By Ezra Ayokanmi Emmanuel
October 27, 2024
What is the true measure of love? Love is a universal language of expressiveness of filial and erotic feelings. Humans are creations of love, made with the capacity to give and accept love. Expressions of deep feelings are not entirely limited to humans alone, however. Even animals, lower intelligence that they are, exhibit and express love to one another in the way they know how to. The capacity to love, accept love and accept to be loved is an intuitive part of the homos species.
Neighbourliness is a very important ingredient for community growth. Man, and the animals that share and compete over the earthly space with him, need the assurance of knowing they are not alone to thrive. But while this assurance of their kind being in close proximity is important, having assurance that one is accepted is of even greater importance. It is beneficial to be accepted in society for reasons such as integration, sense of belonging, social connection, and access to a broader network of support. This can have positive mental advantages. Dana Philips, writing in QUORA, states that “people need acceptance from others because we cannot get it from ourselves”. We can accept ourselves for who we are, for our capabilities, for our incapacity but we cannot in ourselves compel others to accept us into a group if we do not have the contribution society needs.
Accepting one another’s frailties and understanding our incapacity to stand alone is the bedrock of society from the beginning of the ages. Living together, as we are forced to do in the limited space of this earth, makes conflict inevitable. People have different orientations and worldviews, ideologies and philosophies as well as creeds and religious inclinations and beliefs. These all mesh together to form society. In the mesh is the vital cog for harmony which love is.
The bible teaches at 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 that “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude; it does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth”. This biblical standard is the true measure of love. Love between spouses, siblings, family, friends, colleagues and neighbours; among communities, States and nations is predicated on following these biblical principles. Considering for a moment 1 John 4:12, we are made to see love as equating to the very essence of God living in us. Again, when Jesus said in Matthew 22:39 that “Love thy neighbour as they self”, he was making his followers understand the prime position of love in the plan of God.
The ninth command in the ten commandments as given to us by God through Moses strictly forbids bearing false witness against one’s neighbour (Exodus 2016; Deuteronomy 5:20). One of the most important metrics to measure love is being truthful in our dealings with those around us. For this to have been inserted into the commandments, it shows how cardinal a sin it is to bear false witness. Dwelling on it, there are very few things as hurtful and painful as being lied against. It diminishes the relationship, diminishes the person and creates bitterness that is difficult to let go of.
Being capable of love toward everyone is tough in the main because of deeply held primordial sentiments. It is tough to expect love between, for instance, Palestinians and Israelis. The history between the two peoples is such that a state of brotherly love is almost impossible to comprehend or be realistically expected to occur. This is a state that is not peculiar to the foregoing situation. Communities, countries and nations have been known to hold long standing resentment for one another. This is sometimes due to cultural, historical, traditional and religious reasons.
Does love viciate the need for punishment of grievous offence? Not at all. Amalek was a nation Israel contended with immediately after crossing the Sea of Reeds, commonly referred to as the Red Sea. God ordered their utter destruction because of their treachery of attacking the Israelites as they were leaving the Sea of Reeds (Exodus 17:14). Treachery is a serious sin which is why no country, nation or community takes treachery lightly. The treacherous person is, in most cases, beyond redemption. In this wise, love is not enough reason to let the offence slide. It becomes more expedient and prudent to err on the side of caution by excising the cancerous treason. Ultimately, the Amaleks were destroyed by the Simeonites in 1 Chronicles 4:43. Here is the catch: the Simeonites, descendants of Simeon, the second son of Jacob and his first wife, Leah, became subsumed into the tribe of Judah at the division of the Kingdoms under Rehoboam, son of Solomon. The real story is that the tribe of Simeon was excluded from the blessing of Moses and the allocation of land when the Israelites eventually got to the Land of Promise. The reason for their ostracisation was the violent way they murdered the men of Shechem after their sister, Dinah was sexually assaulted. A vicious cycle of hate leading to unwanted circumstances for the descendants.
