True Friendship - Agape and Phileo

I am writing this to help many people I have seen entangled in a web of relationships that are destructive and yet feel they cannot act in a way that would set them free because they misunderstand the command of God to love others.

Let me say it in this way:

The Bible commands us to love everyone.

The Bible commands us to love only a few.

The Bible commands us to love only one.

These statements are all absolutely true. They seem to contradict each other for only one reason – English has only one word for the three words that are used in the Biblical commands.

The Bible commands us to Agape everyone.

The Bible commands us to Phileo only a few.

The Bible commands us to Eros only one.

The misunderstanding or misapplication of these three truths brings great destruction into lives of believers and unbelievers as well.

It is clear to most believers that we are to Eros only one. The Bible teaches that the design of God for males and female is a lifelong mutual commitment to sexual faithfulness to only the other. Not even God is to be pictured in erotic images of love. God created the sexual aspect of our being to have only one focus, one member of the opposite sex.

I once knew a young man who approached me one day and said, “The Bible says we should share everything with each other right?” I said, “Not sure what you are asking.” He said, “I was thinking that God wants us to love everyone and to share everything with each other and that you should share your wife with me.” I won’t share what the next things I said were but I can assure you that he was no longer a part of our lives after that moment.

While it is fairly easy for most believers to see the perversion that is involved in this kind of a use of the concept of loving everyone it amazes me that most cannot see the perversion in thinking because God says we should love (Agape) everyone we are to be “friends” (Phileo) with everyone.

Agape is a very specific kind of love. It is not Phileo. Agape describes an attitude of heart that moved God to send Jesus to die for all. Agape exists in the heart of God and those who are possessed of God. It is directed first towards God and then to others as God directs. Agape gives already understanding there is no relationship established. It gives without expectation of return. It gives for the sole reason that Agape has been given to the one now giving it. It describes the heart of God.

Phileo (friendship) is not a description of what is in God or a person’s heart. It is the description of a relationship. Agape is not a relationship. Having or giving Agape does not create a relationship though a true Phileo relationship requires Agape. Phileo requires Agape be in two hearts not just one. This is the critical issue. This is why relating to someone as a philotos (a friend) when they are not, leaves us open to the same kind of problem that comes when a person gives himself or herself sexually unexclusively.

We are to never give ourselves to more than one person unless they intend share the same lifelong commitment of marriage. They must also have all the attributes the Bible commands them to have – a member of the opposite sex, not a near relative, a believer, sharing the same understanding of the covenant of faithfulness, committed to the other with the same commitment….

In the same way we are to never give our lives to another in phileo unless they are committed to the same relationship with us. They also have to have the Biblically mandated attributes of a philotos (a friend). This is because biblical friendship, like marriage, is a covenant relationship.

Covenant relationships are misunderstood as well. The emphasis that has been placed on God’s supremacy has given the impression that a covenant is one sided. Again God’s love made a covenant relationship with Him possible. In the same way as there is no one sided Phileo, there is no covenant relationship that is one sided. In fact the whole concept of salvation is about coming into covenant with God. Unless we are in a covenant relationship with Him we are not saved. Many people believe that salvation is a substance… a thing. They see it as something tangible that they are given that is apart from the one who gives it. Like a cashier’s check. You get salvation and when you get to the gates of heaven you present it to St. Peter and he lets you in. It is interesting that Jesus’ name means salvation. He is salvation. Not something separate from him. Not a quantity of something that he gives. Not a pass to heaven he endorses with his blood. He is salvation. Only as we are in covenant relationship with him do we have salvation.

1 John 2:2 (Today's New International Version)

He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

He died for the whole world but the whole world is not saved. Why not? Some hold a theology of election that says he actually only died for “some.” In the more extreme versions of this theology it is held that he in fact purposes to not save many and will send them to hell for no other reason than his desire. This does not fit the biblical picture:

2 Peter 3:9 (New American Standard Bible)

The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

1 Timothy 2:4

who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.   

The Bible is clear why though Jesus’ death has died to pay the penalty for sin not everyone is saved. It is in a very simple word – reconciliation.

Romans 5:10

For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

2 Corinthians 5:18

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:

2 Corinthians 5:20

We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.

This last passage points to the ultimate truth of why some are saved and others are not even though God wants all to be saved and made a way for all to be saved. Not all will be reconciled to God.

