Preface
Normally, this article would directly align with my article submission for the Young Writers Program, managed by Press Services International. This program helps to provide a ready-source of content for the magazine publication Christian Today Australia.
The normal (14th) article is available here. [View the full list of my articles here.] This PSI/Christian Today article is being split into at least two articles, and this is the first – focusing on Love & Relationships.
Love & God
John 13:34 & 35 says “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.”
The above is not just a verse from the Bible, but they are also Jesus’ words of instruction to believers. Jesus referred to the commandment as new because the original and first commandment was explained earlier in Matthew 22:36 & 37: “Teacher, which commandment is the greatest in the Law?”Jesus declared, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
So, if we take these commandments in chronological order, we need to first focus on our relationship with God – loving Him with all our heart, mind and soul. To love God with our heart means to align our inner motivations. To love God with our soul means to love with our external being. To love God with our mind means that our affection is grounded in our thoughts. To love from the heart is relatively easier compared to loving from the soul, which demands a greater level of commitment right to the very core of a person. In totality, heart, mind and soul combine to mean love expressed as both an affection and devotion.
The love we have for God our Heavenly Father will naturally lead us to thinking about the heart of God and how He would want us to live our lives. Love in action for us therefore becomes the love of God working within and through us. God loves the world and the people around us. In this way, loving God has a natural expression in loving others.
But “loving your neighbour” is a simplistic statement and that needs further extrapolation. The application and demonstration of loving one’s neighbour becomes contextual and subjected to local cultures. What does “love” mean?
Love & Science
To a scientist, love could be considered a chemical reaction; the combination of three different parts of the brain working together:
- Lust, is the result of estrogen / testosterone in our bodies.
- Attraction is driven by adrenaline, dopamine, and serotonin.
- Finally, the long-lasting love is governed by oxytocin and vasopressin, which encourages bonding. Oxytocin is known as the cuddle hormone, and is the hormone that drives the bond between mother and child.
Love is the emotion experienced when oxytocin is released in the brain – it induces warm and fuzzy feelings of trust , affection, romance and bonding. Oxytocin, popularly known as the love drug, is produced by the body as a hormone that makes us feel empathy, trust, sexual arousal, and manifests in relationship building.
Love & Bible
When we want to dig deeper in understanding the concepts that the Bible teaches and records, we have to appreciate the original language which the Bible was recorded in. For the Old Testament, Hebrew and for the New Testament, Greek.
So, the English word “love” translates into five different Greek words:
- Eros (the base for words like erotic) – meaning the sexual passionate form of love.
- Philia (the base of words like Philidelphia – the city of brotherly love) – meaning deep friendship or brothership.
- Storge – meaning familial love, between a parent and child.
- Philautia – meaning self-love (this can be healthy or unhealthy)
- Agape – universal, unselfish & charitable love
It is this final form and version of love that is the main focus in the Bible. The nature of God’s love is very much universal. Jesus’ teachings from the beginning of this article are also teachings in the same stride of agape love.
The nature of God as love – perfect love – highlights how both God and love are relational concepts. God as a trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit are in perfect love internally, and demonstrate the perfect relationship.
Love & Marriage
One of the interesting things about marriage is that it has been around since the beginning. As a social construct, we are taught that marriage is actually a partnership not just for a man and woman to become one, but partnership with God. God always intended for His people to have fellowship with Him.
The divine aspect to marriage is interesting given today’s secularisation and usurping of the original intention of marriage. The institution of marriage was a gift to us from God. It may not be explicitly labelled marriage, it is clearly in Genesis chapters 2 & 3. Adam’s need for companionship is part of the way God designed him and us. Adam & Eve make for the prototype of marriage – God was in union in their marriage. The nature and model for Adam to follow in loving Eve was simply how God loved them.
Marriage as a relational contract was more about making and learning to love one another. Marrying for love was a foreign concept in the original design. Instead, marriage was a union where husband and wife would grow in all forms of love for one another. Marriage was the place where it was socially acceptable for the eros form of love to manifest. Consider how far society has diverged from this original design!
A lot more can be said about love and marriage, but we can save that for another time…
Love: A Poem
Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses.
Love is content with the present, it hopes for the future but doesn’t brood over the past. It is the day-in day-out chronicle of irritations, problems, compromises, small disappointments, big victories and working toward common goals.
If you have love in your life, it can make up for a great many things you lack. If you do not have it, no matter what else there is, it is not enough.
Author Unknown.
Summary
The poem was a gift from a former work colleague, given in the lead up to my wedding, now held over a year ago. A lot of the content is great and makes sense. The nature of love is clearly conveyed through the sentiments. Love is both an emotion and action. In one sense, the theory of love allows so much to be written about love. The actual experience of love though is best lived out. To know love is to live it out. To talk or write about love is to limit your understanding. In many ways the whole “God is love” is very true because we can talk about both but to develop a fuller understanding we need to experience and live it out.