Bread of Life Church of Fresno
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Bread of Life Church of Fresno
004 Biblical Words for Love - Teaching from Malik
Here to share his insight into the Scriptures is Malik Burdan. This episode, he focuses on the different words used in the biblical languages that are translated as “love” for us in our English bibles, and why learning about this was meaningful for him.
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Welcome to Bread of Life Daily, where we take a few minutes of the day to orient ourselves toward God and connect with a brother or sister in Christ. We hope this episode helps you. Love God, love people and serve both. Hello everyone, this is Kyle Beeler and Jordan Yarbrough, and today we're co-hosting this episode of Bread of Life Daily. With us today is Malik Burdan, and we're going to be talking about different biblical words for love, how we can understand the love of God and therefore the love we should have for each other a little bit better. Malik, can you introduce?
Speaker 2:yourself. Hello, my name is Malik and I'm a big Bible language nerd.
Speaker 1:All right, great introduction. Oh yeah, why don't you set the stage for us? What are we going to be talking about today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, obviously love is a big topic in the Bible and Greek. The New Testament language, had more than one word for love. So us speaking English having one word for love, that can kind of hinder our ability to understand aspects of what the New Testament authors thought when they used that word.
Speaker 1:Right, so kind of where we're coming from matters, or our worldview matters.
Speaker 2:Definitely, we're sort of taught to think in terms of individualism I only need to take care of myself and collectivism, which is I need to sacrifice for this vague idea of the greater good. But really the Bible teaches us two worldviews, which are agape, love, charity. I need to sacrifice for you, the image bearer of God, and vanity, which is this selfish belief that other people need to sacrifice for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so the Bible uses different words to express those different loves. You know charity versus vanity and different modes that those take. So why don't you give us a brief overview of what these different words are?
Speaker 2:I'll just use the English names to make it a little bit easy. But we have self-love, this idea of taking care of the temple of God, as Paul says. It's not self-centered, it's not self-righteous and it's not this self-pitiful I deserve so much. The world is out to get me. It's truly about taking care of yourself because you bear God's image, so that you can take care of others. We also have affection, this familiar bond. It's not overbearing, it's not envious, it's not this arrogant I come from a better place than you and it's also not codependent. The Bible makes it clear that people need to take care of their own family and that's not exclusive. It's just about acknowledging where God put you.
Speaker 2:We have this idea of friendship Iron sharpens iron. It's not exclusive, it's not people-pleasing and it's also not sexually confused. When we have one word for love, it really muddies the water on what does love look like? And that's why we have revisionist history of stories like David and Jonathan sorry who were great friends, and people are trying to make that a different kind of story, which is really unfortunate. We have hospitality, which is love for strangers. It's not meant to be reluctant, it's not meant to be self-seeking, meaning I only find people who benefit me and I bring them in. It's not selective or neglectful yeah, exactly, and we have, of course, romantic desire. It's not hyper-sexualized, it's not unfaithful and it's not all-consuming, but it is highly, highly loyal and sacrificial and just a unique, special relationship that God gives us. And so with each of these, we can see how they can be charitable or vain. They could be about serving the kingdom of God, or they can be about serving myself, and that's really what this comes down to.
Speaker 3:So, malik, you've kind of talked about five different main topics or different versions of love, and in our language, like you said earlier, we have one word for love, which is obviously love. How does this all apply to us and how can we maybe be more mindful or more cognizant of these different definitions?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So what it really comes down to is that each of these five words for love are about five different ways of relating to other people myself, my family, my friends, people I'm unfamiliar with, and my spouse, which, of course, is unique. And it really comes down to how do I love those people the way that God loves them? How do I see those people the way that God sees them? It always reminds me of that Brandon Heath song Give Me your Eyes for Just One Second. And it's just about what does God see when he looks at them and what is my unique position to serve them? I'm not everybody's close personal friend, of course. I'm not everybody's spouse, and there's only one me. So I have a unique relationship with every single person in my community and God wants me to love them in a special way and see them as an individual image bearer of God.
Speaker 3:That's good, and how has that impacted your life? Unlocking these definitions for yourself.
Speaker 2:Well, I had a very important moment. I was reading the Four Loves by CS Lewis, which is related to this topic, and that got me to thinking about self-love and I realized at a certain point the idea of love your neighbor as yourself. I was only loving my neighbor. I wasn't truly loving myself, which is disrespectful to God, who loves me and created me and sees value in me. It's disrespectful to the temple of God, which my body is, and it's important for me to love myself the way that God loves me, and that really opened up my eyes to become a healthier person, which also helped me love others in a healthier way too.
Speaker 3:That is so, so good, Malik. Thank you for sharing all of that.
Speaker 2:Before we close, would you mind praying for our community, in light of all this, to love and be loved, because you first loved us. Help us to see others the way that you see them and to constantly have on these charitable lenses that we may know how others need to be served at any given time, so that we can meet that need and be as strong as the kingdom of God is meant to be and be visible to those who have not yet entered it. Amen.
Speaker 1:Amen. Thanks for joining us today. We hope this session will help you love God and people more. Now we'd love to hear from you, Send comments, suggestions or questions to daily at bolcforg For more about Bread of Life. Church of Fresno. Look us up online and reach out or, better yet, come join us. We hope you have a blessed day.