Does the Bible Teach About the 3 Types of Love

Does the Bible Teach About the 3 Types of Love? What Bible Study topic, subject, or chapter would you like to learn in more detail? We are opening those again now that the Father is once again, sending His Spirit to gather His saints once again for the last time; we feel the need to address questions.

Many of the questions are not asked clearly, but we’ll do our best to answer them as well as we can.

Questions and Answers from BSM Newsletter

Today’s question is: Love – The 3 types of love

Great questions. We answered tithing in the previous post, this post, question 2 out of five, LOVE, and the three types of love. Now from a biblical perspective, I never heard of three types of love, but let’s see where this takes us.

A search on the search engines of “the 3 types of love,” came back with a website titled Explore the Bible (3 Kinds of Love) featuring an article titled, “3 KINDS OF LOVE (SESSION 8 – 1 CORINTHIANS 13:1-13).”

Here they referenced – 3 KINDS OF LOVE

1. Eros refers to physical or sexual intimate love.

The word eros was commonly used in the Greek-speaking world of New Testament times. The word itself is not found in the pages of the New Testament. The concept of physical love, however—expressed in the context of marriage—is found and affirmed in the New Testament (see 1 Cor. 7:5; Heb. 13:4).

2. Philos means warm affection or friendship.

Philos was commonly used with reference to friendships or family relationships. For example, it was used in Matthew 10:37 to indicate love for father and mother or son and daughter. Philos was the word used of Jesus’ love for His friend Lazarus (John 11:3,36) and His love for His disciple (John 20:2).

A related word, storgē, means “family devotion.” Storgē is not a common word in the New Testament. In Romans 12:10, it is compounded with Philos (philostorgoi) and can be translated as “devoted” (NASB) or “brotherly affection” (ESV).

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3. Agapē is the sacrificial, unconditional love of God.

In the New Testament, agapē is the highest form of love. But outside of the New Testament, the word was rarely used. Prior to New Testament times, agapē did not carry any special significance as a higher kind of love.

Thus, it’s the New Testament understanding of the unique nature of God’s love—not the word’s usage in the Greek-speaking world of the first century—that gives the word agapē its special meaning.

Agapē is the word that describes God’s love in John 3:16, “God loved the world in this way …” (CSB). We are commanded to love God (Matt. 22:37) and love one another (John 13:34) with agapē love. Agapē is the word for love used in 1 Corinthians 13.

Love is the Strongest Vibration

By the use of the scriptures they referenced, I can agree, there are three types of love; but which love would one use towards a stranger in the street, towards a poor person, or towards an enemy?

This is why love or charity is important; we all know how you love your spouse will differ from how you love your best friend, mother, father, son, daughter, poor man on the block, and a super annoying coworker or boss that hates you.

The general idea is to love in perfectness as the Father and Christ love in Matthew 5:48.