When we say “love” we can mean a lot of things. It is one of the reasons some languages like Greek have multiple words that we pile into the one English word “love.” The apostle John has often been called the apostle of love. He mentions love over 100 times in the 5 books of the Bible he wrote. He uses all the different words for love but when referring to God’s love for us and the love we are to have for each other, it is “agape.” But what does that word mean?
John says in his first letter, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.” Paul mirrored this when he wrote what some say may be the first Christian hymn in Philippians 2. Jesus, Paul says, is by His very nature God but it wasn’t something that Jesus “used to his own advantage” meaning, Jesus could have said “I am God, I won’t stoop to man’s level.” But He didn’t, instead, Jesus “made himself nothing” becoming a man. He put aside all the advantages of being God and became a man, restricted by all the disadvantages of being human. He showed His love for us by humbling himself, “even death on a cross” all for our sakes, that we might be forgiven and made children of God.
But we can’t stop there. Paul shows us what love is, not so we can just bask in its glow but so we might have the same mindset as Christ. We need to love each other in the same way God loves us. We need to be
…like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interest but each of you to the interests of others. -Philippians 2:2-4
