Love is a wonderful thing...but not always an equal thing. I'd like to explore the idea that there are different forms of love and all of them are not the same. For instance the love a mother has for her children and the love a man has for his wife hold in themselves obvious differences. A mother's love might be described as primarily nurturing...a man's love for his wife might best be explained in more romantic ways that would not and should not pertain to any other type of love...though there is one similarity that I notice. They are both expressing an affection that is in some ways derived from the magnetism of love's object. It's a natural affection that surprises few when expressed. With very few extreme exceptions, a mother always loves her child...no matter what, the child is always attractive to it's mother...when a man falls in love with a woman he most certainly...and appropriately...thinks she's beautiful...even if the beauty is only in the "eye of the beholder"...no one wonders to themselves, "How could this have happened?"
This expression of love is the most obvious, and I would suggest the third and lowest level of three mentioned in the Bible. In the Greek it's called "storge". The other two are "phileo" and "agape" and I want to look at those in the next posts. Another type of love is "eros" and would specifically apply to a romantic type of love (setting the two above examples apart) but is never used in the original Bible texts. Movies and books typically will build story lines on subject matter pertaining to this type of love. Otherwise readers wouldn't read and audiences wouldn't pay 9 bucks to watch. And what I want to point out is that there seems to be a distinction of this "natural affection" love known as "storge" that is so beautiful and glorious and powerful...and obvious.