A Generational Test for America’s 250th
Lauren Cooley
I was speaking to a congregation in Indiana, sharing a bit of my history as a former gay activist who had come to Christ, when a woman seated to my left abruptly stood and shouted, “Love is love! Love is love!”
Security ushered her out and I continued without much distraction. But her outburst left me wondering, not for the first time, what on earth that saying was supposed to mean. More to the point, what was her point? Surely, she didn’t think anyone in that sanctuary would deny that love is love, any more than they’d deny water is wet. Yet she’d made her proclamation like it was something we hadn’t considered, or perhaps something for which we needed a reminder.
If we had been in a conversation rather than the middle of a sermon message, I’d have listened to her politely, waited for her to finish, then answered, “Copy that. Love is love. Now, can I respectfully ask what your point is?”
The application and meaning of the word “love” would, I assume, have everything to do with her answer. How the word gets applied and how it’s defined both seem to provide the rationale behind the “love is love” argument.
Two long-held assumptions have been that it describes a particularly intense emotion (definition) and that the emotion alone may or may not justify its expression (application).
With this understanding of application, I could love someone deeply and intensely. But the person I love, however deep my love for her or him, might also be someone with whom I cannot legitimately be intimate. It could be my neighbor’s wife whom I’ve fallen in love with, and my love may be strong. But the biblical and commonly held prohibitions against adultery would keep my love from turning into a green light for sex because, however deep it may be, love cannot sanitize an adulterous relationship.
But that was then. Now, in an era when meanings and applications are forever evolving, standards must follow suit. The existence of love, once considered good but not the final deciding factor, now determines the rightness of a relationship. If I love you and you love me, love sanctifies our union. Never mind whether we are married or unmarried, homosexual or heterosexual, monogamous or polygamous. If love is present, it’s all good.
But that application raises questions about the definition of love itself.
Agreeing on the importance of love is a good starting point. Then we can explain how a biblical worldview provides the best example of it, and a succinct, workable description of it as well.
Agreeing on the importance of love is a good starting point. Then we can explain how a biblical worldview provides the best example of it, and a succinct, workable description of it as well. Here are five points we can make when doing so.
First, we can explain “created intent.”
As Christians, we believe we are created, not evolved or accidental. Few could argue against the logic of assuming that if a house, meal, or work of art exists, it must have been created. We can further recognize that if we were created, we were created with intention, since no one creates something without a purpose in mind. This is essential to understanding the Judeo-Christian worldview.
Second, we can point to “authoritative revelation.”
It’s also logical to believe that our Creator not only has intentions for us, but also wants those intentions known by us. The wisdom of an inspired, authoritative document becomes clearer when we remember that manufacturers provide user manuals, corporations provide bylaws, and managers provide employee handbooks, since people want those under their authority to know what’s expected of them.
Plainly put, the Creator inspired authors to record, among other things, His intentions for His Creation so they wouldn’t have to guess what those intentions are. The concept that all Scripture is inspired by God (2 Tim. 3:16) becomes all the more practical in light of this.
Third, we find three forms of love explained in that document, all of them good, with one the best: “agape love.”
Erotic/romantic love (eros) is not named as such, but is described throughout both Testaments (1 Cor. 7:5; Heb. 13:4; Song of Solomon throughout). Eros includes erotic responses and romantic passion, both of which we celebrate as God-ordained within the covenant and safety of heterosexual, monogamous marriage (Matt. 19:5-6). Brotherly or family love (phileo) is referred to as deep affection and regard (Matt. 10:37; Jn. 20:2) and best describes both a feeling and a bond. God’s love, and godly love as well, are biblically defined as agape.
Fourth, we observe that eros and phileo are good only under the authority of agape.
When erotic love occurs outside God’s will (the covenant of marriage) the results range from destructive (as Paul noted when he described fornication as a sin against one’s own body in 1 Cor. 6:18) to disastrous (as David found when his eros for Bathsheba overrode his principles in 2 Sam. 11). Likewise, when brotherly love is prioritized above God’s will, it becomes a hindrance to divine priorities (as Jesus noted when he said that even family love should not override devotion to God, see Matt. 10:37).
Finally, we see that agape seeks what is in its object’s best interest.
God so loved the world that he did more than cuddle it, or be “nice” to it. Instead, his love spoke to the need of the world—salvation—so he gave his Son (Jn. 3:16). To love is thereby not just to feel, or express affection. To love is to give what is in the best interest of the object of love.
In it, we see that agape contains affection (1 Cor. 13:4) but prioritizes truth (2 Cor. 13:6). To love as God loves, then, is to desire above all else that the person we love be living within his truth. Agape without truth is no agape at all.
To love as God loves, then, is to desire above all else that the person we love be living within his truth. Agape without truth is no agape at all.
Answering questions of definition and application raises the broader question of stewardship. If agape love is something we’re to be known and guided by, and if such love is marked by a desire for the people we love to walk in truth, then what are we to do with that desire? Communicate it.
The Great Commission (Matt. 28:16-20) is all about communicating the good news of salvation to the unsaved, the full counsel of God to the saved (Acts 20:27) and a prophetic appeal to the culture (Prov. 1:22). If we love, we communicate.
Paul said, “Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful” (1 Cor. 4:1-2, KJV). Stewards are entrusted with something, and at some point have to give an account to the one who entrusted them with it. Christians are, among other things, stewards of truth.
Editor’s Note: This article is an excerpt of Joe Dallas’ chapter, “Love Is Love!,” in the book, 10 Lies of a Culture In Chaos: What You Believe Matters, published by Coral Ridge Ministries.
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