Marriage Proverbs: Guidelines for a Happy Relationship (Part 3 of 0)

Guideline Number 2: Making Love Last – Part 3

What do we mean by “Love”?

The fairy tale romance typically tells the story of a boy and a girl attracted to each other with magical passion; enduring some perverse trial, which threatens to destroy them and painfully end their relationship, only to find in the final chap­ter (or the last reel if it is a Hollywood or Lifetime TV movie) that they conquer all and go on to live happily ever after! Unfortunately, in real life almost all the challenges in relationships begin after the fairy tale ends. In Scripture, the term “everlasting love” appears only once — “Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee” (Jer 31:3)1— where the LORD God is speaking of His everlasting love for Israel. It is extremely interesting that in the context of the Jeremiah discourse Israel is metaphorically pictured as an espoused virgin — typifying her betrothal to the LORD made in Sinai whereby God expected His faithful love to be reciprocated (Deut 6:13, 10:20, 11:13, 13:4 and many others). Unfortunately, lifetime faithfulness on the part of both partners in a marriage doesn’t always happen and the odds of a relationship eventually fail­ing in our society are approximately 50-50 judging from recent divorce statistics.2Hence, the burning question facing anyone romantically involved with someone is — will it last?

Before answering that question we first need to consider what exactly do we mean by the word “love”? The English language has often been considered the most expressive mother tongue with comprehensive dictionaries recording definitions of more words, with many shades of meanings, than any other language. However, when it comes to the word “love” the English language is sadly deficient. The word “love” gets used like ketchup, i.e. spread around to compliment almost anything and everything. We use the same word “love” to express our feelings for our favorite sports team (e.g. I love the Jets), our preferred food (pasta!), and our relationships (I love my wife). Surely, these cannot all evoke the same emotional feelings within us — if they do then something is sadly out of line in our relationships. Other languages do a far better job of finding the many shades of meaning involved in one’s emotional and intellectual response to this thing called “love”. For example, in the Italian language there are over 100 different ways to express all the shades of meaning embodied in one’s feelings of “love”.3

In the King James Version (KJV) of the Scriptures the various meanings that can be attached to the word love are obscured because of the limitations of the translators having only one option in the English language. Most readers probably know the New Testament was originally written in Greek and in that language three very important aspects of “love” are expressed by three entirely different root words — eros, philo and agape.4I believe that the meanings of these three words provide a framework for considering how one can tell whether or not “love” will last. Let’s explore these Greek words one at a time.

The word eros5is derived from the Greek god of the same name also known as Cupid in the Roman pantheon. It is obvious from this association that eros is associated with “passion” and “intimacy” in a relationship.

The Greek word philo should also be familiar to us and is associated with the concept of friendship. The word is philo is used by the Apostle Paul in conjunction with the Greek word for “brother” to denote that we need to regard each other with brotherly love, i.e. with deep friendship.6Paul gives an excellent example of this type of love — “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.” (Rom 12:9-10 ESV). (For some other examples see also — 1Cor 16:22, Heb 13:1 among others.) Thus, we can regard this aspect of love as embodied in “friendship”.

The word agape (agapao) is the most frequently appearing word that is translated as “love” in the New Testament. It is used to indicate “unselfish” love, i.e. a love that is totally committed to another. This is the kind of love epitomized in the well-known passage: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 ESV). This is the kind of love the Father extends to us and it is also the type of love he expects us to give to Him. In fact the kind of love a faithful believer should reciprocate to all. This is best illustrated in Mark 12:33: “And to love Him [the Lord God] with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices” (ESV). Agape7thus represents total self-sacrificing commitment in a relationship, in brief, “unselfishness”.

To sum up the above; there are three important aspects of “love” that need to be present in a relationship between man and woman: passion (eros), friendship (philo) and unselfishness (agape). The weight which each of these carries will often be the measure of how successful a relationship can be and whether or not it has the staying power of a lifetime commitment.

Three aspects — all required

A good association between a man and a woman will have roughly equal balance between these three aspects of what we call “love”.

