Questions About Love

Kit Sigmon · Apr 14, 2018

In many scriptures the agape form of love be the main one...such as how you
are to agape(love) your spouse, children, others.
Agape appears more than two hundred times in the NT.
Phileo(brotherly love) is appears more than fifty times in the NT.
Eros doesn't appear in the NT.

In the OT hesed be used...the kind of love that is promised and is owed, a mutual exchange of affection and loyalty based on mutual obligations, love formed in the bonds of covenant.
When the Hebrew word hesed be used of human relationships, it means union and loyalty, like in the context of a marriage covenant and when used between men or nations, it expressed the covenant bond of a treaty obligation...Genesis 21:27;
1 Samuel 11:1.
When hesed be used to express God's interaction with man, it expresses God's loyalty to His covenant and the blessings and mercy He shows His obedient covenant people as in Exodus 34:6-7.

Agape differs from hesed in that it does not refer to a love already promised to a specific group of people.

Hebrew words which are translated as "love" in the OT are ahab in the masculine and ahabah in the feminine; chashaq; dod; racham...compassionate love.
Ra'yah...sisterly love; reya...brotherly love; chashaq...in love, to be attached to,
to long for.

sources: biblestudytools.com to look up agape, phileo, eros in NT; Hebrew words for love Bible study in OT.

akaDaScribe · Apr 14, 2018

Kit Sigmon said:
In many scriptures the agape form of love be the main one...such as how you
are to agape(love) your spouse, children, others.
Agape appears more than two hundred times in the NT.
Phileo(brotherly love) is appears more than fifty times in the NT.
Eros doesn't appear in the NT.

In the OT hesed be used...the kind of love that is promised and is owed, a mutual exchange of affection and loyalty based on mutual obligations, love formed in the bonds of covenant.
When the Hebrew word hesed be used of human relationships, it means union and loyalty, like in the context of a marriage covenant and when used between men or nations, it expressed the covenant bond of a treaty obligation...Genesis 21:27;
1 Samuel 11:1.
When hesed be used to express God's interaction with man, it expresses God's loyalty to His covenant and the blessings and mercy He shows His obedient covenant people as in Exodus 34:6-7.

Agape differs from hesed in that it does not refer to a love already promised to a specific group of people.

Hebrew words which are translated as "love" in the OT are ahab in the masculine and ahabah in the feminine; chashaq; dod; racham...compassionate love.
Ra'yah...sisterly love; reya...brotherly love; chashaq...in love, to be attached to,
to long for.

sources: biblestudytools.com to look up agape, phileo, eros in NT; Hebrew words for love Bible study in OT.

Wait, so how many different definitions of love are there between the old and new testament?
list please

Neogaia777 · Apr 14, 2018

akaDaScribe said:
Matthew 22

34But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. 35Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, 36Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38This is the first and great commandment. 39And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Deuteronomy 6

4Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: 5And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

QUESTION 1:

Is love a choice?

The simplest definition I've heard for or about Love is: "To care for someone." Or "To care for or about someone or something"...

Think about it...? To "care", simply to "care"... Is that not "love"...?

God Bless!

OldWiseGuy · Apr 14, 2018

Phileo: Affection
Agape: Benevolence

thesunisout · Apr 15, 2018

akaDaScribe said:
Matthew 22

34But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. 35Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, 36Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38This is the first and great commandment. 39And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Deuteronomy 6

4Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: 5And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

QUESTION 1:

Is love a choice?

Yes, love is a choice and not just something we feel. Agape love, which is unconditional love, must persevere through many sins and storms, as Gods love does with us. We don't love based on what we get back, we love because we are commanded to love. That means we have to choose to do it even when we don't want to or feel like doing so.

Neogaia777 · Apr 15, 2018

thesunisout said:
Yes, love is a choice and not just something we feel. Agape love, which is unconditional love, must persevere through many sins and storms, as Gods love does with us. We don't love based on what we get back, we love because we are commanded to love. That means we have to choose to do it even when we don't want to or feel like doing so.

Caring can be a choice or a feeling...

Most of the time a bit of both...

God Bless!

S.O.J.I.A. · Apr 15, 2018

in the context of the OPs scriptural reference in how the term "love" is used it is absolutely a choice as it has nothing to do with your feelings and everything to do with your actions.

love in this context means "to selflessly serve; charity".

luke 10:30-37 is helpful.

akaDaScribe · Apr 15, 2018

hmmmm....

I could see being loving towards people as a choice, but I'm thinking love itself is not a choice.

There must be something we can do to bring about love that we can choose to do.
(could this guy be more obvious that he has a theory? XD)

Neogaia777 · Apr 15, 2018

THE W said:
in the context of the OPs scriptural reference in how the term "love" is used it is absolutely a choice as it has nothing to do with your feelings and everything to do with your actions.

love in this context means "to selflessly serve; charity".

luke 10:30-37 is helpful.

That is love in action, but it begins with simply "caring"...

God Bless!

razzelflabben · Apr 16, 2018

disciple1 said:
1 Peter chapter 4 verse 8
Love covers a great many sins.

Proverbs chapter 10 verse 12
Love covers all wrongs.

The more you help people the greater your reward, the less you help people the less your reward.

When we "Love" for the purpose of reward, it isn't Love at all because the Love God calls us to is a Love whose core is humility not pride. In fact, most people get this wrong...the opposite of Love is not hate but pride.

razzelflabben · Apr 16, 2018

Neogaia777 said:
The simplest definition I've heard for or about Love is: "To care for someone." Or "To care for or about someone or something"...

Think about it...? To "care", simply to "care"... Is that not "love"...?

God Bless!

I would ask how much care...for example, I could care that they don't get killed but nothing more...or I could care that they be saved...or maybe blessed...etc. there are different levels of caring what level is Love?

