To Love or Not To Love...Some Clarification

I want to apologize to anyone who I might have offended with my previous post "To Love or Not to Love." When I wrote that post, I was frusterated with things I had been hearing amoung people my age, and the media concerning the word 'love.' I expressed my feelings without evaluating them. I should have turned to God's Word to see what He had to say about love. Afterall, God created love, right? Therefore, it must be beautiful (if it is properly communicated.) Earlier this week I looked at what God had to say about 'love.' I looked at two different types of love, some of the information is nothing new while other pieces were thought provoking:

Jesus commanded that we first and foremost love the Lord:

"Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One
of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: "Teacher, which is
the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love
the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your
mind.' " Matthew 22:34-37

WARNING! I am going to ramble here, but what I have to say is still interesting (it just doesn't have much to do with love.) I give you permission to skip the next couple of paragraphs (in blue) if you are compelled to do so.

Last week I translated the verse above from latin to english. This verse in latin is the following:

"Ille respondens dixit, 'Diliges Dominum Deum tuum ex toto carde tuo, et ex toto anima tua, et ex amnibus viribus tuis, et ex amni mente, tua et proximum twum sicut te ipsuni.' "

Translated to english it reads:

"He answering said, 'you shall love the Lord you God out of your whole heart, and out of your whole soul, and out of your whole strength, and out of your whole mind, and your neighbor as yourself.' "

I experienced my first "benefit" from studying latin while translating this verse. The word used in the passage for "mind" also translates to thoughts and intentions. Thus, we are commanded to love the Lord "with all your mind, thoughts, and intentions." How powerful!

OK- enough of my ramblings! Back to the main focus of this post...

Jesus commanded us to "love" in these verses. The greek word for love used here is agapao. Agapao means to love in a social or moral sense. I encourage you to look up the definition for moral. It made me feel overwhelmed, and ashamed; as much as I love the Lord, it is not the the full extent to how I am instructed to love Him. You can see the defintion here . I thought about including the definition, but my dad always says, "If you look it up, you own it." I desire for you to own this definition.

Furthermore, Christians are commanded to love their spouse.

"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church
and gave himself up for her." Ephesians 5:25

"Each of you must also love his wife as he loves himself." Ephesians 5:33

"They can train the youngest women to love their
husbands." Titus 4:2

Here is where I found it to get interesting...

In the first two versus, directed to the husbands, the word agapao is used again. Husbands are to love their wives in a social or moral sense, just as they are to love the Lord. In the last verse, directed to the wives, the greek word used is philandros. Philandros means to love your husband tenderly. So, in a marriage there should be a moral love and a tender love. Amazing.

Lastly, I would like to clarify that I will (prayerfully) love my husband the way God intended. I hope this straightens some things out, I truly did not intend to offend anyone.

-C