If the liaison is based mainly on “passion” it will certainly fade away with time — it is no more than an infatuation. It is certain that looks fade; flab happens to some, wrinkles to most, hair turns grey and baldness is all too common. Worst of all there is the temptation that, if outward beauty is the only standard for love, then that person will always be seeking to find someone prettier. While passion is an essential element that often initiates a relationship, it is a poor foundation to build a life upon if taken in isolation from all the other attributes that create a true love story (Matt 7:26).

For a relationship to grow, “friendship” is the stimulant (John 15:14). If two people can share honestly and openly their thoughts, dreams, plans, wishes, ideals, likes, dislikes, sorrows, euphoria’s, etc. they are on the way to a good friendship. Unfettered communication is essential to a good relationship. Most people don’t like unpleasant surprises and there is no worse shock that one can endure than to find out that the one we apparently care for has some serious flaw that we abhor. Back in ancient times, when I was going with my beloved, we spent almost a year apart while she was in school some 350 miles away from where I was studying. With no Internet, twitter or cell phone readily available.8There was only one pay phone booth in the college dormitory where I lived with 100 guys wanting to use it every night. Even if I was lucky enough to be able to make a call, after five minutes others were banging on the door to the booth wanting their turn.

After a few weeks of non-communication my very smart mother suggested that when I could come home on weekends I should call Mary and Mom would pay for the phone calls (this was a big deal then given my family’s finances at the time). This was one of the best things that happened for our relationship (plus of course snail mail — which worked but didn’t have the advantage of being interactive). It allowed us plenty of time to discuss many things without the distraction of eros! These days couples have a tremendous advantage in this regard. There are so many relatively inexpensive communication media available that a great deal of dialog can readily be accomplished. Open and honest communication is a good habit to develop if one expects to have a successful lasting relationship. Communication, communication, communication (to mimic the old adage in real estate about “location”) is at the heart of any true friendship and without a doubt one of the main keys to a lifelong love. But it cannot exist without the other important concepts of love.

No matter how hard we try there will always be potholes and bumps along the road in any relationship. A very successful book once had a famous line which stated; love is never having to say you are sorry. Frankly, I personally think that is the silliest thing I ever heard! In fact thinking that way is sure to lead to disillusionment. One young person once said to me that he wouldn’t marry anyone unless they were perfect in every way. My rejoinder was — why would a perfect person want to marry anyone as imperfect as yourself? The key principle here is that true agape love starts with one’s own unselfish desire to please another rather than always expecting the other person to please us. True love is facing up to our mistakes and being willing to say you are sorry and then do something about so it doesn’t keep happening. The Apostle Paul tells us — `.. God shows His love (agape) for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8 ESV). This is how God shows His love for us. He knows we are not perfect and still has reached out to offer us salvation.

The relationship between two people is just like the relationship described in the Roman passage: the ultimate success depends on willing self-sacrifice of both partners. In Philippians we are told `…in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves” (Phil 2:3). If the person you are involved with is always insistent on their way, and that their friends and their interests being paramount, it is a relationship that one should flee. If that person is never sorry and everything is always your fault — find a way out. Better to find out before marriage then after. Agape love is never selfish and always seeks the welfare of others first. That is the type of love that the Lord Jesus Christ offers to us and it is the model we should use in judging whether or not a prospective partner has the love of Christ in him or her.

  1. In the ESV the expression appears twice i.e., in Isa 54:8 where the word “kindness” in AV is translated as “love”. The Hebrew word is not the same in these two passages.
  2. See Article number 1 (Prologue) to this series.
  3. http://italian.about.com/od/vocabulary/a/say-i-love-you-in-italian.htm
  4. There is another Greek word, epithumia, used in the New Testament, which is aptly translated as “lust” not “love”, though sometimes it is mistakenly thought to be related to English concept of love. This word is akin to the feelings David must have had when he first saw Bathsheba — this type of emotion is not a healthy place to start a relationship. Also agapao, which is also translated as love in the AV comes from the root agape and is usually associated with loving in a social or moral sense. Finally, another Greek word that is translated as “love” is storge, which is associated with familial affection. This word does not appear in the New Testament.
  5. Eros is not to be found either in the NT or the Greek OT.
  6. Philadelphia = brotherly love
  7. The distinction between philo and agape is clear in the New Testament, but is not clear either in the Greek Old Testament or in other Greek literature of the time.
  8. None of these communication media existed in the 1950’s in case young people are wondering — they hadn’t been invented yet!