Modern Christian teaching often treats love as a single, monolithic idea. Whether the topic is God’s character, marriage, friendship, or moral disagreement, “love” is invoked as if the Bible were speaking with one voice using one definition. This flattening is especially visible around Valentine’s Day, when love is either reduced to romance or overcorrected into a vague spiritual abstraction.
The New Testament does not operate this way. It uses multiple Greek terms for love, each carrying different relational assumptions, expectations, and moral weight. These terms overlap, but they are not interchangeable. When pastors collapse them into a single category, they unintentionally distort how Scripture speaks about covenant, affection, desire, and loyalty.
Agapē: Covenant Loyalty, Not Sentiment
Agapē is the most theologically freighted love term in the New Testament, but it is also the most misunderstood. Agapē refers to chosen, committed, covenantal loyalty expressed through action. It is not primarily emotional, nor is it defined by warmth or affection. When Scripture says God loves the world, the emphasis is not on divine sentiment but on divine action rooted in covenant purpose.
A clear example appears in John 3:16. God’s love is demonstrated not by emotional attachment to humanity but by giving His Son. The action defines the love, not the feeling. Similarly, in Romans 5, God’s love is shown while humanity is still in rebellion. Agapē does not wait for relational reciprocity or emotional compatibility.
Pastoral misuse often turns agapē into “unconditional acceptance without expectation.” This is not how the term functions in Scripture. Jesus speaks of remaining in His love while explicitly tying that love to obedience. Discipline, correction, and judgment are not opposites of agapē but expressions of covenant seriousness. When agapē is reduced to niceness, Scripture’s moral demands are reframed as unloving, even when they are explicitly grounded in love.
Phileō: Affection, Friendship, and Relational Warmth
Phileō refers to love rooted in affection, fondness, and shared relationship. It is the language of friendship, family closeness, and emotional attachment. The New Testament does not treat phileō as shallow or inferior. It assumes that genuine relationships include emotional warmth and mutual affection.
One of the clearest examples is found in John 11, where Jesus is said to love Lazarus. The text uses phileō, emphasizing Jesus’ real relational attachment. This is reinforced by His emotional response at Lazarus’s tomb. Jesus’ tears are not theatrical. They reflect genuine affection, not merely covenant duty.
A common pastoral error appears in sermons on John 21, where Jesus asks Peter if he loves Him. Many sermons insist that Jesus uses agapē while Peter responds with phileō, constructing a hierarchy where Peter supposedly offers an inferior love. This interpretation overplays a distinction John does not consistently maintain. Elsewhere in the same Gospel, John uses agapē and phileō interchangeably for the Father’s love for the Son. Treating phileō as spiritually deficient imposes a rigid framework the text itself does not demand.
Eros: Desire Acknowledged, Not Sanctified Away
Eros refers to romantic and sexual desire. While the New Testament does not use the word explicitly, the concept is clearly present and affirmed within proper bounds. Scripture does not deny desire or treat it as inherently corrupt. Instead, it locates eros within covenant and responsibility.
The Song of Songs provides the clearest biblical affirmation of eros. Desire is neither hidden nor apologized for. It is celebrated, poetic, and embodied. The New Testament echoes this affirmation when it speaks plainly about marital intimacy and mutual obligation between spouses.
Pastoral misuse tends to swing between two extremes. On one side, eros is treated as suspect or unspiritual because it involves desire. On the other, it is baptized indiscriminately, detached from covenant faithfulness. Both errors arise from failing to recognize that eros is real, powerful, and morally shaped by context rather than eliminated by spirituality.
Storgē: Natural Affection and Moral Expectation
Storgē refers to natural affection, particularly within families. While it appears less frequently as a standalone term in the New Testament, it shows up in compound forms that emphasize expected loyalty and care among close relations.
Romans 12 includes a compound form encouraging believers to show familial affection toward one another. The implication is that such affection is not extraordinary but appropriate and expected. Scripture assumes that family bonds carry moral obligations rooted in natural relational order.
Pastoral teaching often overlooks storgē entirely, which can lead to spiritualizing relationships Scripture treats as ordinary responsibilities. Not every relational duty is a heroic act of agapē. Some are simply the result of being human within a family or community.
The Cost of Flattening Love
When all love is collapsed into agapē, and agapē is redefined as emotional affirmation, several problems emerge. Obedience becomes suspect. Discipline feels unloving. Friendship is undervalued. Desire is either ignored or mishandled. Family obligation is spiritualized instead of honored.
The Bible presents love as layered, contextual, and ordered. Covenant loyalty, affection, desire, and natural bonds are all real forms of love, each appropriate in its own sphere. Confusing them does not deepen Christian love. It weakens it.
Conclusion
Scripture does not call believers to feel one kind of love toward everyone in every situation. It calls them to love rightly, appropriately, and faithfully. Valentine’s Day tempts modern culture to reduce love to romance or sentiment. The Bible refuses both reductions. Love, in biblical terms, is not vague. It is concrete, relational, costly, and ordered toward truth.
Discussion Questions
- How does understanding agapē as covenant loyalty rather than emotional warmth change the way you read passages about God’s love that also involve judgment, discipline, or obedience?
- Why do you think modern Christian teaching is uncomfortable affirming phileō as a genuine and necessary form of love, especially in friendships and church community, and what are the consequences of minimizing it?
- In what ways does ignoring or mishandling eros affect how Christians talk about marriage, desire, and intimacy, and how does Scripture’s treatment of eros challenge both purity culture extremes and cultural permissiveness?
- How does recognizing storgē as an expected, natural form of affection reshape our understanding of family obligation and responsibility within the church and the household?
- Can you think of examples where collapsing all love into a single definition has caused confusion, harm, or misplaced guilt in Christian teaching or practice, and how might clearer biblical categories have changed the outcome?
Want to Know More?
- C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves
Lewis provides one of the clearest and most careful Christian explorations of storgē, philia, eros, and agapē. While not a technical Greek study, his work is invaluable for understanding how these forms of love function relationally and morally within a Christian framework. Lewis is especially helpful in showing how each love can be both good and dangerous when disordered. - Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros
Nygren’s classic theological work shaped much of the modern conversation about agapē and eros. Although some of his sharp contrasts are debated today, the book is essential for understanding why agapē came to be treated as categorically superior in modern preaching and how that framework developed historically. - D. A. Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God
Carson directly addresses the problem of flattening biblical love language and warns against simplistic Greek word studies. This short but dense book helps readers see how Scripture speaks about God’s love in multiple ways without collapsing them into sentimentality or contradiction. - G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson, editors, Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament
This volume is invaluable for seeing how New Testament authors frame love within covenantal and Old Testament categories rather than abstract emotion. It provides context for why agapē is often tied to obedience, faithfulness, and divine action rather than inner feeling. - Walter Bauer, Frederick Danker, William Arndt, and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature
Often referred to as BDAG, this lexicon is the standard reference for how Greek terms like agapē and phileō are actually used in the New Testament and early Christian writings. It is essential for avoiding sermon-level myths and for grounding discussion in real lexical evidence rather than pop definitions.
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