The Nature of Love: One Love

When I was a child I thought there was only one kind of love. You love your family, you love your friends, you love your dog: love is love.

When I became a young man and read CS Lewis’ The Four Loves, he confirmed something I had begun to experience: there were all kinds of love—affection, friendship, eros, and charity.

Now that I am older, I think there is only one kind of love. O, to be sure, this love manifests itself in various ways: with a lover it is thus, with a friend it is like so, with an enemy it is like that. Nevertheless, each manifestation comes from the same source. Love gives itself in various ways, manifests itself differently from context to context, but it is always self-giving, always self-sacrificing, always about the other.

In I Corinthians 13 we read where love is primarily a behavior: it never behaves this way (rude, arrogant, etc.), and it always behaves that way (kind, believing the best, etc.).

Paul didn’t make this stuff up but learned it from Jesus. When Jesus told people to love their neighbors, he didn’t describe what sort of feelings they should have toward them but how they should behave toward them. And who is your neighbor? Anyone for whom we can do good…even if doing good requires personal sacrifice. And anyone includes your lover, your friend and your enemy.

Of course, loving our neighbor doesn’t mean we like them or even approve of their lifestyle. Loving our neighbor simply means we get about doing what we can for their sake…for love’s sake…for goodness sake…for God’s sake.

Fundamentally, love is a lifestyle, a way of living our lives. Rather than a life that is all about me, or all about my small circle of buddies, love demands that my life becomes all about sharing God’s love with others.

Copyright Monte E Wilson, 2007