Love, Love, Love and Love
The English language can be very confusing, especially to the casual listener. We have many words which sound the same, but are spelled differently and have quite different meanings. Of course we people who use words in hyperbole, facetiously, and without even knowing their meaning. And we have many words which are spelled the same, but which have meanings that differ depending on their use. Take the word love for example. It has multiple meanings or classes of meaning, but all of them are spelled identically. The same word is used to describe one's feeling toward spouse, money, friend or country, yet it is normally intended as distinctly different in each case. To illustrate the distinction between these different kinds of love, we might borrow the four words used in the Greek language to describe one's love for spouse, money, friend or country, eros or erotos, philarguria, philadelphos and agapao, respectively.
Eros is the sexual, or erotic form of love, such as that directed towards a spouse. In this class one could also include any other strong physical urges or appetites, such as gluttony and the demand for exacting and immediate satisfaction of creature comforts. Eros can be recognized by it's impatience, selfishness and irrational insistence. It is typically pictured as the persistent request of the pushy suitor to the young virgin to yield to his sexual conquest. Philarguria is the love of money or avarice. It is little better than it's cousin eros in that it's motives are selfish and usually completely lacking in merit. This form of "love" is probably the most common of the four in today's highly commercialized and sensationalized environment. The entertainment industry has done much to encourage this feeling of desire for the finest tings that money can buy. It is responsible for the widespread disillusionment, discontent and incessant craving for more among the recent generations. Avarice love is often portrayed by those seen on programs such as "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" and interviewed by tabloids on a weekly basis to the point of annoyance of the general populace.
The love of a friend, philadelphos, from which we named Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, is of a much finer stuff than that of the two aforementioned classes. Philadelphos is typified by the type of actions that once were the meat of primary school lessons. Things such as polite manners; saying "Please", "Thank you" and "You are welcome" and holding the door for women and the elderly. This form of friendly love was once the rule as opposed to the exception as it appears to be today.
The last in the list of classes of loves is the most selfless expression of love man can show. Agapao is that sacrificial giving with truly no thought or concern as to repayment or benefit to itself. It is this kind of love that the heart of all men long for but so rarely experience. It is the soldier laying on the barbed wire making himself the bridge for his comrades and the couple from The Gift of the Magi. It is the perfect love of the older brother who not only would be willing to die for his siblings. but did ... on a cross.
Jesus made it clear what he meant by "I love you". Do you?