December 12, 2024
Dear Central Church,
This week in the Changed in the Waiting devotional, we were invited to think about love. This word can mean so much in our culture, and we use it in a variety of ways. If I were to tell you how much my wife and family meant to me, I would say, “I love them!” I would use the exact same sentence to describe my affinity for the Chicago Cubs, “I love them!”
Clearly, we need a better word.
The Bible has multiple words that are rendered as “love” in our English translations. The Hebrew word is chesed, which means “faithful covenant love.” I heard one OT scholar simplify this rich Hebrew attribute of God by saying, “When God says, ‘I will,’ he will never come back and say, ‘I won’t.’” God keeps his word!
The New Testament uses two words: agape and phileo. Phileo is familial or brotherly love. It’s the kind of affection that one has for their family members. Paul uses this word in the famous “one another” passages calling us to be “kind to one another” and to “phileo one another.”
Agape takes phileo to a deeper level. It describes love that is unconditional in every way. It’s completely selfless. This is the word that is used several times in I Corinthians 13, commonly called, “The Love Chapter.” Like its Hebrew counterpart, this word describes, “love that never fails.”
If you’re still reading, I applaud you. No, actually, I love you! But…what’s the point to all this? It’s simple: for all that we celebrate at Christmas time, we must remember what God did in sending Jesus. Jesus is the perfect, physical embodiment of chesed, agape, and phileo. He is love in the flesh and the blueprint for who we can become!
I hope something that is shared at Central Church during this season would remind you of God’s great love for you. I hope you’ll join us Sunday as we exalt Jesus. You may not be able to remember all the different words for love in Scripture, but you don’t have to. Just look to Jesus, and experience the fullness of God’s love available to all!
Until He’s Finished,
Pastor Mark