Agape in Romans 5:5 and 12:9-10

I want to do for today what the Apostle Paul did with the word ‘agape’ for his time. He expanded the meaning to aid in spiritual development. When he started doing that, most of the Greek-speaking, non-Jewish audiences he addressed would not have known what he was talking about. 'Agape' was not a word in common usage.

So just as Paul’s influence helped the word gain new meaning for the 1st Century, the word started gaining new meaning during the 20th Century as it became used, once again, by more and more people. And I’m expanding on that meaning in this blog.

But in the 19th Century, when ‘agape’ was reintroduced as a religious term after centuries of not being used, most people considered it just as arcane and unusual a word as it was considered by the Greek audiences Paul addressed. To show how Paul expanded the word’s meaning, I’ll focus just on 2 sections in Romans.

Especially when we read through chapter 12, we are reminded so much of 1 Cor. 13, that I couldn’t help but think that he was showing conclusions he had come to after reflecting on what he had written in 1 Cor. 13. (Most scholars agree that Romans was written after Corinthians, even though Romans became listed first when the New Testament was finally put together as a whole unit.)

No one knows for sure, of course, about how that unusual Greek word ‘agape’ first became used by Christians to speak to Greek-speaking audiences, but there might have been a connection with the Septuagint (LXX), the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures. Those translators of LXX might have started using ‘agape’ because it sounded similar to the Hebrew word for love (ahaba). Because Paul grew up in the Greek-speaking coastal city of Tarsus and was educated by Pharisees, he would have known that the two Great Commandments given by Jesus referred to Deut. 6:4-9 and Lev. 19:18. So he knew that, in the Greek version, both those passages used ‘agapan,’ the verb form of ‘agape.’ That may have been what started the use of ‘agape’ by Christians. (Those 2 Commandments are the only place in Mark where any form of ‘agape’ appears.)

The next step for Paul may have been to expand on the link between the 2 Great Commandments. In other words, asking the profoundly important question, “What is there about agape that links religious devotion with how we treat other people?” I think the first major answer to that question was 1 Cor. 13. Then he expanded on that in Romans chapters 5, 8, and 12.

But our starting place is the first place ‘agape’ appears in Romans -- that’s the passage I’ve mentioned in previous postings (Romans 5:5) as playing such an important part in my morning prayers for the last couple of years. So we need to start where Paul did -- with God’s agape as a power that comes to us when we open up to the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives. This verse shows how Paul linked agape with the Holy Spirit.

Keeping that linkage in mind helps when we read 12:2 -- then we can understand that the Holy Spirit uses agape to transform us through the renewal of our minds. That transformation (sometimes very slow in some people because of their resistance, or rapid in others because they throw themselves open to God’s Presence) brings us the ability to keep from being conformed to the selfish, egotistical, violent pattern of the human world.

That transformation also liberates us from being controlled by the worldly pattern, although, the tremendous pressures from the human world are very difficult to overcome because the forces of the world have been building up for the 6,000 years of the process that has been named ‘civilization.’ (Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “The end of the human race will be that we will eventually die of civilization.” That slow death is what we have to overcome.)

Then in the next 5 verses Paul listed other gifts that come to us from the Holy Spirit as he did in 1 Cor. 12. Even though he did not say in exact words (as he had done in 1 Cor. 13:13) that the greatest of these is agape, he implied that by starting vs. 9 with agape. Also implied in that verse is his awareness that the word ‘agape’ was being used in so many different ways that he wanted to make sure his reader understood that he was using the word in the highest way (the Greek word that Paul used has been translated as “genuine” or “sincere” or “non-hypocritical” or “not a pretense” or “without dissimulation”).

What he seemed to have been talking about is our need for the genuineness of personal relationship (or as Rollo May put it: “authenticity in relationship.” [Love and Will, p. 306]) Paul recognized that need, and so he made the point that through the Holy Spirit we receive God’s agape to help us find such authenticity. 

Then in the next 10 verses he spelled out practical actions that God’s agape helps us do (as he had done in 1 Cor. 13:4-6). He started a little differently with the list of actions in Romans; by implying that, if we use it in the right way, agape helps us discern what is good and what is evil. Then he gave a list -- similar to 1 Cor. 13 -- by beginning with the action of treating others as kind family members would treat each other, with respect, showing honor toward the other.

He showed how he was using the spiritual meaning God’s agape -- he talked about being “aglow with the Spirit” as we “serve the Lord” through living by God’s agape. He concluded with joy -- “Be joyful in hope.”  This verse shows the link between agape and joy and hope.

