Love is such a simple word, and seems as though
it should have a simple definition; however, this one word carries a lot of
weight with it, and is expressed in different ways. The English language, in
many ways, is inadequate when it comes to the word love. In this essay love
will be defined according to Van Harvey’s book A Handbook of Theological Terms which states: “[agape] signifies
God’s love for man and the love which should bind men to one another,
especially Christians in the Church…the selfless commitment of the love to the
one loved, to the enrichment and enhancement of the beloved’s being. The
Christian believes such an agape is made manifest in Jesus Christ, in whom God
gives himself to man.”
Over the years I have come to discover what love means to me through personal experience, scriptures, reason, and my theology. There have been countless times I have questioned my faith, and my theology, God’s love is what has kept me from walking away. It has prevailed through the lack of love I have received from some Christians, and personal demons that have tried to knock me down. Love has shaped my theology for the better, and should be a lens for every Christian’s theology.
Within Christianity we speak of love constantly and rightly so. 1 Corinthians is known as the “love chapter” because of its claims with love and how it is greater than faith and hope, Paul states that without love we are nothing. We constantly sing songs proclaiming God’s love for us, and ours for Him; yet, our theology and lives are not always cohesive with the words we sing and read in the Bible. In Dr. Tom Oord’s book The Nature of Love: A Theology he states: “if love is the center of the biblical witness and the core of Christian experience, it should be the primary criterion for theology. Love should be the orienting concern and continual focus for speaking systematically about theology. We should discard ideas or theories that undermine love.” In order to have a theology of love one must know what love is. This is difficult because while the Bible tells us to love it does not give us an actual definition of love. Jesus is our most clear revelation of God and what love is, and he does not give a clear or sufficient definition. Jesus lived a life of love through his words, and actions, he spoke of love, and told parables about love, but there is still no place in scripture where there is a simple definition of what love is. If the bible itself does not give a clear definition then should we give love a definition? Yes, because if we were to not seek and find a sufficient definition the word gets lost in a list of what love might be and what is might not be, theologically we could get stuck going in a circle or limit love to just actions we read of in the scriptures. Dr. Oord offers a definition to help Christians grasp what love is without limiting the word. His definition is “to love is to act intentionally, in sympathetic/empathetic responses to God and others, to promote overall well-being.”
While I agree with Dr. Oord’s definition, but I believe that it needs to be read and looked at on a deeper level, and one cannot simply go off of the words used but must also look into what the definition is truly stating.
Over the years I have come to discover what love means to me through personal experience, scriptures, reason, and my theology. There have been countless times I have questioned my faith, and my theology, God’s love is what has kept me from walking away. It has prevailed through the lack of love I have received from some Christians, and personal demons that have tried to knock me down. Love has shaped my theology for the better, and should be a lens for every Christian’s theology.
Within Christianity we speak of love constantly and rightly so. 1 Corinthians is known as the “love chapter” because of its claims with love and how it is greater than faith and hope, Paul states that without love we are nothing. We constantly sing songs proclaiming God’s love for us, and ours for Him; yet, our theology and lives are not always cohesive with the words we sing and read in the Bible. In Dr. Tom Oord’s book The Nature of Love: A Theology he states: “if love is the center of the biblical witness and the core of Christian experience, it should be the primary criterion for theology. Love should be the orienting concern and continual focus for speaking systematically about theology. We should discard ideas or theories that undermine love.” In order to have a theology of love one must know what love is. This is difficult because while the Bible tells us to love it does not give us an actual definition of love. Jesus is our most clear revelation of God and what love is, and he does not give a clear or sufficient definition. Jesus lived a life of love through his words, and actions, he spoke of love, and told parables about love, but there is still no place in scripture where there is a simple definition of what love is. If the bible itself does not give a clear definition then should we give love a definition? Yes, because if we were to not seek and find a sufficient definition the word gets lost in a list of what love might be and what is might not be, theologically we could get stuck going in a circle or limit love to just actions we read of in the scriptures. Dr. Oord offers a definition to help Christians grasp what love is without limiting the word. His definition is “to love is to act intentionally, in sympathetic/empathetic responses to God and others, to promote overall well-being.”
While I agree with Dr. Oord’s definition, but I believe that it needs to be read and looked at on a deeper level, and one cannot simply go off of the words used but must also look into what the definition is truly stating.
[1]
Thomas Jay Oord, The Nature of Love: A
Theology (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2010) 1.
[2]
Oord, Nature of Love, 2.
[3]
Oord, Nature of Love, 15.
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