Agape / Phileo (again)

In some earlier posts, I wrote on the common belief that agape and phileo have different meanings, especially in John 21. To help people understand this better, I developed the following quiz. For each of the following verses, see if you can guess whether the Greek word for love is agape or phileo. I'll give the answers at the bottom.

1. Mt 10:37 “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me."
2. Luke 20:46 “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and love respectful greetings in the market places, and chief seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets."
3. Jn 5:20 “For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing."
4. Jn 11:3 So the sisters sent word to Him, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.”
5. Jn 12:25 “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal."
6. Jn 16:27 "for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came forth from the Father."
7. John 20:2 So she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb..."
8. 1 Cor 16:22 If anyone does not love the Lord, he is to be accursed.
9. Titus 3:15 All who are with me greet you. Greet those who love us in the faith.
10. Rev 3:19 "Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent."

To get the answer key, use your mouse to highlight the apparently blank lines below.

All of of the sentences use phileo in Greek. None use agape. Sneaky, huh?

So what's the point? If agape means divine, unconditional, higher love, and phileo means only friendly affection (the usual explanation given), then anyone reading Bible verses with the English word "love" ought to be able to guess which Greek word it was translating. But as you can see, several of the above sentences describe a higher love, and some describe a defective love - but all use the same Greek word, phileo. I could have done the same thing with agape - give you multiple verses, some obviously about higher love, and others about defective love, but all translating agape. The two words, as you can see, have about the same range of meanings. For more on this, read my earlier posts on agape / phileo.

Restoring a Fisherman (John 21:15-17)

In a recent post, I pointed out that we should not read too much into the variation of Greek words (such as agape and phileo) in the account of Simon Peter's restoration in John 21:15-17. The passage is very poetic, and uses a number of synonymous words for stylistic reasons.

One of my beefs with Bible professors (and I am one of them) is that sometimes we take a perverse delight in skewering common misinterpretations of Scripture, but then we leave people with nothing. We take away meaning, rather than adding understanding. My goal, as a professor who regularly skewers bad interpretation, is to replace bad interpretation with better - and that better interpretation is (or ought to be) more attractive because it is truer and more powerful.

In John 21:15-17, there is much to learn after we remove bad interpretation. First, we find seven disciples fishing. Since fishing was not primarily for recreation, it seems that Peter is returning to his old career. Nothing wrong with fishing for a living - but Peter had been called to be a full-time disciple of the rabbi. Peter probably felt that his failure disqualified him to serve or lead.

The miraculous catch of fish in John 21 is a reminder of Peter's initial call to be a "fisher of men." (Nerd note: this version of Peter's initial call is found only in Luke 5:1-11, and not in John. But I think that we have here an example of what Johannine scholars call "interlocking," where John refers to things that the readers would only know if they were familiar with the Synoptic gospel stories, and especially Luke). The repeat of the miracle puts Peter in a state of mind to be re-summoned to service.

The miracle also contains a minor allusion to an OT prophecy about the new covenant age. Ezek 47:1-12 describes a river of healing water flowing from the Temple (compare to John 7:37-39, where the river comes from Jesus), which bring a multiplication of fish. Some ancient rabbinic sources specifically located Ezekiel's multiplication of the fish at the Sea of Tiberias (cp. John 21:1).

Jesus further prepares Peter for restoration by cooking breakfast over an anthrakia, a charcoal fire, perhaps in a metal brazier. The only other time that anthrakia occurs in the Bible is in John 18:18, where Peter denied that he knew Christ three times. This explains the repetition in John 21. Peter now has the chance to do it right. Just as three times he denied Jesus before enemies, he now can affirm his love for Jesus three times before friends.

Jesus' goal is to restore Peter to self-sacrificial service, to help him become a shepherd like Jesus (see John 1o). Part of the reason that Peter had denied Jesus was that he had wanted to die with Jesus, and followed Jesus into a place where he was unable to remain loyal. He was more concerned with his own personal loyalty to Jesus, and less concerned with shepherding his brothers.

Peter took his re-appointment to shepherding seriously. Thirty years later, he wrote this to church leaders: "Shepherd the flock of God among you, not grudgingly, but willingly, as God wants you to... be examples to the flock. Then when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive a glorious and unfading crown." (1 Pet 5:2-4)

Do You Love Me (Now that I can Dance) (John 21:15-17)

In my last post, I explained that, contrary to popular Christian belief, the Bible does not use the Greek words agape and phileo in significantly different ways. Agape (and its verb form, agapao; I use agape throughout since most Christians are more familiar with it) is a fairly generic word for love, and does not necessarily imply divine, unconditional, or higher love. Phileo, although used less often in the Bible, is not a lower type of love, as revealed by the times it is used to describe love between Father, Son and disciples (see, for example, John 5:20, 16:27, 20:2).

So what is happening in John 21:15-17? Here's the conversation between Jesus and Peter after the Resurrection:

Jesus: Simon, son of John, do you love (agape) me more than these?

Peter: Yes, Lord, you know (oida) that I love (phileo) you.

Jesus: Feed my lambs... Simon, son of John, do you love (agape) me?

Peter: Yes, Lord, you know (oida) that I love (phileo) you.

Jesus: Shepherd my sheep... Simon, son of John, do you love (phileo) me?

Peter (grieved because Jesus had said "Do you love (phileo) me?" three times): Lord, you know (oida) all things, you know (ginosko) that I love (phileo) you.

Jesus: Feed my sheep.

