A Show of Faith
Millennial, Priest, Minister, and Rabbi walk into a radio station...
A Show of Faith
November 23, 2025 Four Loves, One Truth
Love gets thrown around for everything from trucks to chocolate, then expected to carry the weight of marriage, family, and faith. We wanted to get specific. Together we map the four Greek loves—storge (affection), philia (friendship), eros (romance), and agape (self-giving)—and show how each one adds clarity to the way we live, choose, and commit. The key? Feelings matter, but they’re not the whole story. When we only “fall” in love, we surrender agency; when we choose love, we learn to will the good of another.
We start with the everyday warmth of storge, the affection that makes homes and communities feel like home, and name the danger of possessiveness when fear takes the wheel. Then we turn to philia, the thick, chosen friendship our hyperconnected world keeps forgetting. Real friends share a good beyond themselves, tell the hard truth, and make us braver. From there, we face eros without flinching—its beauty, its creativity, and its raw power to idealize or even unmake us. We talk about how traditions try to place eros in a moral frame so desire becomes humanizing rather than consuming.
Finally, we reach agape: the decision to unite our will to God’s wisdom and actively seek the other’s true good, regardless of how we feel. Agape doesn’t cancel affection, friendship, or romance; it councils them. Without it, each love warps—smothering parents, cliques dressed up as loyalty, and romance that becomes a false god. With it, love becomes ordered, durable, and free, capable of forgiveness and courage when life tests our vows.
If this conversation sparked something—made you rethink how you use the word love or how you practice it—share the episode with a friend, subscribe, and leave a review so others can find it. And tell us: which love needs the most attention in your life right now?
There's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear. There's a man with a gun over there. Tellin' me I got to be aware. But nobody's right if everybody's wrong. Young people speak in their minds. I get so much resistance. Everything we stop, what's that sound? Everybody look at what's going down.
SPEAKER_11:The rabbi discussed theology and philosophy, morality and ethics, and anything else of interest in religion. If you have any response to our topics or any comments regarding what we say, we would love to hear from you. Please email us at ashow of faith1070 at gmail.com. Ashooffaith1070 at gmail.com. You can hear our shows again and again by listening pretty much anywhere podcasts are heard. Our priest is Father Mario Arroyo, retired pastor of St. Cyril of Alexandria, the 10,000 block of Westheimer.
SPEAKER_02:Hello, hello.
SPEAKER_11:Hello, hello. Our professor is David Capes, Protestant minister, and Director of Academic Programming for the Lanier Theological Library. Rudy Kong is our millennial. He's a systems engineer and has his master's degree in theology from the University of St. Thomas.
SPEAKER_12:Howdy, howdy.
SPEAKER_11:I am Stuart Federal, retired rabbi of Congregation Sha'ar Hashaloom in the Clear Lake area of Houston, Texas. Crystal is our board operator, and she is the one who helps us sound fantastic. Thank you, Crystal.
SPEAKER_13:Oh, she makes me sound fantastic.
SPEAKER_11:So Mario, you are show director.
SPEAKER_13:I am, I am.
SPEAKER_11:I'm sure you don't love tonight's topic.
SPEAKER_13:Well, tonight um uh we're going to talk about love. Love, look at the two of us. Oh no, don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that. There's only two of us here in this thing. Yeah, I don't want to be.
SPEAKER_11:Think of the millions of people listening who would enjoy my melodious voice.
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, but what they might think is another issue. Okay. Have you got now think about, let me set this up. We use, you know, I've been a priest now 48 years. And if I had to say, what have I learned in these 48 years? What when I look back, what are some of the one of the most obvious things I have learned? And the most obvious things that I've learned is that when we use the word love, most of us do not have a slightest idea of what that means.
SPEAKER_11:Or it implies it. Or it's important. I love tomatoes.
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, but think about this. I I find it so interesting. Have you ever thought about why it is that we in our culture use the verb to fall? In other words, fall in love. So have you ever gone to anybody and say, I walked into love with you? Or how about I ran into love with you? Go all the way. I jumped into love with you. No. It's always I fell. Now, I I just find it extremely curious that we have chosen, none of us individually, why have we as a culture used chosen the verb to fall to fall? And it is my contention that it is because in without understanding it, we understand the verb fall to be, I mean to the word love to be a feeling. And you literally fall into your feelings. That's why, for example, you don't say, I ran into a depression. You fell into a depression. Right. Also true. So so so the very verb that we use already betrays the default understanding of the word love. So, and and we use it for not only that, we use the verb for everything. You know, I love chocolate.
