Love

Many see the Word of God. . .few perceive!

Proverbs 7:18 (NIV)
18 Come, let’s drink deeply of love till morning; let’s enjoy ourselves with love!m

Love has been twisted and distorted around the world today. That which God designed and gave as a gift in the sacred boundaries of marriage has become warped beyond recognition. But the truth is that Greek has four words for love. Storge, philia, eros and agape are all part of the love described in the Bible. Today we focus on the word for love called Eros.

Eros
Definition:  Love and passionate desire, romance and sexual desire of couples.
Characteristics:

1. It is a highly emotional love, the most fragile of all loves.
2. It carries a strong desire to always be together. Separation is never seriously considered.
3. It is the most jealous of all the loves.
4. It gives equal value to falling in love and being in love.
5. It occurs periodically throughout our life.
6. It must be supported by outside forces because it will not last.

Dangers:

1. It can become an immediate hatred when it feels betrayed.
2. It would rather be unhappy with someone than apart from them.
3. When it is taken for granted it becomes outraged.

(The previous notes are from C.S. Lewis’ book The Four Loves)

C.S. Lewis wrote his book The four loves after the death of his beloved wife. His sensitive description and inter-locking dependence that each of the words has on one another is fascinating. Hollywood has attempted to distill all love into the mold of Eros. Yet it is the most volatile of all loves.
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• EROS Ἔρως
• I.    Eros is passionate love or desire and also the Greek god of love (frequently but not always the son or companion of →Aphrodite, other candidate mothers including Eileithyia, Iris and Nyx). As so often in Greek (and Roman) religion, in this case as well, the deity and his domain coincide terminologically (‘Person-Bereichdenken’), because the Greeks drew no sharp distinction between the passionate desire and the deity who brought it about. In the Bible, Eros does not occur as a deity or demon, but in the two passages where eros is mentioned (Prov 7:18 and 30:16 LXX), itsdangerous and insatiable character is emphasized.

 
The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, is where we find the use of the word Eros. It is describing the direct proposition from a prostitute to a man on a journey. The adulteress has a disarming reassurance about being perfectly safe in their escapade. It would take someone like Joseph to resist such an appeal. His wisdom and integrity surfaced and he rejected the appeal of Potipher’s wife in Genesis 39.

We hope this short treatment on Eros will prompt you to read The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis.

Cathy and Danny Sartin
www.deeperstillmissions.com
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m  See Ge 39:7
  The New International Version. (2011). (Pr 7:18). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
 
LXX Septuagint
Van der Horst, P. W. (1999). Eros. In K. van der Toorn & B. Becking (Eds.), Dictionary of deities and demons in the Bible (2nd extensively rev. ed., p. 304). Leiden; Boston; Köln; Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: Brill; Eerdmans.

​Copyright © Danny Sartin. All Rights Reserved.
Bible Nuggets are written for pastors, youth leaders and missionaries who desire to go deeper still in God’s Word. 

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