Love isn't Enough

I don’t know about you but it seems that only having one word for ‘love’ doesn’t seem to be working. How can the same word be used to describe your ‘love’ of pizza and the ‘love’ that you feel for your children or spouse? It never seemed to make much sense to me. In the Greek language there are four different words to describe love. The first is Storge (store-gay) this is the affection between parents and their children. This is an unconditional love. The second is Philia (fill-ee-ah) this is the love that exists between friends or ‘brotherly love.’ This is the affection between good friends or between warriors that depend on each other to have the other’s back. The third is Eros (air-os). This is the romantic love between men and women, but this love is more than desire for sex or lust. The last word is Agape (a-gah-pay), in the Greek language this was the rarest and purest form of love. It is the love that acts on behalf of the well-being of someone else, whether you like that person or not. Some have equated agape with Christ-like love. This is a love that requires action.

But in English we have bunched all these meanings and more into one word: love. If you agree with me start adding these Greek words into your vocabulary and will a little luck they will start to catch on and we will add four more words into the English language that better communicates how we feel.