SPEAKER_11:Right. Tomatoes.
SPEAKER_13:Do you do you really? I mean, do you have a relationship with chocolate? And if any of you out there have a relationship with chocolate, get some help. It's not normal. Okay? Or for example, a guy can say, I love my truck. Do you? Right. Do you kiss your truck? You man your truck? No. But we use the verb to fall. I mean, I love love. And even what it what was the airline that used to have love in the air? Wasn't it a Southwest airline?
SPEAKER_11:Love is in the air.
SPEAKER_13:So the love book. Anyway. The love book. If you notice, just notice the amount of time that we use the word love. And the question is, do we really know what it means? Do we really know what it means? And I thought that what it would be what has always been helpful to me is to uh to default, no, to choose a book by C. S. Lewis, which is a uh uh kind of a rel uh a display of a Greek, an ancient Greek understanding that the word love for the Greeks had at least four different types of love. We only have the one word, uh love. But in the ancient Greek there were four different types of of love. The four different types of love or are one is called the the the slightest one is called storge, s-t-o-r-g-e. The second one would be called filia. Storge is affection. Phelia is friendship, but we'll talk about what kind of friendship later. And then the third one would be eros. That's where we get the that's romantic love, that's where we get the word erotic. Okay, and the last one is the word agape or charity. Okay, so what I want to do is to spend um the time, first of all, in to get a get us all to do a kind of a general introduction to how you have experienced in your ministry or your work the word love being used or abused or any comments on the word love, and then for us to go through all the different types of four meanings and try to clarify for people so that when you use the word love from now on, you begin to at least understand which type of love you're do you're dealing with and what happens when they are separated, um, because there is a particular outcome if one of them is separated from the others. But let me start with any comments. First of all, David, anything from you?
SPEAKER_08:Um no, um it's it's it's it's an important topic, let me just say this because it's everywhere. We we there's so many books about love. Uh and I don't mean books that are written about love, but but let's say romantic novels. Uh there are songs on the radio all the time about love and romance and and those kinds of things. There are television shows. I mean, there's a plethora of things out there that are dealing primarily with with husband with male and female kind of love that is more on the erotic side or not necessarily sexual or sensual. But it is yeah, it it's it's it's a word that that uh that the error is is a word that can be misused and abused, obviously. All all the loves can. But one of the things that I want to talk about tonight is how these kinds of loves can be and often are in competition one with the other and in conflict with each other.
SPEAKER_12:I I was thinking about in in our current culture how or misunderstood this term or this conflict really is when we look at some of the data and and we go back to let's say the 1970s, uh the divorce were were much higher. Um in in in today's day and age as compared to 50 years ago. So I think when we when we look at love and the way our culture interprets it in today's day and age, it's something much more transient, something more more uh malleable, something that can be redefined and defined and and given up or even used for our own purposes. So it's it's it's something quite disorganized, if you will, that I find our culture.
SPEAKER_13:It can mean anything. The word love can mean almost anything.
SPEAKER_11:Stuart? Mario, I know this may not be the direction you wanted to head in, but I I gotta tell you something.
SPEAKER_13:I'll correct you.
SPEAKER_11:I am very puzzled and I guess you'd say troubled because I don't know what it is about our American culture or our socializing or something that makes people, first of all, go out of their way to uh uh virtue signal to try to prove to themselves that they're worthy. But that's a microcosm because the larger problem, and I don't understand it, is why it's always so hard to make people understand God loves them. God knows them, God created them, God knows who they are, their limitations, that everything about them, and loves them. And why it's so hard for people to accept the idea that they are loved by God.
SPEAKER_13:And I think it's part of our culture that it's it's I I think the word the the answer to that that I would give is the fact that uh we are so separated from any meaningful contact with God.
