Love is such an inadequate word

It seems it is not just the English word for Love that is inadequate. According to an article I was reading tonight, the bible writers had the same problem. When the author of any bible passage uses the word agape particularly “he pours into that word a content of meaning it never had in pagan Greek, namely, the idea of self-sacrifice for the benefit of some other person who is one?’s enemy and naturally unlovable. Thus agapan when used in the New Testament refers to a love which impels the one loving to deny self for the benefit of the one loved.

Expositors should when speaking of Christian love define the word with this background of meaning. Our hearers understand us in their own definitions of our terms unless we are careful to define those we use. John states that ?God as to His nature is love? (?1 John 4:8?). With this love the saints are to love one another.”