Let us not blur the beauty of the loves of God.
God has given man (& woman), created in His image, various loves for our pleasure and blessing; love for men and women of His creation to enjoy as God our Father has intended.
C.S. Lewis, renowned author of children’s stories such as in “The Chronicles of Narnia,” wrote several noteworthy books for thinking adults as well.
In this month well-stimulated by the marketing of sex as love, I would like to focus today on Lewis’ refinement of our English language use of the word, ‘love’ from his book, “The Four Loves.”
Other contemporary Christian authors such as Gary Chapman have counted with care the very languages of these loves, best known in Chapman’s excellent book on relationships, “The Five Love Languages.
Although I will not address the applications of communication (on which Chapman focuses), I intend to both refine and expand your perspective on love, as enumerated by God and expected of creatures made in His image who would speak and live the love of Christ Jesus.
Lewis points to confusion caused by the English language using only one word, love, for emotions described by the Greek language by four words defining entirely different loves: agápe, éros, philía, and storgē. The Four Loves summarizes four kinds of human love–affection, friendship, erotic love, and the love of God.
Indeed, these do overlap in the relationships of love while each category of love is as distinctly different as within these our love differs with each individual.
God has made us for relationships – relationships of love with him, our loving Creator, and with one another, all created in the image of the Living God.
My friendship with one who would hear my heart is not equal to the lasting friendship refined in the emotional forge of time. My affection for those moments shared even with an acquaintance or stranger drawn toward like-things I love cannot compare to a treasury of time invested in certain family and cherished friends.
“In a relationship.
God once was in a relationship with Man (adam). This relationship of love is restored in Jesus Christ.
“In a relationship.
From the beginning, when God made woman from man, a man and his wife are in a relationship until they are parted by death (which came to our mortal flesh because of sin).
“In a relationship.
A father and a mother have, with the help of God, begotten children: sons and daughters in their image, yet so different from each other. Their relationship is the root and core of family.
“In a relationship.
The love between parent and child (of any age) is not a love between equals. Yet the love of great friendships have built the community God expects for us to thrive in troublesome loveless times.
Love has many places in our life. If we will remember God’s place for love in our relationships, we will be blessed by love’s triumph.
Yet are we not cursed by love’s defeat by our very sins of loveless lack of relationship to God, to our children, to our parents, to our friends and to our church?
Indeed of our daily struggles we might ask of any of the faces of our love: are we truly ‘in a relationship?’
To be continued