SPEAKER_11:Maybe that's it. But it but to me it starts with the idea that people think they're bad, horrible, broken, lousy people and not worthy of it. Well, yeah, but but that's not how God works.
SPEAKER_13:No, it isn't it is not. It is not. However, now what I want to what I want to do is I want to be able to I want to end with that uh at the end of the hour. Okay. Okay? But uh you always are ahead of the game. But any but i it it's very interesting. So let's begin with the first kind, the most broad kind of love. And the most broad kind of love is affection. Now affection can be from all the way from light affection to intense affection. Um and so the the the the the the love that is called that in in Greek is called storge. It's a lot of times it's spontaneous, it's unchosen, it's it's uh it's pretty much you can have affection to your country, you can have affection towards people, you can have affection to your pet, you can have affection to other people. You know, a lot of and affection can be deep and it can also be superficial.
SPEAKER_11:Mario, is there like an English word that's storgay?
SPEAKER_13:No. There's no I I don't do any either of you guys think that there's an English word for stor-gay, other than affection? Because you don't say I have a lot of affection for you.
SPEAKER_11:I guess some sometimes people it's not something No, I I meant like something that would give us the sense of stor-gay.
SPEAKER_13:Could it be I really like you?
SPEAKER_11:Okay.
SPEAKER_13:What do you guys think? Stor David?
SPEAKER_11:Friendship? Um No.
SPEAKER_08:David? Yeah, let me think about this. I I I do think affection is a good word. Uh and it and because it indicates the fact that there is an attraction to the other person, and that attraction doesn't isn't necessarily physical. It could be uh an attraction that's based on the the fact that we have things in common, or we have uh we're part of a family, or uh and this is a very natural kind of love. This is the thing that a lot of people have for other people and other things. As you said, it's we can have affection for our country, we can have affection for other things. I think affection is a is not a bad word. Like, I think is a little bit too too simple and too uh not too simple, but too uh too light to carry the weight of what a store game means.
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, because I I think that that's the problem we have in English is that we don't have usable words for different kinds of love. Father, I was thinking fondness. Fondness? Oh no, no, that would be an interesting word, fond. I am fond of you, but we don't use it a lot, but uh I think that that's a pretty good pretty good word. So a storge would be kind of like fond. But a lot of times fond is also pretty light.
SPEAKER_11:You can have a tremendously intense storgay, and fondness would not be uh because it's Well, so if if you took normal storge and thought of a relationship that would be the like epitome of it, what would would that be like?
SPEAKER_13:Uh brothers? Brothers, brothers, sisters.
SPEAKER_11:Okay. So sibling family relations.
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, family relations can have can have that's I would say that would be an intense store gay.
SPEAKER_11:Okay.
SPEAKER_13:That's an intense parents towards children. That's an intense storgay. It's not diminishing it, but it's it's it doesn't fit any of the other categories. I think storge is the most broad category that there is.
SPEAKER_08:But right I think it's also important to say, Mario, that uh you can have a number of these kinds of loves directed toward the same person.
SPEAKER_13:That is correct. We that is very correct.
SPEAKER_08:It's not it's not just I only have storge for you. That's right. Uh I I only have Philia for you. Right. Uh you can have a variety of these kinds of loves for other people. That's correct. And then we gotta go to a break.
SPEAKER_13:Gotta go to a break. And even though I am very fond of what we're doing right now, we do have to go to a break.
SPEAKER_14:Your storage.
SPEAKER_13:Stay 1070 K NTH, and we'll be right back.
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SPEAKER_13:Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay, we're going to go on now to the second type of love. And the second type of love is what's called Philia. Now, some of you might say, I've never heard that word, but actually you have. You ha you use it as part of another word. It's called Phileadelphia. Philadelphia.
SPEAKER_11:Oh, thank you. You had the weird accent there.
SPEAKER_13:I didn't uh Philiadelphia. Why Phileadelphia? What is the city of brotherly love? That's exactly correct. Philiad. Philial. Philial is brother. That's right. It's the a it's actually the the um how should I say the the love that is most uh apt to characterize friendship. A deep friendship. This is it's not we're not talking about uh we're not talking about Facebook friends here.
SPEAKER_11:Right.
