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“As you wish.”
Throughout The Princess Bride, those three words carry weight far beyond their surface meaning. When Westley says them to Buttercup, he’s not just agreeing to fetch her water or saddle her horse. He’s declaring his love through service and sacrifice. But here’s the thing – the movie shows us many different expressions of what characters call “love.” There’s Westley’s devoted service to Buttercup. There’s Inigo’s love for his father driving his decades-long quest for vengeance. There’s Fezzik’s loyal friendship. There’s even Prince Humperdinck’s possessive obsession with Buttercup, which he mistakes for love.
In English, we use one word – “love” – to describe vastly different concepts. I can say “I love Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups” and “I love my wife,” and somehow we’re supposed to know I don’t mean the same thing. It would be inconceivable that we’d use the same word for chocolate that we use for our spouse… except we do it all the time.
Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. I’m Darrell Darnell and this is episode 683, “The Greatest of These.” I love a good pun when the opportunity presents itself, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living.
This is the final episode in a three-part series based on 1 Corinthians 13:13, which says, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” In December we examined faith in episode 674, “Faith on Trial.” In January we explored hope in episode 679, “Hope in the Unseen.” Today we conclude with love.
Back in September of last year, I did an episode called “Campfire Encounters” where we touched on the different Greek words for love. If you haven’t heard that episode, I’d encourage you to check it out – it’s episode 609. But today we’re going deeper into why these distinctions matter and how they transform our understanding of what the Bible teaches about love.
The ancient Greeks didn’t have our problem with the word “love.” They were far more precise. Where we have one word, they had four: eros, storge, phileo, and agape. And understanding these distinctions changes everything about how we read Scripture – especially when it comes to the greatest of these three.
Let’s start with eros. This is passionate, romantic, sexual love. It’s the kind of love between a husband and wife. It’s where we get words like “erotic” from. Here’s what’s interesting: eros is never used in the New Testament. Not once. Not because romantic love is sinful or unimportant, but because it’s not the focus of what God is teaching us about love in Scripture.
Then there’s storge. This refers to natural family affection – the bond between parents and children, the warmth of familial love. Interestingly, storge also never appears in its positive form in the New Testament. But its negative form – astorgos, meaning “without natural affection” or “heartless” – shows up twice in Romans 1:31 and 2 Timothy 3:3. The Bible uses the absence of this natural love to describe people who have completely hardened their hearts.
The third word is phileo. This is friendship love, brotherly love, the affection and delight you have in companionship. It’s where Philadelphia – the “city of brotherly love” – gets its name. Phileo appears 25 times in the New Testament. It’s the warmth of genuine friendship, the joy of being with people you care about.
But then there’s agape. And this is where everything changes.
Agape is used 116 times as a noun and 184 times as a verb in the New Testament. It’s not passionate attraction like eros. It’s not natural affection like storge. It’s not the warm feelings of friendship like phileo. Agape is unconditional, sacrificial, choice-driven love. It’s love that acts regardless of feelings. It’s love that gives without expectation of return. It’s love that chooses the good of another even at great cost to yourself.
This is the love God demonstrates toward us. John 3:16 – probably the most well-known verse in the Bible – says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” That word “loved” is agape. God’s love wasn’t an emotional response to humanity’s goodness; it was a sacrificial choice made in spite of our rebellion.
Romans 5:8 makes this even more clear: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” That’s agape. We weren’t lovable. We weren’t His friends. We were His enemies. And He chose to love us through sacrifice.
Jesus defined agape in John 15:13: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” Love isn’t primarily a feeling you experience. It’s an action you take. It’s a choice you make. And this is the love that’s commanded when Jesus says in Matthew 22:39 to “love your neighbor as yourself.” He’s not saying you need to feel warm affection for everyone you meet. He’s saying you need to choose their good, even when it costs you.
