When I re-read that listing of scriptures, I was struck by how much the ‘agape’ passages from the Gospel According to John served as the basis underlying all the teachings there.
That thought, of course, especially came to me from the place in the ‘Last Supper’ section where Jesus is giving his final instructions about the importance of agape. He told them that they would be known by how much other people saw agape coming through their actions. (I understand those verses to mean, “Share agape with each other. Just as I have shared agape with you, so you also must share agape with each other. This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, when you share agape with each other.” (Jn. 13:34-35)) In other words, as I mentioned in a previous posting, their identity as a faith community is based on how alive the flowing of God’s agape is among them.
So, keeping that in mind, I went through the rest of the Gospel. What follows is what I learned.
The first time ‘agape’ is used in John is in the famous 3:16 verse. The implication is that the power of God’s agape to bring eternal Life was made possible through the work of Christ.
To me that implication is extended into the incident with the Samaritan woman at the well. So (especially where he invoked eternal Life (4:14)), I can’t help but think that Jesus was using the image of living water to refer to agape, because the whole incident is an illustration of Jesus using the influence of agape to overcome that ancient hatred that existed between Judaeans and Samaritans. The incident also illustrated Jesus overcoming the old custom of a woman not being allowed to speak alone to a man in public. So that account’s image of living water pointed to the power of agape to overcome hatreds and prejudices.
At another place I think reference is made to the eternal Life power of agape, when Jesus says, “What the Father does, the Son does. For the Father agapao the Son and shows him all his works, and will show greater yet, to fill you with wonder. … so the Son gives Life to people, as he determines.” (Jn. 5:20-21 NEB)
At another place the transformational power of agape is discussed in the difficult verses from 12:24-25, where we see that it is a misuse of agape to try clinging to the old ego-identity self. Instead, a person must turn away from the worldly definition of identity and use agape’s power of eternal Life to form a new identity.
When we get to the ‘Last Supper’ section, Jesus starts his final teachings by saying, “I give you a new commandment: share agape with one another; as I have shared agape with you, then all will know that you are my disciples.” (13:34-35)
To me it seems that Ch. 14 is an extended teaching about the meaning of agape, and when the translation correction is made -- to leave ‘agape’ intact, where it was meant to be -- then the spiritual meaning becomes clear. This is especially obvious when we take into consideration the way 14:15-17, 23-26 link agape with the Holy Spirit, and then 15:9-13 talks about agape dwelling in his followers in such a way that God’s Spirit dwells in them.
When Jesus called them to a future of remaining in his agape, he commanded them to live by agape so that they would become increasingly more aware of God’s power with them. Today, people who want to follow the teachings of Jesus, need to see themselves as also being under that commandment. But of course, agape only becomes a fully functioning, strong influence on life when it is recognized.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Agape as channel for divine permeating
Recently I read through the scripture quotes about agape that I’d included in my Aug. 20 posting. That inspired me during morning prayer to realize that agape serves for us as the channel through which divine Presence permeates our being. So serving as a spiritual channel, agape opens us to the manifesting of divine Presence in our lives.
Also, it is through agape that we are opened to the vastness of divine Presence. So agape opens us up to having a spiritual sensation of divine Presence so vast that it is eternal and formless. And yet agape allows us to participate in that vast, eternal, formless Essence. It is such a spiritual sensation of participating that shows us how we can identify with the vast, eternal, formless Essence.
That is how agape helps us completely change our sense of identity. We are able to see how to readjust our thinking about identity. Agape helps us start to build a personal identity based on being connected with and participating with divine Presence. Or as the ancient expression put it: each person sees herself or himself as a child of God.
As we let God’s agape work in our lives, it also serves as a channel for spiritual power to flow out to our relationships, and in that sense we serve as a channel for agape to flow in our world. Each of us helps to increase the influence of agape when we let it flow through our actions.
Agape helps us realize that we are participating in something so much more powerful than anything we could have developed by trying to identify as an individual personality. So agape helps us know how much more we are than we ever thought possible.
