The Nature of Christian Love

This is my fourth blog on the use of Christian concepts in evidence based therapy.  The assumption that I am making is that Christian concepts may be used in evidence based therapy outside their religious context.  In my first blog, I asked whether Christian concepts can have any relevance in evidence based therapy and in the second I began to explore clients' objectives in evidence based therapy.  In my third blog, I discussed love as the fundamental concept of Christianity which Christians often fail to honour.  Now I wish to begin to explore the nature of Christian love.  As I wrote previously, love is the basis of Christianity and is the solution to the world's many ills. But what is love (agape) in Christianity?

There are many references to love in scripture and in Christian hymns, songs and writings but, as you might expect, no definition.  This is in the same way as we cannot limit God by a definition, love being the nature of God (and our ultimate nature too).  We are told to love our neighbour as ourself (please note, not instead of our self but as our self).  So self-love to the extent that we love our fellow humans is allowed.  Here neighbour includes enemies and those who hate us.  No wonder Christians fail to follow this commandment in their lives, it can be hard enough to love your family and friends, but the important thing is to keep trying and despite failure, not to give up.  

Jesus defines and shows us love through his life, teaching and death. St Paul gets close to a written definition in one of his letters.  It is worth quoting.  You may well have heard this passage read at a church wedding but its application is not limited to a couple about to share their lives together.  It is universal:

'And I will show you a still more excellent way.

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or clanging cymbal.  And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give away all my possessions and if I hand over my body so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends.  .................................  And now faith, hope and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.'  (1Cor:13)

Paul also tells us that 'knowledge puffs up but love builds up.'  When we fail in love, it is love that forgives us so that we can carry on.  Love can also result from forgiveness received and love covers a multitude of sins (errors).

I only have to read those words to know how far short I fall with regard to love but closely aligned with love is forgiveness and that is a second Christian concept that I will need to consider later in these blogs.

We are told and shown by Jesus that the greatest love is to lay down one's life for another.  Loving our neighbour as our self may mean that we take actions that are in their interest but that are not apparently in our own .  Normally for most of us, this only leads us to a small sacrifice of our possessions or time or minor inconvenience but for a few it is their life.

 In this blog, I have tried to provide some insight into the Christian concept of love and introduced the importance of forgiveness. In my next, I will begin to examine how this concept can aid evidence based therapy both for the client and the therapist even when taken out of its Christian context.

I welcome any comments and the dialogue they may bring.