This brings us to 1 Corinthians 13 – what’s often called “the love chapter.” It’s read at countless weddings, which is fine, but here’s what most people miss: this chapter isn’t specifically about marital love. It’s about agape love in every context of life. Every single time the word “love” appears in this chapter, it’s agape.
Listen to how Paul begins: “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.”
Let that sink in for a moment. Paul is making an absolutely radical claim. You can be the most eloquent speaker in the world – but without love, you’re just noise. You can understand every mystery of Scripture, have perfect theology, defend every doctrine with precision – but without love, you’re nothing. You can give everything you own to the poor, even sacrifice your own life – but if you don’t have love, you gain nothing.
This should terrify us. Because it means you can be 100% theologically correct, win every argument, and still completely miss the point.
Paul continues: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
Notice something crucial here: these aren’t feelings you conjure up. They’re choices you make, actions you take, disciplines you practice. Patience is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Not keeping a record of wrongs – that’s a deliberate decision. This is agape in action.
But here’s where things get uncomfortable for our modern sensibilities. Look at verse 6: “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.” Love and truth are inseparable. You cannot have genuine love without truth, and you cannot have genuine truth without love.
Our culture has bought into a lie that loving someone means never disagreeing with them, never challenging their beliefs, never confronting their destructive behaviors. We’ve been told that if you really love people, you’ll just accept and affirm whatever they choose to do or believe. But that’s not love at all. That’s cowardice dressed up as compassion.
Think about it this way: if your friend was walking toward a cliff in the fog, would the loving thing be to stay silent because you don’t want to make them uncomfortable? Or would love compel you to shout a warning, even if they find it offensive? Love without truth is hollow sentimentality. It’s affirming someone’s destructive choices because you’re more concerned with being liked than with their actual good.
But the opposite error is just as deadly. Truth without love is cold, harsh legalism. It’s being technically correct while destroying people with your words. It’s winning theological arguments while losing souls. Paul understood this tension perfectly. That’s why he wrote in Galatians about the fruit of the Spirit – and love is listed first, before all the others.
Here’s what I learned.
Love and truth are not opposing forces that we have to balance. They’re symbiotic realities that need each other to survive. Love without truth has no character. Truth without love has no power. Try to separate them, and you destroy both.
My friend Steve recently put it this way when discussing a drunk driving tragedy in his town: “There are consequences to unchecked compassion. This is why there is more to life than love. There are rules. There are righteous judgments.” But then he said something profound: “Compassion to your fellow American reaffirms the necessity of enforcing the rule of law. Love your neighbor—and uphold justice. These ideas are not in tension, but in the cross, beautifully and terribly connected.”
That’s it exactly. At the cross, we see perfect love and perfect justice meeting. God’s love didn’t override His justice. His justice didn’t negate His love. They came together in the most horrific and beautiful act in human history.
Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is challenge a false belief that’s holding someone in confusion, discouragement, or spiritual bondage. The idea that it’s unloving to defend truth or confront lies is one of the arrogant opinions of this postmodern age that needs to be torn down.
So let me challenge both skeptics and believers here.
For the skeptic: If you’ve rejected Christianity because Christians seemed unloving, judgmental, or hypocritical – that’s a fair critique. Many people who claim Christ’s name have failed spectacularly at demonstrating His love. I won’t defend that. But here’s my challenge: Don’t judge Christianity by Christians who fail to follow Christ. Judge it by Christ Himself.
Look at how Jesus loved people. He ate with tax collectors and sinners. He touched lepers when everyone else avoided them. He defended a woman caught in adultery from a self-righteous mob. But He also called out the religious leaders for their hypocrisy. He overturned tables in the temple. He told hard truths that offended people. He held truth and love in perfect tension.
And look at the early church. They were known throughout the Roman Empire for their radical love. When plagues swept through cities and everyone else fled, Christians stayed to care for the sick and dying. When babies were abandoned on trash heaps, Christians rescued them and raised them. They shared their resources with the poor. They were executed for their faith, yet they prayed for their executioners.