When I thought about how great that possibility is, I began remembering one of my favorite old hymns. This musical memory took me back to the days before I became aware of the problems with translating ‘agape’ as ‘divine love.’ The hymn was by Charles Wesley and was titled “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.” So I got out my old hymnal and re-wrote the words as follows:
Also, it is through agape that we are opened to the vastness of divine Presence. So agape opens us up to having a spiritual sensation of divine Presence so vast that it is eternal and formless. And yet agape allows us to participate in that vast, eternal, formless Essence. It is such a spiritual sensation of participating that shows us how we can identify with the vast, eternal, formless Essence.
That is how agape helps us completely change our sense of identity. We are able to see how to readjust our thinking about identity. Agape helps us start to build a personal identity based on being connected with and participating with divine Presence. Or as the ancient expression put it: each person sees herself or himself as a child of God.
As we let God’s agape work in our lives, it also serves as a channel for spiritual power to flow out to our relationships, and in that sense we serve as a channel for agape to flow in our world. Each of us helps to increase the influence of agape when we let it flow through our actions.
Agape helps us realize that we are participating in something so much more powerful than anything we could have developed by trying to identify as an individual personality. So agape helps us know how much more we are than we ever thought possible.
When I thought about how great that possibility is, I began remembering one of my favorite old hymns. This musical memory took me back to the days before I became aware of the problems with translating ‘agape’ as ‘divine love.’ The hymn was by Charles Wesley and was titled “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.” So I got out my old hymnal and re-wrote the words as follows:
“Agape, all loves excelling. Joy of eternity come to all. / Fix in us your humble dwelling. All your wonders share for all. / Jesus, you are all compassion, pure, agape you are. / Visit us with your salvation, spread to all, near and far. / Breathe, O breathe your spiritual agape in every troubled breast. / Let us all in you inherit, Let us find your promised rest. / You we would be always blessing; Alpha and Omega be; / End of faith, as its beginning, Set our hearts at liberty. / Come, almighty to deliver, Let us all your Life receive. / Pray, and praise you without ceasing, in agape to believe. / Finish then, your new creation; Pure and spotless let us be.”
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Agape is our hope
I ended the previous posting by trying to project into the future, to a time when agape has been able to transform human living. To me that is the only way there is still a glimmer of hope for our survival.
So many times during the 2 years of this blog I quoted Romans 5:5. But today I want to focus on the way Paul approached that all important statement. He introduced the statement by writing about HOPE. And then he linked hope to agape.
During the years of my increased understanding of the power of agape, hope has taken on deeper meaning. Of course, we today have to see the hope expressed by Paul as only a small glimmer of what we are beginning to see ahead of us. And it all has to do with the transformation in human relations that is being brought about by God’s agape.
Otherwise… the human race is saddled with another method, because our long history shows that there are only 2 ways to accomplish all the ethical commandments of the Bible (or of all the religions of the world, for that matter). One way is by means of complicated systems of crime and punishment. But of course, that long history has shown (sadly) that a complex system of laws enforced by a system of punishment, doesn’t work.
So after thousands of years of trying all kinds of punishment forms, the laws keep being broken -- people still cheat and steal from each other, people still beat up on one another, people still murder, and groups, communities, and nations still make war against each other.
The other method, of course, is for agape to transform the hearts and lives of people.
So my vision of hope for relations between individuals, within groups, between groups, in communities, and even between nations -- relies on agape.
And where does such a powerful, transforming force come from? According to 1 John 4 ….
So many times during the 2 years of this blog I quoted Romans 5:5. But today I want to focus on the way Paul approached that all important statement. He introduced the statement by writing about HOPE. And then he linked hope to agape.
During the years of my increased understanding of the power of agape, hope has taken on deeper meaning. Of course, we today have to see the hope expressed by Paul as only a small glimmer of what we are beginning to see ahead of us. And it all has to do with the transformation in human relations that is being brought about by God’s agape.
Otherwise… the human race is saddled with another method, because our long history shows that there are only 2 ways to accomplish all the ethical commandments of the Bible (or of all the religions of the world, for that matter). One way is by means of complicated systems of crime and punishment. But of course, that long history has shown (sadly) that a complex system of laws enforced by a system of punishment, doesn’t work.
