Four Types Of Love Are Mentioned In The Bible.

How can we know anything about anything

To try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation. George Macdonald

Do we have to make a choice between science and the Bible?

NO!

That is NOT where the problem is, but that is what everyone seems to want to talk about.

Take science as an example. How can we know anything about the created material world around us?

How can we know anything from what we can see using natural sciences?

We all see the same things in the material world, but we don't come to the same answers.

Why is that?

How can we know anything about the Bible and what it teaches? Every person believes different things about the Bible and how it should be read.

Why is that?

Same scientific facts. Different answers.

Same Bible. Different answers.

Why is that?

The true question is this: How do we come to our answers that we get from what we can see through science or what we can read in the Bible?

How do we think about what we see using science or what we read in the Bible?

How do we analyze what we have seen and read?

How do we interpret what we have seen and read?

We use logic, but logic always has a foundation. Jesus talked about building on the Rock. That Rock is Jesus Christ. He is the true foundation. There are also the false foundations of the ungodly.

An example might help.

Question: Why do believe in evolution?

Answer: Because my science teacher told me that evolution is scientific fact.

Question: Why do you believe your science teacher?

Answer: because he agrees with the textbook he assigned us to read.

Now, we have asked, "Why?" twice.

If we continued to ask, "Why?" we would come down to the foundation of this person's thoughts.

When we get down to the foundations, there are no more questions that can be answered. So where to the foundations come from?

There are three possibilities.

things that we make up, pulled from the air
demonic lies
divine revelation

Question: Why do believe in creation?

Answer: Because God revealed this to me. He spoke to me through the Bible and gave me His faith so that I could believe Him.

See how quickly we got to the foundation. This is a belief that has a foundation that is solid and that cannot be moved.

In reality, the things that we make up, that are pulled from the air, are actually from demons and all the lies of demons spring from the prince of demons, Satan. So these are one and the same.

Divine revelation comes from the Almighty, Creator, God, Jesus Christ. So there are only two choices, but how do we know there are only two choices? Because God has revealed this truth to us.

The question then is how do we tell the difference between the revelation that comes from God and the lies of Satan?

The answer is that everyone who sincerely wants to do the will of God will know.

Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me"

The rejection of the revelation that comes from God is not an intellectual problem. It is a moral problem.

Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you: For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened. *

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Matthew 7:7-11 *

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can set the truth before someone, but you can't make anyone believe those things that they don't want to submit to. They have to want to obey God.

How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong! Reason alone fails to justify itself. Richard M. Weaver

Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32)

"If we are not prepared to buy the truth at the cost of our own humbling we shall not receive it"

Lies appear to have no price upon them. They seem cheap and they abound everywhere. But for the truth there is always an obvious price to pay.

[God] has set a day when He will judge all the world's people with fairness. And He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31).

"There is a judge for the one who rejects Me [Jesus] and does not accept My words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48)

That also stands for every person who speaks the utterances of Jesus. When we hear them, we hear Jesus Christ, and we either accept or reject. Every person who follows Jesus Christ is commanded to only speak His utterances and not their own.

"When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God" (1 John 3:19)

Ravi Zacharias did two open forums in a university. On the second night, one man told him that he had brought two Atheists in the night before who said that the arguments presented were so strong that they could not contend with them, but they were going to remain Atheists because that is what they prefer to be true.

In listening to an unbeliever and drawing out his reasoning, the unbeliever finally came to his foundations.

They turned out to be assumptions that were pulled from the air. When asked why he believed his basic assumption, the unbeliever looked startled and blurted out, “I guess I’m making the whole thing up.” It was quite a revelation to him since he hadn't even known that he had any assumptions. However, he decided to remain an Atheist because he didn’t want God to rule over him.

All love comes from God. There is no other source of true love. Someone may ask, "Then what about unbelievers who love their spouses or love their children or love their friends?" Four types of love are mentioned in the Bible.

There is a Greek word, phileo, that means brotherly love. This is the kind of love that is based on common interests, common goals, or personalities that just seem to get along well.

Then, there is another Greek word, eros, for self-gratifying "love." Eros is focused on one's self and what it can get, often in terms of pleasure. It cares nothing for others because it is too busy using others and taking advantage of them--although it may impersonate affection to get what it wants. It often may even fool the person displaying eros into thinking that the eros is actually true love. This type of "love" gives many people a very warped view of sex.

The Greek word, storge, refers to the kind of love that occurs naturally between family members, which is a good gift from God. It is that powerful love that sweeps over a mother when she gives birth. It is the love between brothers and sisters. God built natural affection into every person just as He put a conscience in every person. The word, storge, is never used in the Bible, but astorgos, without natural affection, is mentioned twice. Some are so evil that they even lack natural affection for members of their own family, their parents, spouse, siblings, or children. This is not how they were created, however.

The type of love that we are most concerned with is the supernatural love. This is the love that God is. This love goes beyond natural affection. You were created to literally flow with this kind of love in mighty, flowing streams as you tap into the all-powerful Source of this love. This love is available only through Christ who reconciles us to the almighty God who created all things. The Greek word for the supernatural kind of love is agape.

Looking to God to understand love and centering on 1 Corinthians 13, we find that love is patient, kind, humble, polite, serving others, self-controlled, forgiving, good, and truth-loving. Love is not envious, boastful nor desiring recognition nor proud, rude, self-seeking nor wanting to be served, quick-tempered, unforgiving, entertained by evil, nor does love seek out a lie. This is the agape love, the love that is only available as it flows from the throne of God. And this love is related to faith, true faith.

Since love is so closely related to faith, the fact that faith has been re-defined will have a devastating effect on receiving the love that is of God. Sometimes we use the word, faith, and we really mean a Faith is a powerful gift that only God can give.">rationalized belief. Sometimes we may refer to a religious organization and call it a faith. Sometimes the word, faith, is used to refer to a doctrine. Real, genuine, faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen, Hebrews 11:1. Whatever is not of faith is sin, Romans 14:23. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word (literally, utterance) of God, Romans 10:17. Looking into 1 Corinthians 13 in the fourth verse, it says, "charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up." That is to say, love is humble; it doesn't brag; it has no pride. Understanding just who you are in reality has a lot to do with understanding the exact function of faith, hope, grace, and love. By the way, humility does not imply that you must beat yourself up and think of yourself as something less than God thinks of you.

Four Types Of Love Are Mentioned In The Bible.

How can we know anything about anything

Love

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