Before you begin to think anything, I know, this is my first article and I’m already diving into such a deep topic: love. Love within itself is complicated but when you begin to mix it with Christianity, it begins to be a whole new concept. A whole new idea. In order to dissect what love is we could look for the definition in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary which states that love is a strong affection for another arising out of kinship, personal ties, or sexual desire. We could also look at the Google definition of love which states that love is an intense feeling of deep affection, romance, or sexual attraction. These are all good definitions for the human word: love. However, we alter that line of thought when we look at God’s word: love. The word love appears many times in the Bible and is stated in many passages. The word appears 310 times in the Kings James version, 348 times in the New American Standard, 551 times in the New International Version, and 538 times in the New Revised Standard Version. We can tell that God was really trying to get the message across to Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love on another. However, in many cases, Christians are sometimes confused of what love means in the bible. There are six different types of love in the Bible and each one deserves their own separate recognition:

1. Love when it comes to Marriage
2. Love when it comes to Family
3. Love when it comes to People in General
4. Love when it comes to people of other beliefs
5. Love when it comes to your Enemies (Disclaimer: Christians try to avoid this one the most)
6. Love when it comes to God

In today’s age, marriage has a completely different definition than it did back when. Marriage seems to be demoted to this run-of-the-mill sort of feeling. A step that doesn’t change much other than combined dental care or something of that matter. People live with each other before marriage, they have kids before marriage, even if they are married an insane amount of them end up in divorce and then they move on to their next mate in which will probably end in another divorce. We seem to have forgotten what it means to marry but before we start with what it means to marry, we have to start at the beginning, dating. Dating now-a-days seems to have also lost its true purpose. In the eyes of a Christian, you don’t date someone to fulfill your sexual desires, you don’t date someone because you are lonely, you don’t date someone because it will make you cooler, no, you date someone because you can see a future with them. Many people look at dating as a casual fling. I think the idea that comes to mind first and foremost is High school, Middle school, and (dare I say it) Elementary school dating. Some kids do in fact have the mindset of intentionally staying with said person for all and eternity. However, I’ve personally seen people go through three different significant others within a month’s time and each Instagram/Facebook post is the same. “I love them so much and I’ve never been happier!” (Even though you just said that about two other people before this one).

Then it comes to marriage. Something that has only boiled down to extra benefits. It’s no longer as much of a public profession of your Love or to profession to God, but it’s just something that you can do because it’s been dreamed about forever. That Cinderella wedding that you always wanted now could come a reality. Or you don’t end up getting married because you don’t feel like it or you end up getting married by a Justice of the Peace. Marriage was based off religion. Even if you take the priest out of it, the church out of it, the biblical readings out of it, it’s still in there. I will be with you in marriage till death do us part is biblical. In heaven, you will no longer be married to your wife so literally it is until death do you part and you get to spend your eternity with all your brothers and sisters in Christ.

Marriage and dating should be looked upon as sacred. Not a Sunday afternoon activity that you decide to do spontaneously. It should be well thought out, well prayed on, and real. It shouldn’t be something to do for kicks, but something to do because you are literally devoting your rest of your life to love and protect this person. Because your love for them will never fail.

When it comes to your family, it’s way more than your parents, you uncles, your cousins, your second cousins twice removed and so forth… You have multiple different families. Essentially everyone is a brother or sister in Christ with you but to be more precise, you could have a church family, a sports family, a workplace family, etc. When it comes to family, It appears to be very important in the bible. We have other standards that a lot of people go by nowadays however, these standards are slowly fading. In family, we are expected to respect them and to be by their side no matter what. Throughout the Bible, it gives passages about obeying your parents and honoring them, but not just honoring them, but loving them. In this world, it seems that we’ve thrown these morals out the window. We constantly argue with our parents and some people abandon their families due to inner struggles. But a family isn’t a privilege, it’s a responsibility. If someone in your family is struggling through a rough patch whether it be drugs, alcohol, gambling, or whatnot, you are to stick by their side and be there in order to support them. That is not the time to abandon them. Jesus doesn’t give up on us and moves away from us in our time of need, but he comes to us in our time of need and makes himself present because he’s our father, and he knows that his children need his help. We should be emulating that kind of love for our family. Being by their side no matter what and no matter how much of a jerk they might’ve been in the past because let’s face it, we’ve all been jerks before.

