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What Are the Characteristics of Agape Love? (John 3:16 and 1 Corinthians 13)
What are the characteristics of agape love (1 Corinthians 13)? What kind of love is agape? It is unconditional and sacrificial like God's love for man (John 3:16). Read or listen to this chapter from Your Marriage God’s Way to find out.
Table of Contents* Agape Is Unconditional* Hosea Pursuing Gomer* A Modern Day Hosea and Gomer* Agape Is Sacrificial* The Good Samaritan's Agape* Three Ways the Good Samaritan Demonstrated Agape* Agape Is Man's Love for Sin* Agape Love for the World* Agape Is God's Love for Man* Becoming a Father Helped Me Understand Agape
https://youtu.be/N72bIGxpjfk
What are the characteristics of agape love (1 Corinthians 13)? It is unconditional and sacrificial like God's love for man (John 3:16).
How does the world think about love? Cupid comes to mind. As popular culture states, he shoots people with his arrows and they fall in love. Society has also made it “normal” for people to fall out of love because supposedly love is an emotion over which we have no control. It’s as though people are walking along, they trip, and the next thing they know, they’ve developed feelings for someone.
According to this understanding of love, a man could tell his wife that he was at work and he didn’t mean to develop feelings for his coworker. They just kept running into each other in the hallway and the break room, and before he knew it, he “fell” in love with her. A man could also tell his wife, “I’m sorry, but I no longer love you. I don’t know how or when it happened, but I just fell out of love with you.” Feelings come and go, and because so many people today define love as a feeling, they assume that love comes and goes.
The biggest problem with this incorrect understanding is that it completely contradicts the way Scripture presents love (agape - for the Greek). It’s not a feeling or emotion. Agape is a choice, an act of the will. We choose whether we do or don’t love. God can command us to show this kind of love because we do, in fact, have control over it. Two of agape’s characteristics make this clear.
Agape Is Unconditional
Phileo is conditional. Two friends might have phileo for each other because of qualities they share or circumstances that bring them together, but if those qualities or circumstances change, their phileo for each other might also change.
In contrast, agape is unconditional. It is not affected by a person’s actions, looks, or possessions. People might successfully create phileo for someone else by being a better friend, but agape cannot be earned or merited. Nothing can be done to increase or decrease agape. It can only be given. Agape does not demand reciprocation and it is independent of how it is treated in return.
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What are the characteristics of agape love (1 Corinthians 13)? What kind of love is agape? It is unconditional and sacrificial like God's love for man (John 3:16). Read or listen to this chapter from Your Marriage God’s Way to find out.
Table of Contents* Agape Is Unconditional* Hosea Pursuing Gomer* A Modern Day Hosea and Gomer* Agape Is Sacrificial* The Good Samaritan's Agape* Three Ways the Good Samaritan Demonstrated Agape* Agape Is Man's Love for Sin* Agape Love for the World* Agape Is God's Love for Man* Becoming a Father Helped Me Understand Agape
https://youtu.be/N72bIGxpjfk
What are the characteristics of agape love (1 Corinthians 13)? It is unconditional and sacrificial like God's love for man (John 3:16).
How does the world think about love? Cupid comes to mind. As popular culture states, he shoots people with his arrows and they fall in love. Society has also made it “normal” for people to fall out of love because supposedly love is an emotion over which we have no control. It’s as though people are walking along, they trip, and the next thing they know, they’ve developed feelings for someone.
According to this understanding of love, a man could tell his wife that he was at work and he didn’t mean to develop feelings for his coworker. They just kept running into each other in the hallway and the break room, and before he knew it, he “fell” in love with her. A man could also tell his wife, “I’m sorry, but I no longer love you. I don’t know how or when it happened, but I just fell out of love with you.” Feelings come and go, and because so many people today define love as a feeling, they assume that love comes and goes.
The biggest problem with this incorrect understanding is that it completely contradicts the way Scripture presents love (agape - for the Greek). It’s not a feeling or emotion. Agape is a choice, an act of the will. We choose whether we do or don’t love. God can command us to show this kind of love because we do, in fact, have control over it. Two of agape’s characteristics make this clear.
Agape Is Unconditional
Phileo is conditional. Two friends might have phileo for each other because of qualities they share or circumstances that bring them together, but if those qualities or circumstances change, their phileo for each other might also change.
In contrast, agape is unconditional. It is not affected by a person’s actions, looks, or possessions. People might successfully create phileo for someone else by being a better friend, but agape cannot be earned or merited. Nothing can be done to increase or decrease agape. It can only be given. Agape does not demand reciprocation and it is independent of how it is treated in return.