Forgiveness describes what happens in the heart of a person when they choose to let go of the wrong another has done to them. But the tragic truth that so many fail to understand is that forgiveness is not reconciliation. Forgiveness is absolutely necessary for reconciliation to occur. It is the invitation to reconciliation. But it is not reconciliation. Forgiveness takes one. Reconciliation takes two. All the forgiveness of eternity cannot make a person be reconciled to another. God’s forgiveness does not reconcile any one to himself without their desire to be reconciled to Him. Like Agape and Phileo, forgiveness describes the condition of a heart, reconciliation describes a relationship.

There is no salvation without reconciliation. And there is no reconciliation that is one sided.

I have counseled so many who are caught in abusive relationships that have their foundations in a perversion of the gospel. They believe that their love, forgiveness and commitment to another person will change them.

The opposite of that understanding leads them to bondage. They believe if the person does not change it is because they are somehow lacking love, forgiveness and commitment. They see they are continually giving to this person in a deeply self-sacrificing way but question their very hearts and believe they must give more and more to eventually win this person from their selfishness. As they do so they person becomes more and more selfish and narcissistic until they become emotionally abusive and eventually may even physically abuse them.

But God says the problem is not the giver’s love but the lack of response to that love from the other. The one giving has made the terrible mistake of thinking Agape means Phileo. They think forgiveness is not complete until reconciliation occurs. And unlike God they do not require the other to return covenant love before they love with covenant love.

A sane person would never go out on the street, take the first person they met and commit their whole life to him or her.

We rightly expect to see a mutual love committed to and demonstrated to us before we give our hand in the covenant of marriage. Every marital relationship must be based on God’s foundation of Agape but that does not make it appropriate for marriage. Something else must be in the relationship for it to be an appropriate relationship for marriage. It must be a mutual covenant of Phileo (friendship) in both partners hearts and it must be a lifelong covenant commitment of mutually faithful eros between Biblically appropriate members of the opposite sex.

In this same way relationships of friendship are to be a mutually committed relationship of agape.

We are not to be friends with people who have no commitment of friendship to us.

When we come to understand that the person we are in a relationship with we think is Phileo (friendship) does not have that same commitment we are to return to an agape relationship with them.

An Agape relationship is one sided. It has no expectation of return for its gifts. It has a hope of Phileo but does not require Phileo to be given. It never gives what is appropriate to Phileo to anyone who is not in a Phileo relationship.

In a practical understanding of this we are not to give ourselves to those who we have no mutual relationship with beyond that which God prompts us to lead them to be reconciled to Jesus. If we choose to give more we are violating Phileo and the suffering that comes will be destructive and not the good work God desires.

Phileo requires trust. If we go out on the street and choose to give our pay to a stranger asking him to deposit it in the bank down the street we would rightly be blamed for the loss of our money. Crying to God about it and blaming Him would not do any good. Yet so many give the treasures of their lives to others with less discrimination. They don’t understand that they are violating biblical principles in doing so because they have misunderstood the message of love.

I can agape (love) the stranger on the street and yet not trust him to give him my pay.

I can even give my pay to him if I understand my giving to be for the sake of the gospel and will be a completely unmerited gift. When he takes it and does with it whatever he does I will not have put myself into spiritual jeopardy because I will have given an offering to God alone trusting Him for whatever He wants to do.

What I can’t do is give him the pay and really expect him to take it to the bank. If he is honest he will tell me it is wrong for me to ask him to do so. He will tell me it is my responsibility to take it. If he is dishonest he will gladly take it and laugh all the way home that he met the most naive person in the world.

Now go one step further in this. Think about taking your employer’s daily cash deposit that he has given you to take to the bank. Imagine giving his money to the stranger. Would your employer ever agree with you doing so with what is his? When we give our lives to people God does not want us to give them to we are doing exactly that. Many of the parables of Jesus point to this very issue.

We belong to God. Our resources belong to God. Our hearts belong to God. When we give ourselves to others we are doing more than giving our pay. We are giving one of God’s most precious treasures. We need to understand this so that we treat what belongs to Him with the valuation He places on us and the care that he wants us to have for ourselves.

This last statement points to one reason beyond Biblical misinterpretation we may give ourselves away wrongly to others - why we can hand strangers God’s most precious possessions without a thought. We don’t value God’s life in us. Some may think I said a lack of self worth. If understood from a biblical point of view that is true. The only problem with using self-worth language is the Bible uses the word self in a very precise way. It says the self without God is the core problem with sin. The self in Biblical words is that which is set against God. It is talking about the narcissistic selfish part of us. It is our self centredness and selfishness the Bible says must be crucified with Christ. It is the part of us that wants to be God - demands to be God. It screams at any encroachment of its autonomy. It wants its own way and nothing else. It cares nothing for others or God. It is the part of all of us that believes the universe was created only for us. It also believes it, l;ike God is all powerful and needs neither God nor other people.