So after thousands of years of trying all kinds of punishment forms, the laws keep being broken -- people still cheat and steal from each other, people still beat up on one another, people still murder, and groups, communities, and nations still make war against each other.
The other method, of course, is for agape to transform the hearts and lives of people.
So my vision of hope for relations between individuals, within groups, between groups, in communities, and even between nations -- relies on agape.
And where does such a powerful, transforming force come from? According to 1 John 4 ….
…. “Agape is from God, and everyone who shares agape is born from God and knows God. The person who doesn’t share agape does not know God, because God is agape. … We have known and have believed the agape that God has for us. God is agape, and those who remain in agape remain in God and God remains in them. … There is no fear in agape, but perfect agape drives out fear, because fear expects punishment.” (1 Jn 4: 7-8; 16-18a)
Monday, January 23, 2012
What is God’s action?
As I continue considering the vast implications of agape as God’s only action, I find myself wondering: how do people personally experience the power of Creation? For my own spiritual awareness, the power of Creation manifests to me as agape. That’s how I see agape personalizing divine Presence. Of course, the power of agape is very subtle; and yet -- is that not how we ‘sense’ divine Presence? Even though I've read about the 'crashing, overwhelming, flash' type of spiritual encounter (for example, Paul on the road to Damascus), I've never met anyone who it happen to them.
I mentioned in my previous posting that I’ve come back several times to that section of the New Testament that we call 1 John. When I started re-reading it by leaving ‘agape’ in its original form (as we were meant to read it), I began to see much deeper meaning opening up to me. Slowly, over the last couple of years, my perspective was transformed as I realized that 1 John used ‘agape’ in a way to convey God's action as it is manifested to people.
So what follows is my reading of the most compelling verses:
As I showed in last April 18’s posting, the very identity of the followers of Jesus is defined by living by the power of spiritual agape, and then sharing agape with each other and also allowing the Holy Spirit to extend agape through our actions out to others. (John 13:34-35) Jesus was demonstrating to his closest followers what that spiritual power could do in human life and in relationships. Also in that Last Supper section of John, Jesus promised, “If you share my agape, you will keep my commandments. I will ask the Father, and he will send spiritual power, to be with you forever.” (14:15-17) So for the Gospel of John, Christian = agape.
I see Paul confirming that with Romans 5:5 -- “The agape of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” Paul seemed to be saying that the spiritual power sent by Jesus continued to pour God's agape into the hearts of his followers and into the heart of the community of followers.
The sad realization, about the increasingly violent world, is that not enough of those claiming to be Christians actually do learn to live by agape. When Christians don’t put agape into action, then the potential divine influence (spread through Christian compassion and kindness) doesn’t get realized strongly enough to produce the desperately needed reduction in violence. And yet... God has specifically called us to that work of reducing violence.
I’ve always thought of those verses in 1 Jn. as starting a major new perspective on theology. So now, after 2,000 years, we can begin to see those verses showing that agape is the main action of God.
To me that leaves people throughout the world with the immediate work to come to terms with what that means for the survival of the human race. So it is through agape transforming human living, that we can see there is still a glimmer of hope for our very survival. Such transformation has vast implications for relations between individuals, within groups, between groups, in communities, and even between nations. Otherwise the fearfulness and destructive tendencies of humans will lead us to ruin our communities and our environment, thus jeopardizing the quality of living on the surface of this planet.
I mentioned in my previous posting that I’ve come back several times to that section of the New Testament that we call 1 John. When I started re-reading it by leaving ‘agape’ in its original form (as we were meant to read it), I began to see much deeper meaning opening up to me. Slowly, over the last couple of years, my perspective was transformed as I realized that 1 John used ‘agape’ in a way to convey God's action as it is manifested to people.
