What is Love?

What is love? How would you define it?

In our day and age, at least in the West, there is a high value on love—or at least the word love.

In modern, secular society, love is assumed to be understood this way: We should care for and support each other. Affirm each other’s dreams and desires, and never stop someone from pursuing or becoming their authentic self. In fact, to say or do anything that gets in the way of someone doing that is unloving. Or so we are told.

But here’s the problem: anyone can claim someone is or is not being loving, but without a shared definition of what love actually is, the claim is meaningless.

This is important because Jesus himself calls us to love. One of many examples can be found in John 13:34-35:

“I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Christians are called to pursue love. Therefore, if a supposed Christian is not loving, they are denying a central teaching of Jesus.

However, in order to call someone unloving, you must be able to define what love is. If someone defines love incorrectly and then, by that incorrect definition of love, accuses someone of being “unloving,” then it is the accuser who is actually in the wrong.

So what is the proper definition of love? Another popular saying is that “love is love.” But this is a circular argument that still doesn’t define the term. Sand is sand and water is water, but neither of those statements tells you what sand or water is.

For Christians, we look at Scripture and Jesus to define what love is. A working definition that I like to use is this:

Love: a selfless, sacrificial, and intentional commitment to the well-being of others.

This is what Jesus has done for us. This is how our Lord has treated us by making a way for us to be rescued and redeemed from our sin. While we were sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). While we were dead in our trespasses and sins, God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ (Ephesians 2:1, 4-5).

We did not deserve it, but Christ selflessly sacrificed himself for us and in our place. He did for us something we didn’t deserve because he loves us.

What is important about the biblical idea of love is that it is committed to the well-being of others. This means that just because someone may want or desire something, merely having that desire doesn’t make it good. We all know what it is like to want something that is not good for us. Wanting something bad does not make that thing any less bad.

And so, Christians can often be accused of being unloving when, biblically speaking, they are not being unloving; they are simply not affirming something the Bible calls sin. If we are committed to the well-being of others, then truly loving someone means we do not affirm things that are bad for them or sinful. Love means we care for the well-being of others, and sin is not good for us or others.

For example, it is loving for a parent to discipline their child. It is loving for a parent not to let their child eat cookies for breakfast, even though their child desires it. Love means doing the right thing, even if they (or we) don’t like it.

Love does not equal unquestioned affirmation. And so, to be accused of being unloving by someone who has a faulty definition of love does not make someone actually unloving. Therefore, it is helpful to get a definition of what someone means by love before their accusation carries any weight.

Jesus tells us the greatest commandment is to love God and love others. In Matthew 22:37-39 we see:

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Therefore, anything or any action that goes against God’s commands cannot be loving because our primary call is to love God. Out of loving God flows loving others, which includes resisting or even confronting actions and activities that are sinful. Biblically speaking, that is the loving thing to do.

Anything that is not honoring to God is not loving. Affirming anything that is not good for others is not loving.

Are you willing to love like Jesus? He was not afraid to call people’s actions sinful while also forgiving them and calling them to leave their life of sin. As Jesus did with the woman caught in adultery in John 8:1-11.

What is love? How would you define it? Here is a good definition:

Love: a selfless, sacrificial, and intentional commitment to the well-being of others.