Our “self” wants nothing to do with God since the first act God does to bring us to salvation is to show us how totally helpless we are without Him. (that we need a savior) The second act is to show us how incapable of good we are without Him. (all have sinned and come short of the glory of God). The third act is call us to renounce our pride, turn from our sins and turn back to Him (repentance). And the fourth act is to call us to be reconciled into a lifelong commitment of Phileo with Him.

In this last act God places His own life in us by the Holy Spirit. We are no longer an autonomous “self”. We are bought with a price. We are now inhabited by God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The new “self” now takes its proper place of humility. We are new creations.

It is God’s life that we now honor in ourselves. Saying that we have self-love may not be the correct way to say it. A better picture is that we have love for God who indwells us and love for the new creation He has created us to be by His indwelling us. It involves loving ourselves but only as the self has its proper place in humility in a reconciled relationship with the indwelling life of God. Self respect is closer to the definition of a healthy understanding of how our actions towards others need to be understood in light of the preciousness we hold inside.

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the glory may be of God and not of us.

2 Corinthians 4:7

If we have the understanding that God intends our friendships to be committed relationships with only a few people who are equally committed to us. When we understand this we have a foundation for building relationships of freedom.

So we return to the understanding that the first mark of a Phileo relationship is trust. If you cannot trust someone you are not to be in a relationship that demands trust. You cannot be friends with someone you cannot trust. You cannot be a friend if you are not trustworthy.

Trust is absolutely required for friendship to exist.

I once asked God about the “submission” scriptures in the Bible. I wondered why they were so very strong with regard to wives submitting to their husbands. One day as I was pondering the terrible marriage relationship I saw destroying a dear friend I heard her say that she knew before she married him that he was like this but she thought she could change him if she loved him with God’s love. I suddenly saw the “submission” scriptures in a totally different light. I saw them as being a warning.

In fact the division of the Bible verses is the most important reason for a misunderstanding of the submission scriptures. The one who divided our Bible into chapters and verses ended the chapter with “Submit yourselves to one another.” The next chapter begins with, “Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord.” If the proper alignment of the topic of submission had been followed the Bible would have told the couple to submit themselves to each other and then would have given specific aspects of their mutual submission to each other.

But the point cannot be missed. The Bible teaches total submission of the marriage partners to each other. In the book of Corinthians the partner’s bodies are to belong completely to the other. Another part says that not even their prayers will find a place in God’s heart if they are not caring fully for each other. The last verses of the Old Testament demand it. The last book of the New Testament describes the fulfillment of the image of marriage in Jesus receiving his bride who lays down her life for him as he laid down his life for her. There is no escaping the requirement of mutual submission.

Another false aspect of the concept of submission is thinking it only means being under spousal authority. This is partially correct. Submit literally means sub – under, mit – hand “under the hand.” Submission is to place oneself under the hand of another.

Most people enter into covenant relationships not fully trusting the other person. This is the warning of the submission scriptures. Before a person marries he or she needs to be confronted with the reality that they will be putting themselves fully “under the hand” of their chosen spouse. If they think that they retain their autonomy they are wrong. Entering a covenant relationship of marriage places a person in the most vulnerable relationship in the whole world except being a child of a parent. The person we marry has the power to harm or bless us more than anyone else in the world. If my friend had taken this seriously before she married the man that was now destroying her and her children’s life she would have never married him. She would have known that she should never marry someone she already knew she could not trust to be faithful. In her lack of value for God’s life in her she defiled her life by entering a one sided relationship. She thought she could love him out of his unfaithfulness but she could not – no one but Jesus ever can.

After I saw this I tell every couple considering marriage to never consider it unless they can with wholehearted abandon say that they can put their whole lives “under the hand” of their chosen love without a single fear that they would do wrong to them. The truth is that even if you don’t think you will have to do this you will. And this is also true of every eros relationship even outside of marriage. Though you may think there is no commitment, the very act of sexual intimacy creates a bond of dependency that deeply wounds when it is violated.

In this very same way when we build friendships a primary characteristic of making a choice of a good friend is they can be trusted.

Part of the reason many feel that I am odd in my teaching on friendship is that most people call acquaintance friendship. We say we are friends with almost everyone. At work, at church, in our hobbies, sports teams and so on. Biblical friendship is not acquaintance. It is a deeply committed nonsexual relationship of mutual caring.