God does not mete out punishment for frivolous reasons. Most of those who experienced the wrath of God had done some extremely bad things. Take the example of Cain, the first recorded murderer. It was a despicable thing to kill his own brother. But Cain’s case pales when compared to Onan’s sin. Onan displayed a high level of lack of love by refusing to father children for his deceased brother reasoning that they would not be his. God slew him in anger at such treachery (Genesis 38:10). Treacherous people show an exceptionally high abhorrence for love.
In the age we live in, we have had tales of men like Adolf Hitler, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and Osama bin Ladin. Men filled with hate. In this same world, the stories of love for humanity of Mother Teresa, Mary Slessor, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Ghandi have been passed down. Why this contrast in emotions is what keeps psychologists busy. It appears men are wired to have extremes of love and filiality as well as of hate, hatefulness and hatred. For the latter, a warped sense of entitlement, mysogyny and bigotry is what drives the hate. An unreasonable feeling of prejudice against a person or group is what drives bigotry, racism and mysogyny. Reducing people who disagree with one’s opinion, beliefs, ideology or philosophy is the stock in trade of bigots. These are people incapable of true love.
Narrowing down to spousal love, the parameters for judging true love are mostly clear. But what is true spousal love? Ephesians 5:29-33 tells us about the love we have for our bodies and how we are careful, in the main, to nourish and nurture it with the right nutrients in the same way God loves his church and nourishes it. The conclusion was for spouses to love each other in the way God loves his church. According to QUORA “true love between spouses is a deep and genuine affection, connection and bond that two individuals share. It goes beyond surface-level attraction and encompasses qualities like trust, understanding and respect. True love involves a willingness to support, sacrifice and care for each other unconditionally”. The point being emphasised here is that love goes deeper than mere physical, erotic and sentimental attraction. When these elements are combined with those stated before, true love is achieved. In effect, the parameters for judging true love between spouses, as is also in relationships not of the marital nature, are those that are holistic in nature and not merely the window dressing types of measures commonly used.
Proverbs 18:24 gives us some clarity about love. It alludes to the love between David and Jonathan. This was a relationship that was based on pure love and mutual respect and admiration. The elements combined here are important to judging true love. For love to subsist, respect and admiration must combine. It is often difficult to love someone we cannot respect or do not admire. One earns respect and admiration in various ways. It could be for academic excellence, administrative acumen, some physical attribute, religious inclination, worldview or by simply being a good person. The story of David and Jonathan, told in 1 Samuel 18, succinctly epitomises what true human to human love should look like. It has both the physical and sacred attributes. Whether between spouses or friends, colleagues or business partners, or even among neighbours, love must pass the test of physical closeness and of sacred sanctity.
Talking about love and not touching on the Agape love of God is an incomplete exercise. The God kind of love is irredeemably giving. As part of the attributes of true love, the nature of giving, the capacity to give unbidden and without expectation of reward is the very essence of Agape. No love transcends one that is willing to make the most difficult sacrifice for the sake of the loved one. God has given us the perfect example of how love needs to operate. Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us”. Nothing beats that kind of love.
For all the parameters and metrics by which we measure love, nothing comes close to this sacrificial love of God. Abraham almost did but the suspicion is, while Isaac would have been painful for him to lose, his solace would have been that he had Ishmael to fall back upon. It was accounted as faith to him and no doubt he deserves the toga of Father of the Faith, but scepticism is aroused as a result of his acceptance of his wife’s prodding to help God by fathering Ishmael in the first place. Invariably, nothing still comes close to God’s giving love that sacrificed the pure Jesus for a sinful world. The purest form of love still remains God’s Agape love and it is on the basis of this love that love in whatever and every form must be measured.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8 must remain the standard by which love should be measured. Whether in marriage, in business, at work, in school, among peers and friends, as a leader or in any endeavour and capacity that requires people to relate, the prescription for love quoted in those few verses speaks to the very essence of what love entails. When we get to the level of understanding that as a fruit of the Spirit (Galatian 5:22) love, combined with the other fruits of the Spirit, enables us to access the infinite grace of God, we become unencumbered to truly maximise the power of God at work in us to overcome situations that limit our capacity and capability to love and be loved.
Love, indeed, is the key to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour, the purveyor of God’s love to man.