SolomonVII · Apr 16, 2018

akaDaScribe said:
Matthew 22

34But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. 35Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, 36Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38This is the first and great commandment. 39And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Deuteronomy 6

4Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: 5And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

QUESTION 1:

Is love a choice?

Acting according to love is the choice. That is the practical definition of charity, acting according to love.

To love with the heart involves emotion and feeling too. It is harder to feel something for someone. On the other hand, understanding your own suffering and feeling your own pain makes you cognizant that the suffering and pain in another is the same, even if you do not feel it as strongly in any other as much as you feel it in yourself. This recognition is the basis of empathy, which is more than just a feeling.

disciple1 · Apr 16, 2018

razzelflabben said:
When we "Love" for the purpose of reward, it isn't Love at all because the Love God calls us to is a Love whose core is humility not pride. In fact, most people get this wrong...the opposite of Love is not hate but pride.

razzelflabben said:
When we "Love" for the purpose of reward, it isn't Love at all because the Love God calls us to is a Love whose core is humility not pride.

Galatians chapter 5 verse 6
The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself in love.

I gave up my life to seek a reward, this life is worthless except to know God.

No one can quote one verse in the bible that says, love only not expecting a reward.

God wants to reward his people, but not everyone who says their a Christian is.

akaDaScribe · Apr 16, 2018

disciple1 said:
Galatians chapter 5 verse 6
The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself in love.

I gave up my life to seek a reward, this life is worthless except to know God.

No one can quote one verse in the bible that says, love only not expecting a reward.

God wants to reward his people, but not everyone who says their a Christian is.

Friend,

Experiencing love is the reward.

disciple1 · Apr 16, 2018

akaDaScribe said:
Friend,

Experiencing love is the reward.

akaDaScribe said:
Experiencing love is the reward.

akaDaScribe said:
Friend,

Experiencing love is the reward.

Jesus didn't experience that much love, in this life anyway, there was only about 120 believers in him about the time of his death.

akaDaScribe · Apr 16, 2018

I like to present an understanding that i don't have perfectly, but it still seems worth sharing. The experience of loving someone is not a choice, but taking steps to bring that experience about is a choice. I’m sure there are many different ways to do this, but I would like to share one with you that had a profound impact on my view of love.

When we love people, there is a reason, or there are reasons. We value that person. If we value that person enough we can see the beauty in who that person is. We begin to appreciate the value of that person and it stimulates a degree of delight in that person. If that delight is significant enough, it compels us to demonstrate gratitude for the beauty of the value that the person has just from being that person.

God values everyone. This means that everyone has value. If we actively look for the value in everyone, we begin to value everyone as well. When people feel the love that comes from recognizing their worth, many times they will begin to value you as well. When they do, it begins an escalating positive feeling; a loving experience.

I have more to say, but my son want me to watch something with him and it’s impossible to write about being loving while ignoring my son XD bbl

disciple1 · Apr 16, 2018

akaDaScribe said:
I like to present an understanding that i don't have perfectly, but it still seems worth sharing. The experience of loving someone is not a choice, but taking steps to bring that experience about is a choice. I’m sure there are many different ways to do this, but I would like to share one with you that had a profound impact on my view of love.

When we love people, there is a reason, or there are reasons. We value that person. If we value that person enough we can see the beauty in who that person is. We begin to appreciate the value of that person and it stimulates a degree of delight in that person. If that delight is significant enough, it compels us to demonstrate gratitude for the beauty of the value that the person has just from being that person.

God values everyone. This means that everyone has value. If we actively look for the value in everyone, we begin to value everyone as well. When people feel the love that comes from recognizing their worth, many times they will begin to value you as well. When they do, it begins an escalating positive feeling; a loving experience.

I have more to say, but my son want me to watch something with him and it’s impossible to write about being loving while ignoring my son XD bbl

akaDaScribe said:
When we love people, there is a reason, or there are reasons. We value that person.

Matthew chapter 5 verse 46
If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?

Galatians chapter 5 verse 14
For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

disciple1 · Apr 16, 2018

razzelflabben said:
When we "Love" for the purpose of reward, it isn't Love at all because the Love God calls us to is a Love whose core is humility not pride. In fact, most people get this wrong...the opposite of Love is not hate but pride.

razzelflabben said:
When we "Love" for the purpose of reward, it isn't Love at all because the Love God calls us to is a Love whose core is humility not pride.

What about this, Jesus is saying to look for a reward.
Matthew chapter 5 verse 46
If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?

Galatians chapter 5 verse 14
For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

Neogaia777 · Apr 17, 2018

razzelflabben said:
I would ask how much care...for example, I could care that they don't get killed but nothing more...or I could care that they be saved...or maybe blessed...etc. there are different levels of caring what level is Love?

Caring to the point that you would die for them, when you do not want to die...

John 15:13- “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends."

God Bless!

akaDaScribe · Apr 17, 2018

disciple1 said:
Matthew chapter 5 verse 46
If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?

Galatians chapter 5 verse 14
For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

I'm trying to show you that it is possible to work on loving people by learning to see their value. I am also saying that there is a built in reward to being able to do this because it brings about a loving state of mind. And the feeling of having a loving state of mind has a bit of a euphoria to it.

It does not require that you be loved in return, but it does tend to prompt a connection with most people when they sense they are genuinely valued by you. Many people are compelled to respond positively to it because they value you for seeing them and valuing them.

The more you look for and see the value in individuals, the more you begin to value people in general. When you are more connected with God, this becomes a more natural thing to do because you're already in a loving state of mind.

But when you are not as connected, this same method will help you become more connected with God. We call it praise and worship. What you are really doing is focusing on what you value about God and expressing it to him.

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