The world likes to speak about love. And yet, for all of the conversation and focus, the world has develop into more divided and hateful in some ways. Perhaps the world has the incorrect definition of affection. Or no consistent one which works. The world defines love in some ways. Some consider it’s an emotion driven by passion or chemistry. Others see love as a deeper commitment built on trust and shared goals. Many have a look at love as a option to bring personal happiness and growth.
Hollywood portrays love in dramatic ways, linking it to big gestures and intense emotions. In literature, the romance genre stays the preferred and profitable by far. While opinions vary, these ideas of affection carry an incredible influence on our culture, relationships, and societies. As the one who created humanity, God knows best what love is, or at the very least what he designed it to be. And because it’s such a very important topic around the globe, Scripture has a terrific deal to say about love. What does the Bible say about love?
What Does the Old Testament Say about Love?
The Old Testament explains love as the first a part of God’s nature and the way he relates with people. Love is expressed as an motion, through commitment, often revealed through God’s covenants and the way he stays faithful with people no matter their behavior. The predominant Hebrew word for love is ahavah— a mixture of affection, loyalty, and devotion.
From the start, we see God’s love as motivation for his will and plans. Deuteronomy 7:7-8 expresses how God selected Israel not due to their greatness but due to his love and faithfulness. His love led to a covenantal promise, not based on human ability but on his work. Later, God speaks through a prophet in Jeremiah 31:3: “I even have loved you with an everlasting love; subsequently, I even have drawn you with lovingkindness.” By the time of Jeremiah, God had revealed his patience and correction through generations of idolatry and riot. Yet he continually declared his love and redemption.
God shows his love through times of mercy and provision. He rescues Israel from Egyptian slavery and sustains them within the wilderness, providing manna, water, protection, and guidance. He loves his people even after they rebel. In Hosea, God compares his like to a husband looking for his unfaithful wife, showing his commitment to redemption and restoration.
Even within the Law, love stands on the core of individuals’s commitment to God, because it’s his motive for us, as well. Moses says in Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your strength.” Love for God isn’t emotion alone but a lifestyle keeping his commandments out of affection and adoration.
Since God loves all people, our love for him should end in caring for what’s essential to him, us, and others. The Lord commands in Leviticus 19:18, “Love your neighbor as your love yourself.” In the Old Testament, this neighbor love includes justice, fairness, kindness to foreigners and the vulnerable, including widows and orphans. Proverbs also teaches about love in friendships, marriage, and general family, looking for good for others.
God desires the everlasting best for all people, so he corrects those he loves. Proverbs 3:12 reveals this with, “For the Lord disciplines those he loves, just as a father disciplines the son in whom he delights.” The Heavenly Father’s end goal isn’t punishment but guidance to really and humbly loving God and others.
What Does the New Testament Say about Love?
Not surprisingly, Jesus and the New Testament point to like, as well. Jesus and the apostles declare love as the muse and evidence of grace and faith.
God’s love is most clearly seen through the Lord Jesus Christ. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shouldn’t perish but have everlasting life.” God didn’t simply sit up in heaven and emotionally love us, and he acted through radical sacrifice, the very best he had, his Son, for our redemption. Additionally, his love didn’t rely on what we deserved. Our sins deserve punishment, but he offers salvation through his love. “But God demonstrates his own love for us on this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). In revealing the Father’s love for us, Jesus describes it as personal and tenacious. In Luke 15, Christ teaches with parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son, how God seeks and saves the lost, rejoicing over redemption.
Jesus also commands his followers to like others as he has loved them. While the Old Testament says to like others as ourselves, Jesus gives a latest standard. “A latest commandment I provide you with: Love each other. As I even have loved you, so you will need to love each other. By this, everyone will know that you simply are my disciples.” Christ is the model and latest standard for the way his disciples love others. Since Jesus loved us once we were still sinners, enemies of God, Jesus teaches us to “Love your enemies and pray for many who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). Therefore, love goes beyond what makes us glad within the moment or what feels good.
Just as with the Old Testament, Jesus and the apostles teach love through motion (1 John 3:18). Christians love through forgiveness, generosity, charity, and serving others. Love makes Christian disciples and the people of the world the priority (Philippians 2:3-4), being humble and self-sacrificial for his or her everlasting good.
How Does 1 Corinthians 13 Clarify God’s Love?
The apostle Paul, in his correction to the Corinthian church, writes a famous passage in regards to the nature of God’s love. He uses the Greek word agape, which was a Greek word with a broad meaning. He clarifies and uses it to explain God’s divine love and character. Greek words for love in several forms—eros (romantic), philia (friendship), and storge (family). Paul redefines agape for Christians to grasp God’s love.
Paul teaches that divine love is the best virtue, greater than faith and hope. Without love, nothing matters, not spiritual gifts, academic knowledge, and even powerful faith. Even acts of generosity and sacrifice develop into vain aside from love since the motive of God’s love is the muse of what lasts eternally.
Paul reveals divine love as patient and type. It’s not jealous, boastful, or proud. Unlike human love, God’s love endures all things, remaining despite human failures, as he showed again and again with Israel and humanity. Agape love isn’t selfish or easily angered. God’s love doesn’t enjoyment of evil or sin but rejoices with the reality. God’s love at all times results in living right. God’s love is everlasting, and acting from God’s love will last into eternity.
What Does it Mean That God Is Love?
The apostle John tells us that God is love (1 John 4:8). Love isn’t one in all God’s attributes. Love doesn’t exist aside from God, as if God must behave to satisfy an external standard of affection. However, for the reason that world has give you their very own definitions of affection, they often judge God accordingly, as if he’s not living as much as their standard.
But God doesn’t do loving things because he’s conforming to a separate standard. He is the source and definition of affection. Therefore, his every thought, word, and selection reveals like to us, consistent together with his character like holiness, justice, and faithfulness. His love motivates him to create, redeem, and supply life. After the Fall of humanity through Adam and Eve, God’s love leads him to avoid wasting sinners relatively than abandon them. He called Abraham, brought Israel to the promised land, and sent prophets to Israel to point out his love.
What Does God’s Love Mean for Us?
Understanding God’s love changes the way in which we live and calls us to share his love with the world.
Since God is love, we understand love through our relationship with him. Many seek for love in things like people, success, or temporary happiness. However, true love will only be present in God. He created us for a relationship with him, and without it, we are going to seek love in ways in which can’t fulfill us. Our ideas of affection should be corrected and altered through our relationship with him—his voice, his guidance, his commands. It takes our humility to learn his ways relatively than the world’s, but we shall be transformed by such renewing of our mind (Romans 12:2). Through Christ and the Spirit, we experience the fullness of the Father’s love, which heals, teaches, and restores us.
As we understand God’s love for us, we learn to have the Father’s heart for others. He loves through us, the Spirit helping us be sacrificial, patient, and forgiving. Without God, our love shall be emotional and selfish. But once we abide in him, walking within the Spirit, we love as he does in grace, faith, and everlasting hope. The everlasting hope now we have seeks the heavenly good for all people. God’s love doesn’t ignore sin but invites others to salvation. 2 Peter 3:9 says, “The Lord is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come back to repentance.” True love points people to Christ since he will even teach and show them his love and transformation.
As Jesus got here to earth and preached the Gospel, making a way for reconciliation to the Father, and he has develop into our model, we also share it with others. Jesus commissions his disciples in Matthew 28:19: “Go and make disciples of all nations.” We preach the Gospel through our words and actions—serving, forgiving, and giving generously for everybody’s good.
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