Knowing Love: From Selfishness to Agape Love

From Ball-Takers to Bike Fixers: The Radical Call of Agape Love

There is a word that has been sanded down for generations. A word we toss around in church circles so casually that we have nearly forgotten its weight. That word is agape. And if there is one thing the apostle John wants us to understand in his first letter, it is that this word is not a small thing. It is the big thing. It is, in fact, the only thing when it comes to understanding who God is and how we are called to live.

Four Words, One Truth

The ancient Greeks were far more precise about love than we tend to be. Where English gives us one word to cover everything from our feelings about pizza to our devotion to a spouse, Greek gives us four distinct words, each capturing a different dimension of what love can mean.

There is eros, the passionate and romantic love. There is storge, the natural affection of family bonds. There is philia, the warm love of deep friendship -- the kind Jesus expressed when he told his disciples he would no longer call them servants but friends. And then there is agape.

What makes agape remarkable is what it is not connected to. It is not driven by emotion. It is not limited to blood ties. It is not reserved for those in your tribe or your social circle. Agape is unconditional. It is self-giving. It is, at its core, a choice.

Here is what makes that stunning: when you search through the letters of John, where the word love appears more times than you can easily count, it is never eros, never storge, never philia. It is always agape. Every single time. John is not talking about love as a feeling that comes and goes with the weather. He is talking about love as a daily, deliberate, costly decision.

Born of Love, Known by Love

First John 4:7-8 draws a striking connection between love and the knowledge of God. It teaches that everyone who loves is born of God and knows God, and that whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. First John 5 adds that everyone who believes in Jesus is likewise born of God. These are not competing claims. They are parallel ones, building on each other. To know God is to love. To love is to know God. The two cannot be separated.

The phrase "born of God" carries something profound. In Wesleyan and Methodist tradition, this connects to the concept of prevenient grace -- the grace that goes before us, surrounds us, and pursues us even before we are aware of it. You were born into a love relationship with God before you ever acknowledged it. Grace was already present. God was already looking at you, recognizing you, calling you by name -- even when you had no idea who you were or where you came from.

The idea of recognition matters here. William Barclay, the theologian and Bible translator, noted that the Greek word for "knowing" God can mean two things: recognition, as in seeing something and identifying it, and relationship, as in coming to know something through sustained closeness and experience. Both matter. There are people around us every day who are watching to see if they can recognize the God we talk about in the way we actually live. And there are people who will only come to know God through the relationship they experience with us.

The Journey From Cat to Dog

Consider two types of people: those who, like cats, look at the world and conclude "I must be God" -- everything orbiting around their own needs, comfort, and preferences -- and those who, like dogs, look at the one who loves and cares for them and think "you must be God," responding with unguarded, unconditional devotion.

Discipleship is the journey from one to the other. It is the journey from self-centeredness to selflessness, from success defined by personal gain to significance defined by love given away. It does not happen overnight. It is often slow, sometimes painful, and almost always born out of circumstances that force us beyond ourselves.

Think of a parent who has to choose, day after day, not to give up on a difficult child. That daily choosing -- that stubborn, costly, non-emotional decision to keep showing up -- that is agape. And it is exactly what God does for us. Every single day, God deals with our ingratitude, our pettiness, our wandering, and chooses to love us anyway. That choosing has a name. It is agape. And its fullest human expression is Jesus.

The Only Evidence They Will See

Love is the only evidence of God that most people will ever encounter. Yes, the Bible points to God. Yes, the miracle of creation whispers of a Creator. Yes, the gift of new life testifies to something beyond us. But the God that the person sitting next to you on the bus, or standing behind you in line, or lying forgotten in a care facility will actually see -- that God is the one who shows up in you.

If all people see from those who claim to follow Jesus is judgment and a checklist of theological prescriptions, they will not see God. But when they see someone who shows up with bread and a genuine desire to know their name and their story, who cares not just about where they will spend eternity but about whether they can keep the lights on this week -- that is when they encounter the living God.

Fix the Bike

There is a difference between a person who takes the ball that lands in their yard and keeps it, and a person who fixes a stranger's broken bike for free. The distance between those two people is the distance agape travels in a human soul over a lifetime of discipleship.

Someone in your life right now needs their bike fixed. A phone call. A visit. A paid bill. A meal. A letter. A presence in a room where no one else is showing up. You already know who it is. That face has been in your mind since you started reading this.

The call of 1 John is not complicated. It is just costly. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God. Go fix some bikes.