[cicero]

The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis [1] is about four different Greek words that are usually translated as "love" in English: storge, philia, eros, and agape. The self-sacrificing love, agape, is what the GP is talking about.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Four_Loves

[baldfat]

I love C.S. Lewis he is a good philosopher but a horrible Theologian or Biblical Scholar.

There are only two words for love in the new Testament: Agape and Philia and they are used interchangably. Anyone that tries to say they mean different things are trying to sell you something.

Exercise: Just look up the verses with the two words and read them (One difference (Many professors disagree that there is any difference)is that when Jesus and Peter had the conversation of "Do you love me." BUT I couldn't really tell you for certain why there were two words). Also same thing with rhema and logos they are used interchangeably.

People that try to split words into "atoms" into definitions just haven't studied a language for academic purposes. The more I learn the more I know that the people who did the translations are at a different league and much better then I am. I cringe when people talk Greek or Hebrew in church because 75% of the times they are just wrong. Like dunamis (power from the inside) is "dynamite power" makes me want to scream there is no way Paul knew what dynamite was or was thinking about an explosive.

[cicero]

I agree that some preachers misuse their little bit of Greek knowledge, but Lewis was a professor of literature and knew Greek well. Storge and eros are not Biblical words, but they are still Greek words that are often translated "love" and have very different meanings. My point of bringing this up Lewis was to show that there is support for different meanings for our English word "love".

Pope Benedict XVI, whom I believe is one of the greatest theological minds of our day, wrote about 3 kinds of love in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est (God is Love) [1]. He shows how these different words for love are distinct but related. (Storge is not included; some people translate it as "affection" rather than love.) Here is a quote:

3. That love between man and woman which is neither planned nor willed, but somehow imposes itself upon human beings, was called eros by the ancient Greeks. Let us note straight away that the Greek Old Testament uses the word eros only twice, while the New Testament does not use it at all: of the three Greek words for love, eros, philia (the love of friendship) and agape, New Testament writers prefer the last, which occurs rather infrequently in Greek usage. As for the term philia, the love of friendship, it is used with added depth of meaning in Saint John's Gospel in order to express the relationship between Jesus and his disciples. The tendency to avoid the word eros, together with the new vision of love expressed through the word agape, clearly point to something new and distinct about the Christian understanding of love.

1: https://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/encyclicals/do...

[rskar]

>The self-sacrificing love, agape, is what the GP is talking about.

Perhaps, but the GP began with "the word love has lost its meaning throughout the ages". I don't think it has. Perhaps "love" can be parsed into several "flavors" (storge, philia, eros, agape, romantic, loyalty, etc.), but at the core it means still about the same (the "flavors" give hint or detail to motivations/context/obligations for the caring/concern/nurturing/keen-interest).

In the phrase (from above) "truly free persons actively avoid love as in love is a passion", I think here passion means something like "intense emotion". "Passion" has taken on new meanings - barely controllable emotion, intense sexual love, arousing great enthusiasm, etc. Only by way of religious context would a word that meant "suffering" get linked to "charity" love (agape). If anything, its other new meanings seem to be about the kinds of suffering from unsatisfied/unsatiated/frustrated desires.

[coliveira]

> Only by way of religious context would a word that meant "suffering"

Not true. The original meaning of the word passion was suffering, derived from Latin pati, the same root of patience. A passion in the emotional sense was suffering caused by love. This exactly shows that what was considered love in the old times was closely connected with suffering, a selfless feeling. Of course, religion had a lot to do with that. The happy feelings that we now assign to love are a conception of more modern times.