SPEAKER_13:Okay, we're talking about a real deep friendship, okay, with each other. And so uh the the the the that strengths is really it's uh one of the most important things about that is one of the loves that is least driven by by biology. It's it's the least instinctive and it looks towards a shared good with another person. We share a good. Uh strengths encourage virtue and intellectual growth and provides companionship. Um it can become cliquish and stuff like that. Friendship is a very important I think ultimately in heaven the deepest friend the deepest love will be the love of friendship. Because I actually, as Jesus Jesus once said to us, I no longer call you servants, I call you friends. So Rudy, anything you want to start with?
SPEAKER_12:I think I think that we have an epidemic of loneliness. And and I think it's it's seen in the way that we don't engage in this type of love. Um we're we're wrapped up in in technology and TikTok and and I think I think my generation, and I know I'm millennia removed from you guys, but I feel like where for example, we had a group of friends in the neighborhood, and I would go out and we would play we would play football, we would go down to the bayou, we would go to the We would force around, we would play, and it just there wasn't any internet, we didn't have cell phones, we didn't have and so we really I I feel like I I was able to really to get to know a lot of the kids in my neighborhood, in my school, and I just don't think that there's faith with all the distractions for that as much. So we we don't feel these.
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, it's not very well developed in modern society. David.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah, I I I I'm with you farmers. I think this is uh um really a critical need that we have today. Uh C. S. Lewis uh uh I think referred to this as a forgotten uh virtue, not virtue, but forgotten kind of love because even in his day, that was 50, 60 years ago. So I I I think that that one of the things we see with this kind of love is that it br what what brings you together is some common shared interest. It might be sports, it might be you live in the same neighborhood, it might be you do a radio show together, you know, it could be, you know, all kinds of things. It brings you together and causes you to really bond with, connect with another person. And and this the city of Brotherly Love idea is is very because I think this is the idea of when Philadelphia was started, that they were working together to create a country. And they were creating and there was there were deep friendships that were formed, and I know there were deep betrayals that happened along the way. And and that's part of the challenge, is because when you have these deep attachments to other people, you can also be detached, and that's very, very painful as well. So yeah, I I think you're I think you're right. I think friendship is crucial. This is a vital thing that we're lic lacking today, as Rudy pointed out.
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, I think and I think it's very important that Jesus chose that word, friendship, when he said, I no longer call you servants, I call you friends. Which uh That's right, yeah. Because I've to for me, the whole issue of being friends is is ultimately the perfect kind of love. Uh ultimately, with combin combined with charity, but we'll talk about that later. Stuart?
SPEAKER_11:There's an interesting characteristic I would say of the Jewish wedding ceremony. There's a line in one of the prayers that talks about the couple being loving friends. And it doesn't say lovers, it says loving friends. In other words, friendship is the basis of the relationship. That's correct. Not really love unless you're talking about this uh or one of these four ways to define it. And I and i i it the to me that is one of the building blocks of a successful marriage is to be friends. To be friends, to work at the friendship which means f working on the marriage. Yes.
SPEAKER_13:I I heard one time uh something I had never forgotten, and that is the guy said I was on TV, the guy said to become fr to be friends, to be deep friends with the person you're in love with the will with the person you are in love with will be your greatest achievement. To be c to be deep friends with the person you're in love with will be your greatest achievement. And I think that that's really that's really correct. Even with people that you have affection for, um or uh even especially those who you are in love with because being in love eros, as we'll talk about next. Next don't necessarily last friends.
SPEAKER_11:But I still go back to your it was a wise crack, but it was very accurate, and we're talking about real friendship, not Facebook friends. Right. There's shallow friendship and then there's deep friendship. And there's real friendship. That's the deep friendship.
SPEAKER_13:That's right. It's a ma it's amazing how we have bastardized the word friend.
SPEAKER_11:Like the word love. Yeah. Mario, do you have people that you know only through internet like Facebook or email or whatever?
SPEAKER_13:Yes.
SPEAKER_11:But I would say with some of them I'm pretty close.
SPEAKER_13:Well, that's because the closeness came first, and then the connection with Facebook came later for me. For me.
SPEAKER_11:Well, that's actually true, come to think of it. Yeah. Right.
