ruminations. I can't choose to feel sad, but I can choose to think about dead puppies and that will make me feel sad.

Love, on the other hand, is like a thermostat. It sets the temperature and then affects the environment around it. Love listens to our emotions, but it doesn't let them lead.

Much of what we call "love" today is actually projection: we project what we want onto a person or a relationship and let our hearts love that. We end up bonding with a fantasy we have created, a need we have nurtured, or a preferred version of someone and how that makes us feel.

This is clearly what Bear is doing with Nikki in the movie Obsession.

Real love looks outward and allows another person to exist beyond our script for them.

Love is expressed through:

• Goodwill always

• Action when needed

• Affection when possible

• Intimacy when appropriate

We need a love in line with what we see on that tree two thousand years ago. A love only the cross could conjure. A love defined, not by self-protection nor self-projection, not by self-indulgence but by self-sacrifice.

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5. ATTEMPTING A DEFINITION OF CHRIST-LIKE "LOVE".

I have found that, as I try to synthesize what I have learned about love into a single, short definition, my understanding of love has necessarily sharpened.

Wanna try? First let's look at what others have said about love.

Philosophers from Aristotle to Aquinas have argued that real love is the wish, the wanting, and the will for the good of a person. This includes really seeing them, enjoying their existence, and honouring their value. They locate love in the will, not the emotions.

Here are a few of my favourite ideas about love that I've learned from others...

Iris Murdoch, a British philosopher, says: "Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real." That says a lot. Love means relating to people, not as extras in the movie of me, but as real and as indispensable as I am to the story of this world.

Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck defined love as: "The will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth." His definition has been influential for many theologians, authors, and practitioners, including bell hooks, who has written extensively on it.

The theologian Paul Tillich says: "Love is the drive towards the unity of the separated." Oooh. This definition sure applies to what it means to live in this messed-up world. Love is the undoing of the relational ruptures caused by sin.

And the apostle Paul gives us an extended description (not a definition) of love in 1 Corinthians 13 - always important to compare our definition of love alongside.

Okay now it's our turn. You go first! Just remember...

In order to define biblical love (hesed/agapé), there are a few needed qualifications. Whatever our definition of biblical love is, it will need to conform to the following facts of Scripture:

• Love describes the actual essence of God, since "God is love" (1 John 4).

• Love can be chosen, not just felt, since Jesus commands us to love.

• Love can be directed from us toward God, from and to within the Godhead, and from God toward us.

• Love can be directed toward friends, family, and strangers.

• Love can be directed toward ourselves.

• Love can even be directed toward enemies.

• Love expresses an attitude/orientation of value/honour/esteem, since the apostle Paul says it is possible to act lovingly without actually loving (1 Corinthians 13).

• Love is should be directed toward persons, not objects or experiences (pets are a grey zone, but my dog is definitely a "person").

Okay, I recommend taking some time now to try to articulate your own single sentence definition of love that tries to take all of this into account. It doesn't matter so much that we get it perfect. I'm convinced that the attempt itself is good for us. The mental work to fashion a functional definition requires us to focus our minds on love in ways that just reading about love could not achieve.

So let's do it. This is time well spent. Go for it. I'll wait.

Tick-tock tick-tock. (I obviously don't know what sound sand makes.)

Did you fashion a definition? I'd so like to learn it! Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Okay my turn. Here are a couple of attempts at working out my understanding of biblical love. I'll give a definition first, then explain it:

Love is the wholehearted will to work for the wellbeing of a person in view of their worth.

Let's break that down:

• Wholehearted will: We always want to grow in love, to love like God loves. For God, his will is always in line with his desire. He doesn't love us by gritting his teeth and forcing himself to. God chooses love because God wants to love because God is love. God loves us according to his own nature, like a mother with her newborn (Isaiah 49:15). This is the love we aspire toward, even though we sometimes need to choose love as pure will while our feelings catch up. Closing that gap is part of the joy of sanctification and God is completing that work in us (Philippians 1:6).

• Work: Love expends energy; love takes effort; love is joyful labour.

• Wellbeing: Love is committed to what is best for the beloved.

• Person: Love is meant to be experienced and expressed toward persons, not objects.

• Worth: Love sees the inherent value of the beloved. God is the ultimate good and worthy of our love. And humans are made in God's image and likeness, and therefore inherently worthy of esteem and honour.

Remember...

• Goodwill always

• Action when needed

• Affection when possible

• Intimacy when appropriate

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CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Love always honours the beloved because of their intrinsic value. Love always honours persons as ends in themselves and never uses them merely as means.

Bear, on the other hand, uses Nikki to get the romance he wants.

Love takes energy and effort.

Bear is too passive, too morally lazy, to love well.

Love is best invested in someone, not something.

Bear thinks he loves Nikki, but he really loves the idea of being with Nikki. He loves his own projection of who he wants Nikki to be, not the person herself.

As the movie shows, Bear confuses love and romance, and everyone around him suffers for it. (Even his cat.)

With God's help, may we all learn a little more every day what it means to love like Christ. Thanks for joining me on this journey. And remember to look for a full theological review of the movie Obsession coming soon to this site and over at Black Sheep Bible Study.