Best friends will display this generous and affectionate love for each other as each seeks to make the other happy. Philia refers to brotherly love and is most often exhibited in a close friendship.

Christians are to love one another with agape love, as seen in Jesus’ Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37).įinally, we have phileo love. This is the love that God has for His people and that prompted the sacrifice of His only Son, Jesus, for our sins. Agape love is more than a feeling-it is an act of the will. The Bible is clear that sexual immorality (out-of-control eros) is a sin (1 Corinthians 6:18 1 Thessalonians 4:3).Īgape speaks of the most powerful, noblest type of love: sacrificial love. While eros is important within a marriage relationship and is created by God (see Song of Solomon), it can also be abused or mistaken for storge love. Some examples of storge love can be found in the stories of Noah, Jacob, and siblings Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.Īs its name indicates, eros is passionate or sexual love ( eros is the source of the English word erotic). It is a naturally occurring, unforced type of love. Storge is an affectionate love, the type of love one might have for family or a spouse. To better understand phileo love, we need to take a brief look at the other types of love. The Greek language also had terms for two other types of love, eros and storge, which do not expressly appear in the Bible.

Both are Greek terms and appear at different points throughout Scripture. The Bible speaks of two types of love: phileo and agape.

What does agape means