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I’m sure some of you have run across limits in the English language to communicate what you would like to say. One such case is where your emotion exceeds your available vocabulary. Another case is where the word you choose is “overloaded.” That merely means that the word has multiple meanings and could therefore be misunderstood, or could mislead the hearer as to what you really mean. Love is certainly one such word that can mean many things to many people.
Some languages have a big advantage in communicating more precisely what you want to say. One example is Greek. I took one semester at UT Austin, but that was enough to appreciate that by providing multiple Greek words for overloaded English words, like different kinds of love, the language itself cleared up a lot of questions about what the speaker or writer really meant. My guess is that is why God recorded His New Testament thoughts in Greek, since He is precise, and not the author of confusion. Human philosophers on the other hand…
So today for a moment, let’s think together about our relationships of brotherly love (phileo). What does it mean to you to really love your friend? Some have suggested it means to care for them so much and want the best for them that you are willing to “let them go,” such as being free from your demands, commands, expectations, and language that implies “they had better shape up.” We can rationalize many reasons why “wanting the best for them” is the source of such “improvement language.” But if we ever get to the point of being willing to “let them go,” one thing that we communicate is that their own discovery of what is best for them is more important than our opinion of what is best for them. I have two corollaries here: (1) we can hurt our friend by posing as an expert on “what is best for them,” (such as inadvertently leading them to believe we think they are “inferior),” and (2) considerations about how to effectively “help” or motivate someone to improve is a very deep and complex subject that requires a lot of thought, study, prayer, and “love.”
Writer Max Lucado captures some of this issue with a famous line “God loves you just the way you are, but He loves you too much to let you stay that way” in his book , “Just Like Jesus.” Of course God did NOT make us robots. Although He gives us commands and unveils plans that are for our good, and that are much better than our ways, he leaves us with the great gift of choices, including which way to go. Many of us stub our toe in the “school of hard knocks” but eventually learn to agree with Isaiah 55 that God’s ways are higher and better than our ways. It’s hard to focus awhile on the excruciating physical and spiritual pain Christ endured on the cross to pay for our sins without becoming convinced He wants the best for us. A central element of His will for us all is for us to know Him intimately as our own Savior and Lord, and over time to become conformed to His image (more like Him including our thinking, choices, and behaving).
He loved us enough to let us go (to make our own choices), but He sacrificed His dearest Gift, Jesus His Son, to demonstrate clearly how deeply He loves us (God’s agape love) and to motivate us to experience and explore His boundless love, now and in eternity.
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