So what follows is my reading of the most compelling verses:
“Agape is from God, and everyone who shares agape is born from God and knows God. The person who doesn’t share agape does not know God, because God is agape. … We have known and have believed the agape that God has for us. God is agape, and those who remain in agape remain in God and God remains in them. … There is no fear in agape, but perfect agape drives out fear.” (1 Jn 4: 7-8; 16-18a)When I read those verses that way (with 'agape' inserted in its spiritual power meaning), I'm able to see a whole new realm of meaning.
As I showed in last April 18’s posting, the very identity of the followers of Jesus is defined by living by the power of spiritual agape, and then sharing agape with each other and also allowing the Holy Spirit to extend agape through our actions out to others. (John 13:34-35) Jesus was demonstrating to his closest followers what that spiritual power could do in human life and in relationships. Also in that Last Supper section of John, Jesus promised, “If you share my agape, you will keep my commandments. I will ask the Father, and he will send spiritual power, to be with you forever.” (14:15-17) So for the Gospel of John, Christian = agape.
I see Paul confirming that with Romans 5:5 -- “The agape of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” Paul seemed to be saying that the spiritual power sent by Jesus continued to pour God's agape into the hearts of his followers and into the heart of the community of followers.
The sad realization, about the increasingly violent world, is that not enough of those claiming to be Christians actually do learn to live by agape. When Christians don’t put agape into action, then the potential divine influence (spread through Christian compassion and kindness) doesn’t get realized strongly enough to produce the desperately needed reduction in violence. And yet... God has specifically called us to that work of reducing violence.
I’ve always thought of those verses in 1 Jn. as starting a major new perspective on theology. So now, after 2,000 years, we can begin to see those verses showing that agape is the main action of God.
To me that leaves people throughout the world with the immediate work to come to terms with what that means for the survival of the human race. So it is through agape transforming human living, that we can see there is still a glimmer of hope for our very survival. Such transformation has vast implications for relations between individuals, within groups, between groups, in communities, and even between nations. Otherwise the fearfulness and destructive tendencies of humans will lead us to ruin our communities and our environment, thus jeopardizing the quality of living on the surface of this planet.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Two years blogging about agape
Two years ago I started this blog about agape. I started by struggling with what St. Paul was working so hard to explain about 'agape.' I wondered why everyone seemed to think Paul would need to work that hard to explain love, and yet he never used any of the commonly used Greek words for 'love.' Obviously something was wrong with the usual interpretation.
When Paul found himself being asked by non-Jewish Greeks to explain the teachings of Jesus Christ, he seemed to have realized that some of the words used by Greek-speaking Jews were not familiar to the average Greek. The main one of these words was ‘agape.’ So he spent a lot of time explaining what ‘agape’ meant.
When we read those passages from his letters, it helps our understanding if we start with the basic assumption that he was talking about a spiritual power (and definitely he was not talking about what the average Greek thought of as love).
I came to that conclusion many years ago, when I first started finding out that English translations of the Bible did not bring out the full meaning of the original text. Eventually I found out that the English word ‘love’ did not capture the spiritual meaning that Paul was expressing with the word ‘agape.’ Of course, everything that the average American means by our word ‘love’ was expressed by the words that the average Greek used (such as, 'eros,' 'philia,' and 'storge'). And none of those Greek words for love were what Paul was trying to convey with the word ‘agape.’ That's why he didn't use those words. So I concluded that the reason Paul did not use any of the usual Greek words for love was because he was not talking about love.
During these 2 years of writing, I’ve come back several times to that section of the New Testament that we call 1 John. The more I continue studying those parts of 1 John that deal with agape, the more I see why we lose most of the meaning when we translate ‘agape’ with our common English word ‘love.’ 1 John used ‘agape’ in a way to convey God's action as it is manifested to people. I finally realize that the author's deep awareness of God's action through agape is what led to the great acclamation: “God is agape.”
It is through that understanding that these 2 years of writing culminated on Dec. 19 with the thought coming to me: Agape is God’s ONLY action. During the weeks since then, I’ve been struggling to understand what such a conclusion of spiritual awareness could mean. What would the implications then be for all those other thousands of years of theories about God’s action?
