(I’m not understanding why, given yesterday’s post, but this is the page I was led to for today’s post. kent)
President Russell M. Nelson as then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, said during a Church Educational System Fireside in 1995:
“The New Testament contains many references to the Lords commandments that human beings love one another. Those verses become even more meaningful if considered in the New Testament’s original Greek language. It is a very rich language having three different words for love, in contrast to the one available to us in the English language. The Greek words for love apply at different levels of emotion.
The term employed for the highest level of love is agape, to describe the kind of love we feel for the Lord or for other highly esteemed individuals. It is a term of great respect and admiration.
The second level of love is expressed by the term phileo, to describe affection felt for a beloved associate or friend. It, too, is a term of great respect, but perhaps less formal.
The third level of love is expressed by the term eros, to describe physical desire or intimacy.
As I quote a couple of scriptures, see if you can identify the appropriate Greek term. Quoting the Lord: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another: (John 13:34). Right! The level of love cited in this verse is that of agape—with highest respect.
Quoting Paul: “Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love” (Romans 12:10) If you said phileo, the second level, you were correct. Another familiar word translated from this Greek term is Philadelphia, the “city of brotherly love.”
I looked up all the references to love in the New Testament, both in English and Greek. I found that every reference that adjures us to love one anther employs only the higher agape or phileo forms. Not a single reference utilized the third level, eros. (A More Excellent Hope,'” Church Educational System Fireside, January 8, 1995) quoted here from ‘Teachings of Russell M. Nelson’ (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2018), 188-189