The cross is the ultimate demonstration of agape love. God loved you when you were unlovable. He died for you when you were His enemy. That’s not wishful thinking or religious sentiment. That’s a historical claim about a real event. What if the thing you’ve rejected is actually the source of the kind of love this world desperately needs?
For the believer: Jesus said in John 13:35, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Not by your correct theology. Not by your political positions. Not by your cultural warfare. By your love.
Are we known by our love? Be honest. When people think of Christians today, do they think of our love first? Or do they think of our arguments, our judgments, our culture wars?
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: many of us say we have love, but our lives tell a different story. We can recite every verse. We can defend every doctrine. We can win every theological argument. And we can still be “nothing” according to 1 Corinthians 13:2.
But equally true: we cannot compromise truth in the name of love. We can’t affirm destructive beliefs and behaviors just because we want people to like us. Faith in Christ is the impetus for love for others, and together they make one a Christian. Missing either one makes any claim to be a Christian a deadly lie.
The challenge is this: Hold truth and love in tension the way Jesus did. He called out sin without hesitation. He also ate with sinners without reservation. He spoke hard truths to religious hypocrites. He showed radical mercy to broken prostitutes and corrupt tax collectors. That’s the model.
This brings us full circle to where we started this series. Faith, hope, and love- they work together. Faith is the foundation: trust in Christ based on the evidence of the resurrection. Hope is the confident expectation: certainty about the future based on God’s proven promises. Love is the expression: how faith and hope manifest in our daily lives.
But why is love the greatest of these three?
My friend Brian shared this with me recently and it sums it up perfectly. Brian said, “Do you know why Love is the greatest of these? Because one day our faith will be sight, our hope will be fulfilled, but love will continue throughout eternity in the presence of God.”
Think about that. Faith is for this life – trusting in what we cannot yet see fully. Hope is for this life – confidently expecting what has not yet arrived. But love? Love is eternal. When we see Christ face to face, we won’t need faith anymore because we’ll see Him. We won’t need hope anymore because every promise will be fulfilled. But love will remain. Love will continue forever because God Himself is love.
My church has a mission statement that captures this beautifully: “Live by faith, be a voice of hope, be known by love.” These aren’t three separate things. They’re one integrated life. We live by faith in Christ’s proven character. We are a voice of hope, proclaiming confident expectation based on His resurrection. We are known by love, demonstrating agape to a world drowning in selfishness.
So here’s my challenge to you this week. Don’t just feel inspired by this episode and then move on with your life unchanged. Do something.
If you’re a skeptic, don’t just dismiss this. Investigate how the early Christians actually lived. Read the historical accounts. They turned the Roman Empire upside down not through political power or military might, but through radical, sacrificial love. Ask yourself: What if this is real? What if the God who demonstrated agape love at the cross is offering that same love to you?
If you’re a believer, identify one person this week who is difficult to love. Maybe it’s a difficult coworker. Maybe it’s that family member who always pushes your buttons. Maybe it’s someone who’s hurt you deeply. Make one specific, concrete act of agape love toward them.
Not when you feel like it. Not if they deserve it. Not if it’s convenient. But as an act of your will. A choice to seek their good even when it costs you something. That’s what God did for you at the cross. That’s what He’s calling you to do for others.
Because here’s the reality: the world is watching. They’re watching to see if Christians are any different. They’re watching to see if our faith produces anything of value. They’re watching to see if this love we talk about is real or just religious talk.
In a world that has mistaken love for feelings, traded truth for tolerance, and substituted sentiment for sacrifice, the greatest revolution we can spark is the same one that once turned an empire upside down – a love that speaks hard truth without cruelty, extends radical grace without compromise, and perfectly reflects the God who didn’t just teach about love, but became love incarnate, bled love on a cross, and calls us to be the living proof that agape love is not just conceivable – it’s the only force powerful enough to change the world.
I’m Darrell Darnell, and this has been Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
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