Every Christian knows the parable of the Good Samaritan. The man who was walking along a road and thugs came out and beat him, robbed him, and stripped him of his belongings. High positioned leaders walked by but none helped. Finally, a Samaritan walked by and took pity on the man. He brought him to an inn where he would be cared for and paid for the compensation. This story shows so much in what God’s love looks like. This Samaritan that walks by a fallen man stops what he’s doing, goes over to the man, doesn’t just ask if he’s okay, but takes him to an inn and pays for his treatment and healing. How many people nowadays would do that? If you were walking down a road and you saw a man lying down and you could see that he was beaten badly and that he was robbed, would you take time out of your precious schedule to help the man up and move him to a care center and then pay for his medical bills? We sometimes think that we can’t help people since we are busy. God doesn’t care what your schedule looks like; he only cares about what his agenda is and if it’s to help that man, then he’s going to make that clear.

The greatest way to show true love is to help someone that you don’t know, help them with no intention or expectation of getting something in return other than a “thank you”, and doing it with an attitude of Christ. If you help someone that you know, it still means a lot to that person, but it’s lost some of its purpose because they would do you the same favor if you were in that situation. I’m not saying it’s not good to help your friends, I’m just saying that it has a greater impact on a person if you help them and you don’t even know them. Doing something with no expectations of getting anything in return shows a sincerity of true love. You won’t be afraid to go the extra mile to help this person because you know that you are doing this, not to get something in return, but because God would want you to. Finally, doing your act with an attitude of Christ is most important. If you are doing this and while you are helping them you’re thinking: I’m really awesome (or anything praise worthy of oneself), then you are doing it for the wrong reason. God doesn’t help us because after he does it he feels better about himself and that by assisting us, he feels more awesome; he helps us because it’s the right thing to do and he loves us so much that he can’t not help us. He has that much love for everyone which seems so impossible in our eyes. We can’t reach that perfect state of loving others, but we can strive for it.

This one is really difficult. God calls us to minister to all and that is all of our vocation. However, it’s hard to show Christ’s love, preach about his gospel, while people are slandering you on your faith and beliefs. How do we show love to those who don’t want to hear what you have to say? The best way to make someone care about your beliefs, is to care about their beliefs. People won’t listen to you unless you listen to them. If you come off with an aura about you that you know everything and everything that you think is correct or that your belief is better than theirs, then there won’t be any progress made. As Dean Jordan said in a past chapel, you have to go into a discussion with the mindset that you could be wrong and that you could learn from the conversation. The problem that prevents us from loving others in these situations is that we don’t want to make progress, we want to be right. The best way to convert someone to your side is to show them unconditional love.

This is probably the hardest type of Christian love that we go through. Everyone knows the bible verse: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” In the world, it seems almost natural to seek revenge on someone if they have done you wrong. We look at our justice system and we see that by placing people in prison or doling out punishments due to the severity of the crime is bringing justified revenge. In God’s eyes, all crime is crime, all sin is sin. That being said, we can come to forgiveness for others in God’s eyes instead of our human eyes. No matter how bad the acts was towards you, a sin is a sin is a sin.

Obviously, because we do see things in human terms, forgiving someone for lying is extremely different than forgiving someone for killing your dad. But forgiveness comes with time which is not the same as love. Loving your enemies does not mean you have to become BFFs. It does not mean that you have forgiven them yet. It means that you show them some respect and decency. It means you treat them nicely even if they don’t deserve it. It means that you care for them even if they are horrible to you. You may have it in your head to destroy your enemy, but the best way to destroy your enemy is to make them your friend.

When Jesus talked to sinners, aka all of us, he approached everyone as friends and as companions. He looked past the wrong that we had done or will do and saw us for who we truly are, children of God. This type of love is in fact the hardest to master but the most precious in my opinion.

Okay, so maybe this is the most precious one. The one before comes in a close second. When we think of love when it comes to God, we think of God’s undying and unconditional love that never ends and how we don’t deserve it. We think about all that he has done for us. How he came down and died on the cross and how he forgave all our sins even when we turned our back on him. How we have messed up so many times but he doesn’t care because he still loves us in the end. But we all know that. But when it comes to us and how much we love God, he should be our first priority.

God is not just at the top of our list but he is the top of every item on that list. He is before our spouse, our children, our work, our education, our sports, our activities, our everything. It took me a while to figure out that by loving God more than, let’s say, your spouse, is actually helping your spouse more. By putting God first, you are doing whatever God wants, which is the best for you and your spouse. So, he will guide you to be able to love your wife the best and how to better her in her faith the most. What’s best for everyone is to get to know God more and that is the ultimate goal in the end. When you love like God, you’ll love people to the fullest and it will change them for the better.