SPEAKER_13:So but I'll tell you what, the commercial, the commercial comes first, and the radio company. This is terrible. Because we love our show, we have our commercial.
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SPEAKER_13:Yes, welcome back to a show of faith on AMT70 the answer. Okay. Now the next the next one will be um that we're gonna be talking about the the love, the the love that I think we most often refer to when we say I'm in love, and that is eros. Now eros is where we get the term erotic, but not the eros doesn't have to be sexual. Eros can be your but it has a sexual component. Because when you say you're in love, and I I always that's the type of love that we use most when we say I fell in love, because eros is not something necessarily that you choose. Friendship you choose. Eros you don't. You that's why we say we fall in love.
SPEAKER_11:Oh, I see what you're saying. We don't choose okay.
SPEAKER_13:We don't choose eros. It chooses us.
SPEAKER_11:By the way, isn't it interesting that the other words you said we don't use jump? Yes. Uh we don't jump in love, we don't walk in love, but each one of those is an act of the will. That's right. But falling is not.
SPEAKER_13:It's not. That's the whole point.
SPEAKER_11:Who wants to fall?
SPEAKER_13:That's right. That's why we use it in, for example, I fell into a depression. We are told we're talking about something we don't want, but something that is imposed on you. That's why I always tell people when I'm hearing confessions that emotions, feelings are not sins. Because a sin is something you have to accept with your will.
SPEAKER_11:So you can You have to act on it. That's right.
SPEAKER_13:You have to you have to accept it, you have to feed it. And in and you can actually fall in love. I have fallen in love in my life so many times, even as a priest, I have fallen in love. You know, but I just choose not to do anything about it. Okay, because I made a different commitment. So so um Eros is is a a uh it's romantic love, not just sexual desire, but the total devotion between a lover. It is the characteristics are it idealizes the other, it imagines the other, it's extremely powerful and transformative, and it inspires great beauty and sacrifice strength, that it can lift the human heart into self-giving and become a school of virtue. However, dangerous can become, it can become a false god. Um can exp can excuse more immorality under the banner of love. Okay, and and it can be perverted. We'll talk about the perversion of all of these. When the perversion of what these are when you remove agape from them. But we'll talk about that because have you ever heard somebody say I was in love with her so much that if I couldn't have her, nobody else would.
SPEAKER_11:Oh yeah, that's the same. See what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_13:Like the the perversion of the Right. But we'll talk about this the next one, which is agape. We'll talk about how when agape is not present in the other three, they become they become demons.
SPEAKER_11:Mario, we we still have a couple minutes before you have to go to a break.
SPEAKER_13:No, I know.
SPEAKER_11:Okay, but I b I I I Okay. Anything can become an addiction. I understand that. But I think some things are more apt to be able to be addictive than others. Yes. I don't think the other three are addictive or as let me say as addictive as as Eros. Yes, yes, other friendships, you you can No, let's let me give you an example.
SPEAKER_13:You c affection can become an addiction. For example, the affection of a parent towards a fi a child.
SPEAKER_11:Is addictive?
SPEAKER_13:It can be overprotective. You're not going to be able to do that.
SPEAKER_11:Oh, oh, from the parents' Okay, all right. Okay.
SPEAKER_13:Or a mama's boy. A mama's boy. Okay. So that that. But David, what do you would like to do? Interesting point.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah. I want to point out uh what you were just saying there, Stuart, is the the fact that of the four loves, the one that is the most addictive and turbulent is Eros. Uh, and this is what it means when he when Father Martyr said it was a very powerful thing. It can change people, it can make it can turn people inside out, it can create monsters out of people. Um it and it can it can be used as kind of an excuse for, as he as he said, immorality. We've all heard in a confession or in counseling, something like, you know, you know, I know it's okay because I'm in love, right? And so things are given the justification of being, quote, in love. And so most murders take place, people killing other people over love, that is, not money and other kinds of things. So that could be a a type of addiction as well. Um, but this is the kind of love that's involved. Someone is is so jealous, someone is so uh you know, someone's violated them, and they they've hurt them in such a bad way that they will sometimes turn to uh violence in order to get satisfaction. So it's a very powerful, powerful thing.