After reading it carefully, you can see that the usual pulpit interpretation doesn't work. Peter isn't grieved because Jesus switched verbs; he is grieved because Jesus keeps asking him. In fact, Peter is "grieved because Jesus had said 'Do you love (phileo) me?' three times." But Jesus, in fact, had used agape twice and phileo once - another piece of evidence that the two words mean basically the same thing. Note also that Peter did not answer, "No, I don't love (agape) you, but I do love (phileo) you." Instead, he said "Yes, I love you," indicating agreement with Jesus. Finally, if the standard pulpit interpretation is correct, Jesus caves in at the end and says that a lesser form of love towards him is just fine - not the sort of thing you are likely to find anywhere in the New Testament, and especially not in John.

So what is going on? In one of the most poetic passages in his gospel, John varies words for style. Within John 21, notice the amount of synonyms or near-synonyms used: Know: oida, ginosko. Sheep: arnion, probaton. Tend: bosko, poimaino. Fish: ichthus, opsarion, prosphagion. Boat: ploion, ploiarion. Shore: aigialos, ge. Some of these words can have slightly differently meanings in other contexts, but don't have different meanings in this passage. The same fish are called all three words, and the same boat is called two different words. The variation in words, including the words for love, adds to the beauty of the description.

By the way, the view presented here, that the alternation between agape and phileo in John 21:15-17 is only for stylistic variation, is not some strange view that can only be found in this corner of the blogosphere. It is the standard view held by most ancient and modern commentaries on John. (The exceptions are primarily some nineteenth-century commentaries and, strangely, the NIV).

I don't intend to only take away your favorite (mis)interpretation! Next post: once we get over the agape/phileo bit, what can we learn from this passage?

The picture: Follow Me, from Das Plenarium oder Ewangely Buoch, 1516, courtesy of the Digital Image Archive, Pitts Theology Library, Candler School of Theology, Emory University. The picture is composite, containing elements from the tomb in John 20 and the beach appearance in John 21.

Make Me a Higher Love? (agape/phileo)

Here's a question posted last week: "In John 21:15-17 Jesus asks three times if Simon Peter loves him. The first two times Jesus uses agapao for love and in both Simon Peter's replies phileo is used. Then the third time Jesus asks he uses phileo as well and so does Simon Peter. Is there any significance to this?"

A few weeks ago, my son's soccer coach advised the boys to put on jackets so that they wouldn't catch cold after practice. He believed that you could catch a cold if you got chilly after exercise. This belief was once so widespread that people just knew it to be true, even though doctors and scientists agree that colds are caused by viruses, not chill. OK, I know that rhinoviruses thrive better in cold, dry air, but you get my point - sometimes something that everyone knows is untrue.

I mention this story because many Christians in America just know that agape is a Greek word that refers to divine, unconditional love, a higher love than any other. But as a matter of fact, agape does not have this special meaning in Greek, and is only slightly different in meaning from phileo. Agape means "love," and it has about the same range of meaning as the English word "love." It can refer to loving people, food, God, money, or anything else. It can refer to selfless love or selfish love, depending on the context. Surprisingly, Greek scholars and New Testament scholars widely agree on this conclusion, but most other Christians, including many pastors, are unaware of it. I am not aware of any living Greek scholar who accepts the view of agape that is widely proclaimed from the pulpit. (By the way, agapao is the verb form of agape, and phileo is the verb form of philia; I use them interchangeably in this post).

Here's some of the evidence:

1) Philosophers in ancient Greece could not agree on the precise difference between agape and philia, and could not agree on which one was higher. Most philosophers actually asserted that philia was a higher love, because of the high value that philosophers placed on friendship.

2) The translators of the LXX (an ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament) regularly used agapao to translate the Hebrew word ahav, which is also a very generic word for love in Hebrew.

3) While agape is often used to describe positive forms of love, it is also used to describe defective forms of love (Luke 6:32, John 3:19, Deut 21:15 LXX), the love of money (2 Pet 2:15, Isa 1:23 LXX), the love of sin (Rev 22:15, Jer 14:10, Hos 12:7 LXX), the love for honor (Luke 11:43, John 12:43), legitimate sexual desire (Song of Solomon 1:3, 4, 7, 3:1-4 LXX) and even lust (Gen 34:2-3, Jdg 16:4, 2 Sam 13:3-15 LXX). In other words, agape is like the English word love - it can have a positive or negative meaning depending on its context.

4) Although there are some slight differences in usage between agapao and phileo, they are used interchangeably at times in the Bible. Take a look at Luke 11:43/20:46; John 3:35/5:20; John 11:3/11:5/11:36; John 14:21/14:23/16:27; and Heb 12:6/Rev 3:19. In each of these cases, almost identical sentences use phileo or agapao with no apparent difference in meaning. In some cases, phileo is used for very high forms of love, such as the love between the Father and the Son.

For some people, this information is bad news. They like the idea that the Bible has a special word that means divine, unconditional love, and it disturbs them that the evidence does not support this view. But here's the good news: although Greek and Hebrew words for love do not have this special nuance, God's love is divine, giving and unconditional, no matter which word we use to communicate it. It's not the word for love that matters, but the many sentences, paragraphs, and stories about God's love that matter. Ideas don't have to be found in single words to be valid - in fact, most ideas require multiple words to be communicated.

Next post: if agapao and phileo mean almost the same thing, what was John trying to say at the breakfast scene in John 21:15-17?

The picture: The Miraculous Draught of Fish, by Konrad Witz, 1443.