Defining Love
We recently celebrated Valentine’s Day and love was in the air. If you happened to go to HEB or Walmart, you saw flowers, chocolates, cards, and much more. Valentine’s Day is a big deal, especially if you are in elementary school and you have to pick out the right set of cards to hand out to all of your classmates. This time in February is not the only time we talk about love in our culture. It is a frequent topic. We use slogans like “love wins” and “love over hate.” We watch movies about love. We listen to love songs. There is even an entire tv channel with a loyal fan base devoted to telling stories about love with very similar plots. Love is more than in the air. It’s a part of our culture.
We use the word love in a variety of ways. In the span of one day, we may say, I love the Dallas Cowboys, I love potato chips, and I love my spouse. Obviously, we do not love a spouse the same we love potato chips. Hopefully, we love our spouses in a deeper and more meaningful way than we love our favorite football team. This can be confusing. We use the word love often, but what do we mean when we use this word?
The word love is used frequently within the pages of Scripture. The two greatest commands are to love God and love others. This is something we’re expected to do each day. Are we to wake up every morning and conjure up feelings of love towards God and our neighbors, or does Scripture have something else in mind when it uses the word love? Feelings are important and we should not ignore them, but feelings alone do not adequately get at what the Bible means by love. They are not even the first thing we should think about. Thankfully, Scripture defines love for us in several places. One of the most helpful is Luke 10. Most people are familiar with this passage, but few recognize how Jesus uses this story to teach us what love means.
Luke 10 is the account of the Good Samaritan. We often only use this passage to help us define neighbor. We forget that Jesus is not just revealing who our neighbors are. He is teaching us what it means to love our neighbors. The story is about a man who is robbed and left for dead on the side of the road. A priest and Levite see him but refuse to help.
It is the Samaritan who stops and helps, and it is here that Jesus begins to show us what love looks like. What does the Samaritan do? He stops. He sacrifices his time by stopping. He potentially sacrifices his safety because he doesn’t know this man. This man could be a robber himself. The Samaritan then cares for the man’s wounds. He uses his oil and wine. He sacrifices his resources. He then puts the wounded man on his donkey. He sacrifices his comfort. He takes the man to an inn and pays the bill. He sacrifices his wealth. What is love? It is sacrifice. It’s not just giving off the top. It is giving in a way that costs us something.
We use the word love in many different ways in our modern culture. We often associate it with feelings. We say we love things like potato chips and football. There is nothing sinister or wrong by using the word love in these ways, but we should recognize this word has so much more depth. What would it look like if we loved others the way Jesus describes in Luke 10? How would our community transform if we began to love like this? How many people might we help? How many lives might we change?
Many of us have been blessed beyond measure. God has been good to us. It’s worth considering how we might give in return. It’s worth thinking about what kind of sacrifices we can make on behalf of others. In doing so, we begin to imitate the One who sacrificed everything for us. We give the world a glimpse of the love Christ has shown us.