I think such a thought conveys the full meaning that God’s supreme act to any human being comes through not only agape opening a person to divine Presence, but also agape motivating and empowering humans to actions of respect and caring with those around us. That’s how human sensibility becomes aware of agape’s double power!
And so I concluded that by the time Paul wrote the letter to the Romans, he could express this profound insight: through giving agape to humans, God makes it possible for us to be able to find the spiritual reality of intimate, intense affection such that we can give full acceptance and mutual respect to everyone around us. And Paul also explained that it is the power of God’s Presence that can transform a human life to perform such profound actions.
And so I was finally able to say on Dec. 27: the very survival of the human race depends on coming to terms with agape as God’s only action.
When Paul found himself being asked by non-Jewish Greeks to explain the teachings of Jesus Christ, he seemed to have realized that some of the words used by Greek-speaking Jews were not familiar to the average Greek. The main one of these words was ‘agape.’ So he spent a lot of time explaining what ‘agape’ meant.
When we read those passages from his letters, it helps our understanding if we start with the basic assumption that he was talking about a spiritual power (and definitely he was not talking about what the average Greek thought of as love).
I came to that conclusion many years ago, when I first started finding out that English translations of the Bible did not bring out the full meaning of the original text. Eventually I found out that the English word ‘love’ did not capture the spiritual meaning that Paul was expressing with the word ‘agape.’ Of course, everything that the average American means by our word ‘love’ was expressed by the words that the average Greek used (such as, 'eros,' 'philia,' and 'storge'). And none of those Greek words for love were what Paul was trying to convey with the word ‘agape.’ That's why he didn't use those words. So I concluded that the reason Paul did not use any of the usual Greek words for love was because he was not talking about love.
During these 2 years of writing, I’ve come back several times to that section of the New Testament that we call 1 John. The more I continue studying those parts of 1 John that deal with agape, the more I see why we lose most of the meaning when we translate ‘agape’ with our common English word ‘love.’ 1 John used ‘agape’ in a way to convey God's action as it is manifested to people. I finally realize that the author's deep awareness of God's action through agape is what led to the great acclamation: “God is agape.”
It is through that understanding that these 2 years of writing culminated on Dec. 19 with the thought coming to me: Agape is God’s ONLY action. During the weeks since then, I’ve been struggling to understand what such a conclusion of spiritual awareness could mean. What would the implications then be for all those other thousands of years of theories about God’s action?
I think such a thought conveys the full meaning that God’s supreme act to any human being comes through not only agape opening a person to divine Presence, but also agape motivating and empowering humans to actions of respect and caring with those around us. That’s how human sensibility becomes aware of agape’s double power!
And so I concluded that by the time Paul wrote the letter to the Romans, he could express this profound insight: through giving agape to humans, God makes it possible for us to be able to find the spiritual reality of intimate, intense affection such that we can give full acceptance and mutual respect to everyone around us. And Paul also explained that it is the power of God’s Presence that can transform a human life to perform such profound actions.
And so I was finally able to say on Dec. 27: the very survival of the human race depends on coming to terms with agape as God’s only action.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
‘Agape’ as God’s ONLY action
One morning recently when I was praying about God’s agape, I realized that agape is God's action. At first that may not seem like much of a realization, but the more I prayed about the implications, the more I started thinking about all of the claims throughout the last 5,000 years about what else could be divine action.
Some of those claims actually resulted in formulating religions. I remembered reading about the huge variety of ideas about divine activity in ancient cultures throughout the planet. One of the most common ideas about God’s action and the impact on human individuals and groups is inspiration. None of the major claims to divine inspiration were written down by those originally inspired. So the results of the inspiration were passed along verbally, the oldest became cultural foundations for generations. That means: TRANSLATED into human cultural foundations. That’s how they were all passed down to people in the 21st Century -- through generations of translations.
But then I thought about all the trouble that has been caused by people wanting to be the only ones for whom God gave actions in special ways. Also I thought about all the people who suffered terrible disasters and then were made to suffer more by being told those disasters were the result of God’s actions. It has always seemed to me that something was wrong, cruel, and theologically misleading about such ideas about divine action. But then this thought came to me: what if …
... Agape is God’s ONLY action.
