Agapé was the word chosen for “God’s Love” when the Greek manuscripts and letters of the New Testament were put out in the 1st Century. This developed when those followers of Jesus began writing for the Greek speakers who wanted to know about Jesus. They needed to find a new word to express God’s Love to the Greek culture. Paul convinced them to use an ancient word that was almost unknown in those days so it would seem like a new word.
So in the Greek version of the Gospel According to John, the Last Supper teaching from Jesus to his followers includes instructions about agapé. Then the 2 best known places where Paul expanded on the teaching are in Romans and 1st Corinthians. There are many of the postings in this blog that deal specifically with those passages.
Then over the centuries since then, the teachings about agapé gained greater importance as people learned how to let agapé work in their personal lives and relationships. As each culture translated the teachings from Jesus and Paul into various languages, the importance of agapé was kept alive. That is until English speakers in the 19th Century made the mistake of translating ‘agapé’ into ‘love.’ From then on the importance of agapé became lost to English speakers.
The vast devastation of the first half of the 20th Century was followed by a rediscovery of the meaning of agapé. So it is now up to all of us to find the importance of agapé-flow in our life.
As I began to do this in my own daily meditation exercises, living, and relationships, I began to find my life being changed as I let the agapic perspective on life develop for me. Now, I present this blog as my response to all of that.
