Love

Well "cheese is cheese", but we can describe it better than that….something to do with curds and whey? Thankfully we’ve got an easy list to describe love (agape; not eros, storge, philia, philautia or xenia). It’s a verb, so they’re actions.

Agape - Love is….

·       Never giving up on people.

·       Being patient with people.

·       Caring for others more than yourself.

·       Taking pleasure in the flowering of truth.

·       Putting up with anything.

·       Trusting God always.

·       Looking for the best in everything and everyone.

·       Keeping going to the end, not looking backwards, or being concerned with the past.

·       Not wanting what you don’t have.

·       Not strutting or having a swelled head.

·       Not forcing your way on others.

·       Not being all “me first”.

·       Not flying of the handle or getting angry.

·       Not keeping score of what others have done wrong to you.

·       Not revelling when others grovel to you.

Or

Agape - Love is….

Doing all this extravagantly:

·       Accepting delays from people or life, without getting annoyed.

·       Accepting suffering from people or life, without getting annoyed.

·       Accepting problems from people or life, without getting annoyed.

·       Being generous with time.

·       Being generous with attention.

·       Being generous with things.

·       Being helpful.

·       Being careful not to inconvenience or harm people.

·       Not being severe with people.

·       Not wanting what you don’t have, and have no right to.

·       Not boasting about yourself or what you've done.

·       Not forcing your way on others (from thinking too highly of your own importance or abilities).

·       Not acting in an upsetting way to people.

·       Not being chiefly concerned with your own pleasure or gain.

·       Not being provoked to be angry.

·       Not keeping score of what others have done wrong.

·       Not being pleased for yourself, when people apologise.

·       Not celebrating when right things aren't done.

·       Celebrating the flowering of truth with others.

·       Putting up with anything.

·       Trusting God in and for all things.

·       Expecting and desiring the best in all things.

·       Never failing in all this.

Do all this extravagantly. Love

Also, hope unswervingly and trust God always. Hope and faith. Love is foremost.

1 Corinthians 13

Seven Types Of Love: Putting It All Together

While the ancient Greeks put together this beautiful vocabulary of love, by no means is each type of love mutually exclusive.

In 1 Corinthians 13:4 where Paul describes Love, he is referring to Agape below.

Eros is passion, lust, sexual attraction, and everything we think of when we think of the TV version of love. Unsurprisingly, this type of love was named after the Greek god of love and fertility.

To the ancient Greeks, this physical, desirous love was quite dangerous. As you can probably imagine, the human impulse to procreate is powerful, and eros is the sort of love that is easy to lose control of.

Because Eros is solely a physical love, it isn’t necessarily something that you want to build a relationship upon (on its own, that is). Eros is intense and sexual and —you guessed it— fleeting.

A relationship built on Eros should also rely on other forms of love to create a firm, whole foundation (more on that later).

Nonetheless, Eros still represents the love for sexual intimacy and romance.

In the modern world, it illustrates our physical attraction to one another, and it is embodied by that passionate, romantic love that is gushed over in all our favorite books and movies.

Philia is a friendly love. Those soul-to-soul bonds, per se. It encompasses the love shared between friends and intimate family members and is characterized by loyalty and trust.

Philia is encouraging, kind, affectionate, and everything that makes up a true friendship. It is entirely platonic, yet both meaningful and sweet.

Essentially, you can think of Philia as the type of love where you simply want the best for another person.

Because Philia is a kind of equal love —shared between people who value one another— the ancient Greeks thought it was even more precious than Eros.

Just as I said that a romantic relationship cannot be sustained on Eros alone, a romantic relationship where Philia is born out of Eros is built to last. Plato believed that this was the best kind of friendship.

Storge refers to the unconditional love that parents have for their children. It is a protective, kinship-based love that embodies approval, sacrifice, and acceptance.

Storge looks a lot like philia, though it is more one-sided. Think of it as the love a mother has for her child, regardless of whether the child reciprocates her emotion.

Basically, it is a strong bond and fondness that is built out of familiarity and need.

Another way of looking at storge is in the love you have for your sister, even if she constantly stole your favourite clothes growing up or is a little too eager to hand off her toddlers to you on date night.

That’s unconditional love right there!

Agape is one-of-a-kind love. It is an empathetic, selfless love for others that includes a love for God, nature, strangers, and the less fortunate.

It doesn’t depend on familiarity (as does storge), but instead, Agape has links to altruism, which is understood as an unselfish, genuine concern for the welfare of others.

A lot of people consider Agape to be a kind of spiritual love and it’s expressed through meditation, nature, intuition, and spirituality.

Christians believe this is the love Jesus had for all of mankind. It is sacrificial and quite radical, honestly, as the Greeks believed that very few people were able to experience it long-term.

In today’s world, you can think of Agape as a pay-it-forward sort of love. It is a love that expects absolutely nothing in return, and in turn, just makes you feel good.

Not only is Agape associated with boosted mental and physical health, but some say it leaves a euphoric feeling, somewhat of a “helper’s high.”

We’ve covered 4 different kinds of love, and there’s still more if you can believe it. Keep reading to discover even more types of love.

Ludus is easy breezy love. Playful, flirtatious, non-committal—Ludus is having a crush on someone and then acting on it. It is the infatuated phase that occurs in the early stages of romance.

If you’ve been in love before, then you know what I’m talking about.

When I think of Ludus, I think of a fling. A no-strings-attached sort of conquest. It is the oh-so-stereotypical butterflies in your stomach.

Ludus is all about having fun, so think of whatever that means for you — flirting, dancing, teasing, seducing, all the jazz.

This type of love results in relationships that are definitely on the casual side, though that doesn’t mean they won’t last.

As long as both parties have the same mindset, Ludus relationships can thrive for years, resulting in a lightweight, undemanding, and beautifully uncomplicated sort of love.

I love Pragma. In the simplest of terms, it is love that looks long-term. Pragma is a love that is seen in many long-term marriages and friendships.

It is built on commitment, endurance, companionship, and sharing similar hopes for the future, which includes things like building a family and putting down roots.

A lot of people (married folks, especially) will understand Pragma as “making it work.”

This type of love is an accepting, everlasting love that matures as a couple spends year after year together.

When I think of pragma, I think of the older married couple who have been together since they were teenagers.

Even after 50 years of marriage, they still hold hands and see the person they fell in love with.

I mean seriously, who doesn’t want that someday? Pragma is beautiful as it represents the constant nurturing that goes into a long-term relationship.

It is patient, sacrificial, mature, and in all honesty, quite rare (and therefore so special).

Of all of the different kinds of love, this one is often the most challenging for people. However, it’s perhaps foundational to the other types of love.

Philautia is self-love, which the ancient Greeks saw as a healthy, necessary love of one’s self that made it possible to give and receive love from other people.

(Haven’t we all heard something or other about not being able to pour from an empty cup?)

Healthy demonstrations of Philautia go hand in hand with self-worth, confidence, and the boost of self-esteem that is necessary for a sense of one’s purpose.

Keeping in turn with the Greeks, we cannot give what we don’t have. How are we to love others if we don’t first love ourselves?

Philautia, therefore, is something like self-compassion. Much like we show affection and love to other people, it is important to show that affection to ourselves.

However, of course, there is a flip side. Philautia can become unhealthy if we are not careful.

While this is not what the Greeks intended, too much self-love breeds self-obsession and self-superiority.

When it becomes unhealthy, Philautia can morph into narcissistic behaviours, arrogance, and selfish tendencies.

It’s important to balance the love of self with the love of others.