A Sunday School Lesson On Love

Here is a Bible study or Sunday school lesson on love.

What is Love?

Love comes at different levels. There is the brotherly love (Philia) for your friend, neighbor, brother or even parent but that is close to what family love is like and that is from the Greek word “Storge” (στοργή). The Greeks frequently used it for natural affection that family and relatives have for one another. Next, there is “Eros” love from which we get erotic and is reserved for married couples, which explains why Paul wrote, “if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion” (1 Cor 7:9). By far, the greatest love of all is the sacrificial kind of love called “Agape.” There are at least four different kinds of love but these sometimes overlap as when a man and a woman marry, they marry their best friend. That started as a Philia love but became a “storge” or family type of love. Within the marriage, there is obviously “Eros” love but finally, if the couple were Christians, they could even display the greatest love of all; agape love, which is a self-sacrificing, sometime life-sacrificing love that Jesus displayed on the cross but also shows the love of the Father Who allowed His Son to die for wicked sinners who were at one time, enemies of God (Rom 5:8, 10). What greater love is there than to die for an enemy!? So people can sometimes have all four kinds of love but Agape is the rarest.

Have you ever seen anyone display Agape love before?

How many of these loves do possess if you’re single or if you’re married?

Who, besides Jesus, showed you the greatest love as a child? As an adult?

Agape Love

Romans 5:7-8 “For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

What a price that was paid for our redemption and what sacrificial love (Agape) it was because when “we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life” (Rom 5:9). Jesus couldn’t have died for a righteous person because they weren’t any. There weren’t any because they don’t exist. There isn’t even one (Rom 3:10-12)! That’s why this is the greatest love of all, for it was “at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom 5:6), which means all of us (the ungodly). Jesus asked the Father to forgive them while still on the cross (Luke 23:24)! What love is this that dies for us!

What enemies around the world can you think of?

Would you think of dying for them?

Do you think there are any righteous people in the world today?

A Life-Giving Love

John 3:16-17 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

These verses use the “Agape” love when they mention the word love and there is no doubt that this is the message of these two verses; dying so that others might live forever; dying so that we should not perish. God the Father sent the Son of God into the world, but not to condemn it, but to save it. That was the first appearance of Christ but the second time Jesus will come to judge the world in righteousness and some will be condemned (Rev 20:12-15). If only they knew that He came to die so that others might be saved, but they must “be saved through him” alone (John 6:44; Acts 4:12). You must believe in Him to be saved but this means that those who believe in Him, believe in what He taught, therefore they do what they are taught. That’s what belief is. Belief is a verb which means you act upon that belief.

How does God the Father display His love for us?

How does Jesus do the same?

Did the Father sacrifice something in Jesus being crucified on the cross?

The Command to Love One Another

John 13:34 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”

This is a new commandment that Jesus gave to His disciples and most certainly to us today. It is to love one another and each of the four times that “love” is mentioned it is the “Agape” love. This is an apologetic love because Jesus said “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). If they don’t see that love for one another, “all people will” not know that we’re really His disciples, however, if we love one another and even our enemies, Jesus said it will be “by this” that “all people will know that [we] are [His] disciples.” To love one another “just as” He “loved you” sounds humanly impossible doesn’t it? Could we literally have to give our lives for another? Perhaps, but I think Jesus means that we’re to live a life of self-sacrifice or sacrificing our own time, talents, and treasures (our whole life) to serve God and that means to serve others, because that’s what God would have us do (Gal 5:13; 1st Pet 4:10).

What way could you serve someone this week?

How can we love others like Christ?

What would that look like?

Does this mean this kind of “Agape” love will draw people to Christ?

Conclusion

If the Apostle Paul had to rank “faith, hope, and love” he would rank “the greatest of these is love” (1st Cor 13:13) because if God didn’t love us first, we’d still have the wrath of God abiding on us because of our unbelief (John 3:36b) but thankfully, Jesus said and showed, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). We can learn to love others by thinking about how much Christ gave and that He first loved us and then acted upon that love with an Agape love. With that in mind, we must remember we are the body of Christ, the church, and this means we’re the eyes of Christ, the feet of Christ, the hands of Christ, the mind of Christ, the ears of Christ, and the voice of Christ to a world that sorely needs the agape love of God.

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren Church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Teaching Children the Gospel available on Amazon.