What could that mean? I was stunned by the thought. What would the implications then be for all those other theories about God’s action?
During the last two years of formulating this blog, my faith perspective has slowly but radically been transformed through my experiencing of agape. I’ve spent quite a bit of time looking back 2,000 years to try figuring out what St. Paul was working so hard to explain. At last I’m beginning to think that he was laying the groundwork for people hundreds of years later to begin understanding how agape could be God’s only action.
Paul did a lot of explaining that God’s agape not only opened us to divine Presence, but also the spiritual power of agape opened us up to awareness of profound relationship, and agape empowered and motivated humans to actions of respect and caring with those around us, and also to intense intimacy and affection. What an insight to show agape’s double power (both from divine to human and from divine to human to humans)!
Paul wrote about God giving agape to humans, first to help us find the spiritual reality of intimate, intense affection; and then to motivate us to give full acceptance and mutual respect to everyone around us. And Paul also explained how the power of God’s agape can transform a human life to perform such profound actions of respect and caring.
Paul’s efforts first started showing a little glimmer of results when, years after he wrote his letters, someone finally formulated the following words about God’s action (in 1 John 4:6-8) -- “This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Dear friends, let’s agapao each other, because agape is from God, and everyone who agapan is born from God and knows God. The person who doesn’t agapao does not know God, because God is agape.” GOD IS AGAPE!
And people have been struggling ever since then to come to terms with what that means for the survival of the human race. I think it means everything! The very survival of the human race depends on coming to terms with agape as God’s only action.
Some of those claims actually resulted in formulating religions. I remembered reading about the huge variety of ideas about divine activity in ancient cultures throughout the planet. One of the most common ideas about God’s action and the impact on human individuals and groups is inspiration. None of the major claims to divine inspiration were written down by those originally inspired. So the results of the inspiration were passed along verbally, the oldest became cultural foundations for generations. That means: TRANSLATED into human cultural foundations. That’s how they were all passed down to people in the 21st Century -- through generations of translations.
But then I thought about all the trouble that has been caused by people wanting to be the only ones for whom God gave actions in special ways. Also I thought about all the people who suffered terrible disasters and then were made to suffer more by being told those disasters were the result of God’s actions. It has always seemed to me that something was wrong, cruel, and theologically misleading about such ideas about divine action. But then this thought came to me: what if …
... Agape is God’s ONLY action.
What could that mean? I was stunned by the thought. What would the implications then be for all those other theories about God’s action?
During the last two years of formulating this blog, my faith perspective has slowly but radically been transformed through my experiencing of agape. I’ve spent quite a bit of time looking back 2,000 years to try figuring out what St. Paul was working so hard to explain. At last I’m beginning to think that he was laying the groundwork for people hundreds of years later to begin understanding how agape could be God’s only action.
Paul did a lot of explaining that God’s agape not only opened us to divine Presence, but also the spiritual power of agape opened us up to awareness of profound relationship, and agape empowered and motivated humans to actions of respect and caring with those around us, and also to intense intimacy and affection. What an insight to show agape’s double power (both from divine to human and from divine to human to humans)!
Paul wrote about God giving agape to humans, first to help us find the spiritual reality of intimate, intense affection; and then to motivate us to give full acceptance and mutual respect to everyone around us. And Paul also explained how the power of God’s agape can transform a human life to perform such profound actions of respect and caring.
Paul’s efforts first started showing a little glimmer of results when, years after he wrote his letters, someone finally formulated the following words about God’s action (in 1 John 4:6-8) -- “This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Dear friends, let’s agapao each other, because agape is from God, and everyone who agapan is born from God and knows God. The person who doesn’t agapao does not know God, because God is agape.” GOD IS AGAPE!
And people have been struggling ever since then to come to terms with what that means for the survival of the human race. I think it means everything! The very survival of the human race depends on coming to terms with agape as God’s only action.