SPEAKER_12:I think it's it's something interesting because sexual desire in and of itself is something natural, right? It's something that we shouldn't be ashamed of. Um it's a it's a gift, right? It's it's when you when you find somebody or a person that you're attracted to and you want to participate under the correct conditions, that's a beautiful thing. And it leads to a type of of love that you received, of filial love, if you will, where you feel this kind of lasting friendship. But I'm I'm reminded of uh what Paul II thought on uh the theology of the body. I don't know if you want to talk about that later, Father Wild, but um it's just the the this concept that our body so we're not merely biological beings, but we're also theological, right? There's there's there's a plan, there's an intuitive design, there's a purpose for our organs, for the way that our feelings are and our attractions manifest, and and I mean unfortunately it's it's quite warped today, right?
SPEAKER_13:That's right.
SPEAKER_12:Yep.
SPEAKER_13:Uh anything else? Uh did you want to talk about anything about it?
SPEAKER_11:I just find it interesting that to my limited knowledge, I guess I would say, every single religion that I know of has a correct context in which the erotic is supposed to be lived. Marriage.
SPEAKER_13:Yes.
SPEAKER_11:Every religion I can think of. And it it do and there are some religions that want to uh deny it, okay, or or eliminate it completely. But by and large, they all say in the context of the holiness of marriage, then eroti eroticism or being erotic uh erotic love, let me put it that way, is legit.
SPEAKER_13:Oh, yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_11:It's a characteristic, I think, of all religions.
SPEAKER_13:Now, let me introduce the final kind because I want to we're gonna have a little bit of a discussion before the end. The other kind, the final kind, which is really the apex, the greatest of all loves, it's called agape. Now, the I would say that the Latin word and the English word for it is not a great translation. It's been corrupted. It's the word charity, uh, coditas. But but agape is a love that is not focused on yourself. Now, I always, I always that even though this has a Christian origin to it, I think you can ex you can live with this definite the definition of love that I use, which is the definition of agape. Love is the decision to unite yourself with God in caring for the good of another no matter how you feel. Right. Now that is the final kind of love, which is agape. Now, I for me as a Christian, the way that that was most displayed is Jesus on the cross. When he says, when he we deserve to be, he could have said, Father to hell with all of these people. He said, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. Notice, I always find it interesting that Jesus, uh in the Christian context, Jesus did not forgive us directly. I find it very interesting. He could have said, I forgive you. But he didn't talk to us. He talked to his father. Father, forgive them. That's the decision to unite yourself with God in caring for the good of another. He cared for us at the moment, no matter how you feel. I don't think he was in love with us. Jesus or anybody, anybody who has that kind of love, seeks the good, your good, no matter how they're feeling. That is the whole notion of agape. It is the kind of love that is the supreme gift. And the reason it unites itself with God first is because nobody really knows what is good for you ultimately except God. And so what we say is love is the decision to unite yourself with God, admitting you don't know ultimately what is good for the other person, to desire and to desire the good of another, even though you may not, even though you may hate them.
SPEAKER_11:In the more colloquial kind of defining of love, it's the part I think that people say, I want what's best for you. That is correct. But the addiction that's so important is even if I'm not, even if it's not in my best interest, even if it's not, I'm feeling it. That's right. But whatever the circumstances, I still want what's best for you.
SPEAKER_13:And that is ultimately love. Love is that. That self-gift of whatever God wants for you. That is it. Well, we're gonna get to continue this for the last because this last one version of love is super important for us to talk about, and we will talk about it on the other side, Kenzie.
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SPEAKER_13:And if the agape is not present to the other three loves, to Sorge, to Eros, and to Philia. If agape is not present, instead of becoming angelic, they become demonic. Now why am I going to say that? For example, let me give you a demonic example of agape. I mean of um a demonic example of um Storgate. Storgate, yeah, storgate. Imagine a parent uh who has such affection for her child that her boy, that no woman is ever good enough for him. And what she's actually afraid of is Losing. Losing him. And so she becomes her love, quote, for that child, instead of wanting what is good for him, she tries to impede him from ever finding anybody that will make her make make him leave her.
SPEAKER_11:Because what is best for the child will k take her him away from her.
