“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12).

When I was in university one of my professors told our class that during our discussions, we weren’t allowed to use the word “interesting.”

Why not? Since it was a word that people over-used, it had lost it’s meaning. “Yes, that is an interesting idea.” The more I thought about it, the more I realized he was right. Many people tended to use the word “interesting” as a way of saying something, but nothing specific.

Today, the word “love” has the same problem. We use the word “love” too broadly. We say that we “love” people, fashions, hobbies, bumper stickers, and ice cream flavours.

Because of this, when we come across the word “love” in the New Testament, we can project our modern watered-down use of the word love back onto the text. When that happens, the power of the original biblical teaching is sometimes neutralized.

Teresa of Avila was a Spanish nun and the founder of a contemplative order called the Displaced Carmelites. With a solid grasp of the biblical uses of the word “love,” she says this: “Love isn’t solely found in intense feelings of devotion; it resides in a fervent commitment to strive to please God in all things, to steer clear of all that might offend Him, and to pray for the greater glory and honor of His Son and for the growth of the Church. These are the signs of love.”*

I encourage you to read that again. 

When we speak about loving God and loving others, let’s do so with the thrust, integrity and power that we find in the New Testament, and most perfectly in the life, example and teachings of Christ.

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Notes:

-*Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle: A Modern Translation, ed. Peter Northcutt (Modern Saints, 2023), 50.
-Bible quotes are from the ESV.