February 9, 2003
By Jack Price

With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at this time, it is worth taking note of the passing of a very important person just a few days ago, a death that almost went unnoticed. Larry La Prise, the man who wrote “The Hokey Pokey” died peacefully at the age of 93. The most traumatic part for his family turned out to be getting him into the casket. They put his left leg in – and then the trouble started….

I love the Hokey Pokey. Well, maybe love is too strong a word for it. I mean I like it and enjoy it sometimes. The word “love” can refer to so many different emotions. Just listen to the responses of a group of 4-8 year olds to the question “What does love mean?”

• “When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore, so my grandfather does it for her all the time….”
• “When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your name is safe in their mouth.”
• “Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.”
• Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.”
• “Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more.
• “Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.”
• “Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday.”
• “I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.”
• “When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.”
• “You really shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.”

This Friday is Valentine’s Day, the now traditional holiday in our culture to share love. By the way, just in case I don’t see you Friday, I just wanted to say, “I love you.” (response – “I love you.” Now what do you mean by that? What do I mean by that?

Love means many different things. When it comes to life and relationships, and to faith, perhaps surprisingly it remains for theologian and popular singer Tina Turner to ask the cogent question: “What’s love got to do with it? (…got to do with it?) Even a cursory reading of the New Testament indicates this idea of “love” is pretty important to Christian faith. Love seems to have a lot “to do with it.” (to do with it) “Beloved, let us love one another for love is of God, …for God is love.”

What exactly are we talking about when we say “God loves you” or “I love you, Lord” or “We love each other” or “Love your neighbor”? In 1 John 4: 7-8, love means knowing God. In First Corinthians chapter thirteen, we know that Paul was writing to a group of believers who were squabbling over which “spiritual gifts” were the best, the most important. In response to their squabble Paul writes the famous chapter on love: “love is patient, kind, not envious or boastful, not arrogant or rude, does not insist on its own way, it not irritable or resentful. C. S. Lewis examined the four different kinds of love in his book aptly titled The Four Loves. I intend to apply Tina Turner’s burning hermeneutical question to God’s relationship with us, our relationship with God, and our relationships with each other, to ask – “What’s love got to do with them?” (got to do with them).

The Greek language provides four different words for the emotions we call “love.” This does not even include stuff we just like a lot such as candy, or our “love of nature” or “love of country.” There are four loves having to do with relationship. Each of the four loves is significant and worth distinguishing from the others. You may find your own relationships enhanced by your awareness of how different love is when distinguished from love, or from love, and, of course, from love. Before look at “the four loves,” remember that all our loving can be done either as gift or out of a sense of need.

The first distinction to consider is “gift love.” This is a way of talking about human love that most closely resembles divine love. It gives because it desires to give, selfless, wanting to meet the needs of the one you love. “Gift love” is a great love, a lot like God’s love. When our love is characterized by “gift love,” we are most like God.

Paradoxically, this is also when we are farthest from approaching God. The temptation, when we rise to the level of gift-love, is pride – pride in selflessness and a oneness with God, or even pride in being humble, or pride in confessing we lack humility. Since, we are not God, our approach to God rests on realizing our total need for God’s grace. This is the distinction of “need-love.”

“Need-love” is the very human form of love based on our own needs. In our need, we least resemble God’s divine love, God who needs nothing from us and whose total desire is to give us what we need. In our “need-love,” we are least like God, yet paradoxically we are closest in approach to God, in an appropriate posture to come before the Spirit of Life itself. So, keep these two distinctions of “Gift-love” and “Need-love” in mind because they apply to all the forms of human love.

The Greek language has four different words for our one English word “love.” Storge is perhaps best translated “affection.” It includes the feelings of parents for their children, of children for their parents, and of many other affections including that of people for their pets. The “gift-love” of the parent relates to the need-love of the child. Young children need parental care, protection, and nurture. Their love is completely need-based. Parents are drawn by this need and motivated by their own need to give care, protection, and nurture. The focus of affection is on the needs of the one loved and the needs of the lover to give love. Affection does not distinguish the worthiness of the object of love or even its species.

Affection is the most common form of love. It is present and helps to mitigate the other forms of love, but affection cannot sustain a deep relationship alone. It is prone to jealousy and holds the false promise of living “happily ever after.”

Philos is the Greek word meaning “friendship.” Friendship is the form of human love based on a shared common interest. The image of Philos love is of two or more people standing side by side with a focus on something outside the relationship itself. People in the relationship of friendship tend to “pull away” from the world. For this reason, friendship can be somewhat exclusive even though its circle is strengthened by the addition of new friends. Within a community of faith, friendship is a powerful form of relationship that also holds the danger of exclusive cliques.

Eros is the Greek word for the state of being “in love.” It arises from the biological process of attraction. In its true form, Eros transforms the need-love of sexual attraction to an appreciative “gift-love” toward the beloved. Eros is often associated with eroticism. Ironically, what erotic generally means to us has more to do with satisfying personal feelings associated with being aroused sexually. Erotic literature and other media in our culture has more to do with scratching an emotional itch than with Eros. Sexual desire points to the self while Eros points to the beloved. Eros means being in love when one’s thoughts, feelings, and very existence are directed toward the beloved. True Eros focuses on the other, the beloved.

Agapé is translated in King James’ English by the word “charity.” It is the human form of love that most closely reflects God’s love. Agapé is “Gift-Love” that recognizes the other’s need. It is of agapé that the apostle Paul writes “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”

Charity is the love that brings the other loves to the fullness of their potential. It reminds even lovers in the passion of Eros of a greater lover, of a passion to love even the unlovable around us, of a passion to seek the beloved within our own souls. Charity brings to the love of friendship a recognition that true love is always unearned and freely given, that true love loves the unlovable. Charity gives height and depth, a sense of justice, common sense, and decency to the humble feelings of affection. Charity is God’s love working to enhance the human loves and enabling us to love even the unlovable with the gift-love of God.

Our human loves, love for each other, includes all four of the loves, often in combination. They reflect God’s love, but they are not the same thing as God’s love. When human love rises to its highest and purest, we begin to see the outline of the Creator. But in that same moment, in the instant we recognize that our ability to love has grown to be more like God’s, we risk believing that God loves us because we are intrinsically worthy of that love, that we earn our salvation.

It is said that there are two things you can know for sure in life – 1. there is a God and 2. it’s not you. God is other than we are. The love of God is totally selfless and totally giving, unlike ours. God did not create out of a need for friendship. God created out of a desire to give life and share love. God loves the same way, not out of need, but totally out of desire to give us what we need. We are not that way, but God can work in us and love through us to transform our human love more and more into God’s “gift-love.”

The human loves that translate into eternity are those touched by God, redeemed with divine love. When love is patient and kind; not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude, when love does not insist on its own way; is not irritable or resentful, does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth, when love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things, [then] love never ends.” So now, “Beloved, let us love one another for love is of God and everything who loves is born of God and knows God, for God is love.” “…And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”