SPEAKER_13:Right. Okay? That's one example. Now in friendship, um the the the friendship uh felia, if you don't have agape, what's good for the uh your friends, a friend can come up to you and say, if you is is if he is addicted, say, to drugs and want money for either gambling or drugs, and says, But you're my friend, lend it to me. You guys sometimes good friendship has to make tough decisions for the good of the friend. And sometimes your friend might cuss you out, might do all kinds of stuff because you're not doing what they want. But if you know that it's not good for them, it is important for you to put agape first, because agape wants the good of the other.
SPEAKER_11:Even when it's not good for the person. That's even when it's Mario. How often have we seen, all of us, a person who is unwilling to say what needs to be said to a friend. That's right. Because it might hurt the real it might sacrifice the relationship on the altar of what the what they need.
SPEAKER_13:That's correct. That's correct. And of course, then the last one is David brought this up earlier. You know, the person who says, I love you so much that unless I am with you, nobody else is. You know, because that person doesn't really love love. The Catholic, it's interesting. Catholic Church defines love as desiring the good of the other. I expanded it a little bit by saying love is the decision to unite yourself with God, because I don't feel like anybody knows what is ultimately good for the other. Um, Rudy, you want to jime in and anything that you want to add to that?
SPEAKER_12:Uh I I think what's important to understand is it's in a very real sense like a like a supernatural thing, right?
SPEAKER_13:It's a supernatural love, yes.
SPEAKER_12:Yeah, and and I think when we stop saying like that, then we kind of it's kind of the same thing we were talking about last week, right? We can just kind of rewrite things to ever to whatever we see fit. So when we don't see things in this transcendent way, when we don't see and and Rabbi, I really I really like what you said. It's just and what you were talking about at the beginning is why is it so hard for people to accept that they are loved by this supernatural love, right? It's it's it's something that's just it's it's hard to cope with, right? It's hard to even I don't know.
SPEAKER_11:It's it's hard to explain to somebody who doesn't want to hear it because they think so little of themselves that they can't comprehend the depth, breadth, and width of God's love.
SPEAKER_13:Here's uh the thing that's related to that, and that is God made us in his image and likeness, and we have never ceased returning the favor. That's not a good thing. That's idolatry by definition. It's a bad thing, but most people, if they hate themselves, will imagine that God's God also hates them. David.
SPEAKER_08:Perfect. Yeah, when when when Stuart was talking a minute ago, I was thinking about the story in the Gospels when uh a Roman centurion comes to Jesus and says, I'm not worthy for you to come into my house, Jesus, but just say the word and you can heal heal my servant, or I think it's maybe my son. Um there's a lot of people who don't feel worthy, and and and there's a lot of reasons they don't feel worthy. And very often that's a distorted view of who they are that has been imposed upon them by friends, maybe family. Um you know, they need some help. They they need to be loved by other people unconditionally, just like Father Mario was saying. But that's the story that came to mind from the Gospels when when uh Stuart was talking about not being feeling that worthiness.
SPEAKER_13:Okay. Anything and you which word where do you want to take this? We have now.
SPEAKER_11:Well, I just I just wanted to say one thing that all this conversation about love and the various form various kinds of love just leaves my mouth agape.
SPEAKER_08:A G A P E leaves me agape, agape. Please no, please no. You know, there's a passage in the New Testament that talks, it's very simple, it says, God is love. God is love. So um d does does the Hebrew Bible have a similar kind of idea, God is love, Stuart?
SPEAKER_11:Yes, but so much more, because God is not just love. If we limit God to only love, and we're supposed to be imitating God, then believe me, God forbid I'm ever brought before a court and a jury. I want those kinds of people on my my jury. They have to love me, they have to free me, they have to forgive me. God is God is also hate. There are things that the Bible explicitly says that God hates. There are things that God rejoices in, God mourns. God is not God is love, but God is also other things as well.
SPEAKER_08:Yes, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, the New Testament confirms that. I mean, the Christian tradition, scriptures say the same thing as well. But but some people will just say, well, God is love, maybe love is God, you know, that and God doesn't exist, but maybe love exists kind of thing. But I I think that's a misreading of that text. I think that what it that is saying is that if you want to see love in its fullness, you look at God. It is a characteristic of God, it is not the enemy it's not exactly the being of God, it's not God's being. It is uh it is a characteristic of God. And for us, knowing God and seeing what God has been willing to do for us, that gives us the greatest and best definition of love that we can imagine.