Monday, December 19, 2011
‘Agape’ as a new word
When I was reading other blogs that mentioned ‘agape’ in spiritual terms, I found one that listed all the NT passages that used ‘agape.’ That blog was bebereans.blogspot.com/2011/03/exercise-in-agape-love by Ed from Newark, N. J. In it Ed showed that he was starting to realize the spiritual meaning of agape. He talked about ‘agape’ as a new word because of the way St. Paul was giving it new meaning.
But then when he gave a list of where ‘agape’ was found, he still didn’t realize fully that ‘agape’ could not be translated into English; so he tried to find the meaning of all those scripture readings by using the common English word ‘love.’ In doing that, of course, he missed the point that St. Paul was giving new meaning to ‘agape’ -- but not as some sort of a new word for love. Paul wasn’t talking about love.
When Ed tried to account for the strange use of ‘agape’ in those readings, he commented: “Whenever you introduce a new word into language it’s necessary for that word to be defined, St. Paul defines it for us in 1 Corinthians 13 beginning in verse 4.” So there was a slight recognition that there was something ‘new’ about the way ‘agape’ was used by Paul and some others in the Early Church. And Ed pointed out agape’s strictly spiritual meaning. Still, all of that loses the original meaning from Paul if we merely use the word ‘love.’ Then we are left with the strange impression that Paul was trying to explain love. But why would Paul have felt the need to do that?
But when I gave a similar list in my posting to this blog on Aug. 20, I did what I think Paul would have wanted us to do and that was leave ‘agape’ as a Greek word. I did that because I finally realized, after years of studying and praying about the meaning of agape, that what Paul was mainly doing in his writings about ‘agape’ was trying to explain what his strange word meant and what was the power behind the spiritual reality that word stood for.
So here again, our very limited English vocabulary makes it hard to find words to express a spiritual basis for intense intimacy, affection, respect and caring. We need a spiritual term for “complete acceptance, support, and commitment.” But there is no English word that can express the profound spiritual basis that links God’s action toward us that flows out from us in actions of caring, affection, respect, and intense intimacy.
Many writers, who won’t use a Greek word, have been forced to assign spiritual meaning to the strange 2-word expression, ‘unconditional love,’ -- or they try giving a spiritual meaning by using the cumbersome phrase, ‘divine love given to another person.’ But because there is no single word, a profound mistake in translation happened when ‘love’ was used when the Bible was rendered into all the English versions appearing in the last 200 years. And 400 years ago, translators came up with the new word, 'charity,' but within 100 years it had lost all spiritual meaning.
I think Paul initially had the same problem with the Greek language. When he first began traveling north, he couldn’t find a Greek word for what he was trying to tell his Greek-speaking audiences. None of the normal words in common, everyday usage carried any spiritual meaning. Also he seemed to be trying to explain that only through a profound walk with God can a person begin to truly, deeply understand what happens when God opens us up and draws us into a close experience of Presence. No ordinary word could possibly help with such an explanation.
Because the first Greek-speaking audiences Paul addressed were Jewish, he had an advantage after studying with a few of the best scholars of his region. From that study, he would have known about the 70 scholars in Alexandria who translated the Torah into Greek (called the 'Septuagint'). As far as I can track it, that translation seemed to have been the first time when the verb form of ‘agape’ was used in the important Jewish ‘Shema’ (that Jesus used for the Great Commandment). And at the time of the Septuagint translation, ‘agape’ was an unusual, archaic word. So when the teachings of Jesus were translated into Greek, that version of the Shema became the clue to use ‘agape’ (and the verb form, ‘agapao,’) throughout the Gospels. For example in Matthew’s version, Jesus added a second commandment that was “like” the first: “You shall agapao your neighbor as yourself.”
So it makes sense to me that Paul used the Greek translation of the Shema to get the idea to use that unusual, archaic word ‘agape’ as his important spiritual word. Paul used that idea to begin teaching that God’s agape not only opened us to divine Presence, but also agape opened us up to intense intimacy, affection, respect and caring with those around us.
What an insight to show agape’s double power! So by the time Paul wrote the letter to the Romans, he could express this profound insight: through giving agape to humans, God makes it possible for us to be able to find the spiritual reality of intimate, intense affection such that we can give full acceptance and mutual respect to everyone around us. And Paul also explained that only the power of God’s Presence can transform a human life to perform such profound actions.