How Agape can be Thought to be Similar to Love

I’ve been asked, "Why does ‘agape’ and ‘agapao’ get translated as ‘love’ and ‘loving’?” The question comes from my claim that originally ‘agape’ was not a common Greek word for love. “So why did the Greek-speaking Christians and Jews start using ‘agape’ and ‘agapao’ in a way that had a meaning similar to love and loving?” Obviously the English translators thought that there was a similarity or they wouldn’t have used the English word ‘love’ to translate ‘agape.’

So after spending the first 2 months of writing this blog by focusing on the differences, I decided today to try looking at the similarities that led people to translate ‘agape’ as ‘love.’

This concern has a special problem, of course, in America today. The modern world has produced so much confusion about love that there is no common agreement about what the word means. It’s used for everything from ‘liking [something] a lot’ to ‘sexual intercourse’ to ‘the force that holds the Universe together’ -- and an amazing variety of relational meanings in between. I’m even old enough to remember when General Motors tried to use the word to name a truck, but at least they knew enough to change the spelling to “Luv.” Recently the car manufacturers have picked up that weirdness in some of their advertising, by showing people "in love" with their cars or SUVs or trucks.

Actually, the confusion extends back thousands of years, but it has just gotten worse in the last 100 years. Even in the Bible there are a few examples of people loving the wrong way, and misusing the power of agape, and also using the word 'agape' to refer to “liking a lot” and liking in a way that leads to problems.

And then there is such a widespread problem in the modern world with dysfunctional families that the model of family relationships is not totally helpful for understanding love. Maybe the ancient Greeks had a similar problem so they used two different words for love between parents and children: 'storge' and 'philia.' (Before the Bible was written in Greek, no where in Greek literature was ‘agape’ used to refer to family relationships -- nor for that matter for any intimate or casual relationships.)

When I started searching through blogs, I saw hundreds of examples of the confusion over what kind of love. Everyone who tried connecting ‘agape’ with ‘love’ had trouble trying to figure out what kind of love applied to agape. Most people find it necessary to add all kinds of qualifiers onto ‘love’ when trying to use it to mean ‘agape’ -- as some sort of way to force the translation to work. Even though everyone recognizes there is something different about agape, there is no agreement about what causes the difference.

So when we start looking for similarities, we know we have to look at the BEST kinds of love (not just “liking a lot” -- after all, loving is about relationship). Of course, there are many good things to say about the best kinds of love, because loving relationships are such an important part of being human. Even the large number of people who want to translate ‘agape’ as ‘love,’ admit that ‘agape’ would have to be the very best kind of love that is possible. So we need to start with the best qualities of love. What comes to mind first are the qualities of caring and concern. Also, there is acceptance.

In that sense, giving us the spiritual power of agape is understood by us as God caring for us. So we feel God’s concern that we are able to have access to God’s manifested Presence with us. We experience this as being drawn to God in a powerful, close, joyful, caring (in other words, loving) way. And then we are enabled to open up to God's Presence in our times of prayer, sensing this deeply over a long period of time in a disciplined way gives us the feeling of relationship that can only be expressed as "falling in love" with God.

When we also are able to sense God's agape as coming to us through others, then we grow spiritually to know God's agape flowing out to others as caring. And then when we are thus drawn into close relationships with those around us, we are empowered through agape to reach out in caring and concerning actions to accept others, and to help them, and to share in mutual respect. 

And of course, we have the strong examples in the Gospels of Jesus showing caring and concern. So when the Disciples looked back over the years at their relationship with Jesus and at his teachings, they remembered his loving care for and acceptance of everyone. They also remembered his teachings about his followers needing to treat others with care and acceptance and mutual respect. So when it finally came time to write the Gospels in the Greek language for the new non-Jewish Greek-speaking people, they used 'agape' every time Jesus used 'love' in the Aramaic language he originally used to speak to his Jewish audiences.

All of that, of course, comes under a similarity between love and agape. So even though it makes a little sense for translators to use the English words ‘love’ and ‘loving’ to translate ‘agape’ and ‘agapao’ in some places, we can lose something important in translation if we too quickly try to understand agape by our 21st Century confusion about love. Our word ‘love’ puts unfortunate limitations on what the New Testament originally meant by ‘agape.’ So we come back to the reality that originally, ‘agape’ did not mean what people normally mean by the word ‘love.’ In fact, St. Paul was trying to take it in a completely different direction in 1 Cor. 13 and Romans 5:5 & 12:9-10 (even though at other times he seemed to use it to mean something more similar to love).

What I’m discovering in my research is that agape was far, far more than what we mean by love.