1 Corinthians 13:13“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
Surprisingly, my choice in this next topic did not come from the approaching Valentine’s Day holiday. Though stores are now filled with red, pink, and heart decor, candies, and cards, that’s not why I chose to write on the topic of “What is love?” Instead, I felt led to study this topic biblically as I wrestled with different relationships and situations going on in my own life. You see, I know God’s Word has much to say about love and its many forms. Yet even though I have heard those truths before, it can still be so hard to remember how to love well in the midst of trials and conflict. Today’s email is going to be setting the stage for a more in-depth study of biblical love by answering that title question—What is love? I’m going to give you a couple of different answers from the get-go, and then will look more closely at where in Scripture those answers come from.
I believe from looking at the Bible we observe that love is not just a feeling or emotion, but also an action. It is also a characteristic of our God. So what is love? It’s an emotion, an action, and a part of who God is.
Looking first at love as an emotion. Where do we see this in Scripture? We see this emotion or feeling of love expressed in several stories from the Bible. One poetic description comes from King Solomon, who writes about the feeling of love in Song of Songs:
Song of Songs 8:6-7Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm;for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave.It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame.Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away.If one were to give all the wealth of one’s house for love, it would be utterly scorned.
King Solomon here describes how strong and valuable the feeling of love can be. It’s like a seal over our hearts, as strong as death, blazing like a fire, and worth more than all of someone’s wealth. Most of us can’t resist a good love story, and entertainment throughout history depicts the emotion of love as common to mankind. Another example of people feeling romantic love in the Bible is that of Elkanah and Hannah. The Bible tells us how this husband loved his wife dearly:
1 Samuel 1:5-8 But to Hannah he [Elkanah, her husband] gave a double portion because he loved her, and the Lord had closed her womb. Because the Lord had closed Hannah’s womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her. This went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the Lord, her rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat. Her husband Elkanah would say to her, “Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don’t you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?”
I have always loved that story as a sweet example of a faithful husband expressing his love for his wife. Most of us long to have a spouse who feels that strongly about their love for us! But yet understanding love as just a feeling is not enough. Just because Elkanah loved Hannah, didn’t mean they had a perfect love story—they had a hard life because of Hannah’s infertility. And while the rest of 1 Samuel 1-2 goes on to explain how God blessed Elkanah and Hannah with a son, it is still true that feelings of love alone don’t equal a happy ending or satisfaction.
I’m not talking just about feelings of romantic love, either. I want to give one last example of the emotion of love, that of brotherly love or affection that we see in the story of friends, David and Jonathan:
1 Samuel 18:1After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself.
Even though David and Jonathan loved each other, those shared feelings did not lead to a peaceful, happy ending to their story of friendship. Again, feelings of love, while often great and rewarding, do not make the world right.
Those passages all describe the feelings of love that are common between people. We feel romantic love and brotherly love for those we care about and have relationships with in our lives. But love, as explained in the Bible, is so much more than a feeling. It is also an action. Jesus taught that the greatest kind of love was expressed through the action of sacrificing ourselves for others:
John 15:13Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
God demonstrated this truth in how He loves us:
John 3:16For 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.
There are countless other biblical examples of people making a sacrifice for those they love, like Ruth’s love and sacrifice for her mother-in-law Naomi, or Jacob working to prove his love for Rachel. Those human examples are just a reflection of the love God shows His people throughout history. And while they are all beautiful pictures of love in action, no one person can truly love the exact same way God loves, because love is part of who God is.
1 John 4:7-8, 15-16Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love…
If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love...
Love comes from God because God is love, demonstrated by Him giving Himself for us through Jesus Christ—that is perfect love. 1 Corinthians 13, often referred to as the “Love Chapter,” paints a beautiful picture of what God’s love is like:
1 Corinthians 13:4-8Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails…
Can we really understand what that kind of love feels like? With sin in our hearts and in the world around us, the love we feel towards others and God is often so distorted. But one day, we shall truly see and understand God’s great, matchless, undying love! We are promised that at the end of the “Love Chapter” in verses 12-13:
For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
I chose to begin this email with that last verse, and it seems quite fitting to end on that note as well. There really is nothing greater than God’s love, and what hope for the Christian that one day we will get to experience it in full. The love we experience here on earth is a gift, but it’s also only a glimpse of the love we will experience in eternity with Christ our Savior and Lord.
In the rest of this series I want to talk about the characteristics of God’s love and its different forms seen in the Old and New Testament writings. I also will walk through the ways we have been designed and called to love. My prayer is that studying this topic will help me lean more into viewing love the same way God does, and I hope it is a refreshing encouragement to your heart as well. Thank you for joining me in this study by listening or reading to Speaking Truth!
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