But then when he gave a list of where ‘agape’ was found, he still didn’t realize fully that ‘agape’ could not be translated into English; so he tried to find the meaning of all those scripture readings by using the common English word ‘love.’ In doing that, of course, he missed the point that St. Paul was giving new meaning to ‘agape’ -- but not as some sort of a new word for love. Paul wasn’t talking about love.
When Ed tried to account for the strange use of ‘agape’ in those readings, he commented: “Whenever you introduce a new word into language it’s necessary for that word to be defined, St. Paul defines it for us in 1 Corinthians 13 beginning in verse 4.” So there was a slight recognition that there was something ‘new’ about the way ‘agape’ was used by Paul and some others in the Early Church. And Ed pointed out agape’s strictly spiritual meaning. Still, all of that loses the original meaning from Paul if we merely use the word ‘love.’ Then we are left with the strange impression that Paul was trying to explain love. But why would Paul have felt the need to do that?
But when I gave a similar list in my posting to this blog on Aug. 20, I did what I think Paul would have wanted us to do and that was leave ‘agape’ as a Greek word. I did that because I finally realized, after years of studying and praying about the meaning of agape, that what Paul was mainly doing in his writings about ‘agape’ was trying to explain what his strange word meant and what was the power behind the spiritual reality that word stood for.
So here again, our very limited English vocabulary makes it hard to find words to express a spiritual basis for intense intimacy, affection, respect and caring. We need a spiritual term for “complete acceptance, support, and commitment.” But there is no English word that can express the profound spiritual basis that links God’s action toward us that flows out from us in actions of caring, affection, respect, and intense intimacy.
Many writers, who won’t use a Greek word, have been forced to assign spiritual meaning to the strange 2-word expression, ‘unconditional love,’ -- or they try giving a spiritual meaning by using the cumbersome phrase, ‘divine love given to another person.’ But because there is no single word, a profound mistake in translation happened when ‘love’ was used when the Bible was rendered into all the English versions appearing in the last 200 years. And 400 years ago, translators came up with the new word, 'charity,' but within 100 years it had lost all spiritual meaning.
I think Paul initially had the same problem with the Greek language. When he first began traveling north, he couldn’t find a Greek word for what he was trying to tell his Greek-speaking audiences. None of the normal words in common, everyday usage carried any spiritual meaning. Also he seemed to be trying to explain that only through a profound walk with God can a person begin to truly, deeply understand what happens when God opens us up and draws us into a close experience of Presence. No ordinary word could possibly help with such an explanation.
Because the first Greek-speaking audiences Paul addressed were Jewish, he had an advantage after studying with a few of the best scholars of his region. From that study, he would have known about the 70 scholars in Alexandria who translated the Torah into Greek (called the 'Septuagint'). As far as I can track it, that translation seemed to have been the first time when the verb form of ‘agape’ was used in the important Jewish ‘Shema’ (that Jesus used for the Great Commandment). And at the time of the Septuagint translation, ‘agape’ was an unusual, archaic word. So when the teachings of Jesus were translated into Greek, that version of the Shema became the clue to use ‘agape’ (and the verb form, ‘agapao,’) throughout the Gospels. For example in Matthew’s version, Jesus added a second commandment that was “like” the first: “You shall agapao your neighbor as yourself.”
So it makes sense to me that Paul used the Greek translation of the Shema to get the idea to use that unusual, archaic word ‘agape’ as his important spiritual word. Paul used that idea to begin teaching that God’s agape not only opened us to divine Presence, but also agape opened us up to intense intimacy, affection, respect and caring with those around us.
What an insight to show agape’s double power! So by the time Paul wrote the letter to the Romans, he could express this profound insight: through giving agape to humans, God makes it possible for us to be able to find the spiritual reality of intimate, intense affection such that we can give full acceptance and mutual respect to everyone around us. And Paul also explained that only the power of God’s Presence can transform a human life to perform such profound actions.
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