agape love: feeling of being content or holding one in high regard...self sacrificing, giving love to all....both friend and enemy.
eros love: a passionate love, with sensual desire and longing.
phileo love: a virtuous love including loyalty to family and friends...requires familiarity.
Yes, we are commanded to love our children always with an agape love. But we are also created to desire a reciprocal love....a phileo love. One that shares laughter, tears, dreams, burdens, fears, tickles, kisses, hugs, touch, and....... the (ever elusive) eye contact.
Titus 2 Women are to be women who are lovers of (philoteknos) their children.
Jesus shows us this kind of love in his relationship with his close friends, the Apostle John and Lazarus. They were intimates. There was emotion woven into the fabric of their relationships. They shared the sort of love that was visible to those around them.
God commands believers to live lives overflowing with agape love...a willful love.
Eros and Phileo love cannot be commanded. But that does not mean....unless He calls us to lives of complete isolation....that we are to be at peace without experiencing them. We are created to love and be loved.
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