SPEAKER_13:David, uh let me uh let me see if I can take it a little bit of an issue, I d although I'm in uncertain ground here. Um when I say God is the Bible says God is love. I'm I'm oh I've always expected, I mean uh understood that everything else, like Rabbi said, justice, anger, all those kinds of things are aspects of love in different circumstances.
SPEAKER_11:True.
SPEAKER_13:Uh and so to say to say, for example, w I heard a um a uh uh a professor one time say that the book of Revelation talks about God's wrath. And it it's interesting the way he explained it because he said to he said, when you when you think about love and you reject love imagine you reject love completely. What is left? And what is left, see, what is left is not nothing. You have the inversion of love. When you reject love, you have the inversion of love, and the inversion of love is wrath, it is evil, it is destruction, it is it is it is not just indifference, it it's it because the desire, the emptiness is kind of like a suction that it's there.
SPEAKER_11:Fill the fill the vacuum.
SPEAKER_13:You have to fill the vacuum, okay? And so you fill the if you don't have love, you fill the vacuum with whatever you want. And that and that that int entails grabbing and taking and anything that the to do it in any way you can. And so whenever I th I've thought I've heard of the word the wrath of God, it is to me, it's always been the removal of God from any situation which leaves only the empty suction which will f try to leave it to fill itself with anything in any way it can.
SPEAKER_11:But isn't the statement the wrath of God that God also gets angry? Out of God's love, but it's never nevertheless it's talking about God's anger, not ours.
SPEAKER_13:No, I I understand, but I think that the the the the wrath of God is when you reject the when you reject God. But God's God's wrath from that perspective would be an aspect of his love.
SPEAKER_11:R Yes. His anger. But but it's but he does have anger.
SPEAKER_13:Yes. Yeah. His anger, his anger at you know, I often I often like to use the example. If m imagine that you were having the person you most love on the other side of a one-way glass, and and that you see that person taking a razor blade and slicing up their arms because they're alone in that room and they're slicing up their arms out of self-hatred. What would you do? And of course, people would say, I would go in there and I would be able to scream and yell and get their attention through the glass. So notice that is the anger. The anger of seeing another person that you love tearing themselves apart.
SPEAKER_11:But anger is a fear response. We get angry out of fear most of the time. Yeah. But you know, the parent whose child gets lost in a department store, when they finally find the child, doesn't say, Oh, I'm so happy you're back. They get angry because anger is a fear response.
SPEAKER_13:David and Rudy say f some final stuff.
SPEAKER_08:I would say I I like what you you oh sorry. Sorry, Rudy, go ahead.
SPEAKER_12:Oh, I was just gonna add that when when when it's when we're properly aligned, Rabbi, I think when our morality is properly in a proper hierarchy, I think when we witness injustice, um I don't know, that causes severe anger. Yeah, okay, which is a natural thing.
SPEAKER_13:David?
SPEAKER_08:Yeah, I I would I would I would go with that. That the whole idea of we gotta be careful with this because righteous indignation presupposes that we're righteous to begin with.
SPEAKER_13:That's correct.
SPEAKER_08:And and not too many of us, not too many of us can make that claim.
SPEAKER_13:Okay.
SPEAKER_08:I don't think we call all of our anger uh injustice righteous indignation. We gotta be careful about that. But anyway.
SPEAKER_13:Stuart, you wanted to say one last thing?
SPEAKER_08:Yes.
SPEAKER_11:Mario, David, Rudy, I love you.
SPEAKER_13:That's very good. You're right.
SPEAKER_08:And now you I love you too, Melbourne.
SPEAKER_13:Very, very much so. And it it's um what would you say? It's Philia, right?
SPEAKER_11:Smart Alex.
SPEAKER_13:Okay, thank you very much. You've been listening to a show of faith. Please, during this week, we ask you to please keep us in your prayers. You know why? Because you always, my brothers and sisters, are gonna be in ours.
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