Six Types of Love

The Greeks are smarter than we are. At least, that's what it feels like! Today we're talking about the six types of love the ancient Greek philosophers talked about and how you can grow stronger in each one.  

Applied to our marriages, these six types of love cover the full array of relational bonding and will draw you close to your spouse. 

Enjoy!

Transcript

So today we're talking about the six types of love. So fun. Isn't that a cool topic? The six types of love? Yeah. And you guys know Tori and I by now, we don't hold ourselves as experts. We don't come up with all this stuff all on our own or whatever. Uh, we, our thoughts are our own, but I was reading a, uh, an article by a guy, a philosopher named Roman, I don't even know how to say his last name, K Kaner or something like that.

Anyway, much smarter than me, and he was talking about the, the six terms that the Greeks used to describe love. And as I was reading through it, I thought, man, all of these are so incredibly important. We need to talk about these on the podcast, because the Greeks believed that you could grow in each of these.

Oh, that's cool. And it could draw you close to people. So of course we wanna relate that to marriage today. But before we do, I have, what's our song? You got a good one? And Jason said, we need an eighties song. We need to break it up with an eighties song. Okay. I kind of want to not tell you who it is. Okay.

And then you guys tell me if you remember this, but I think the song came out in 1988. Okay, here you go.

I feel like I should keep playing that. What a great song. It is a good one. Maybe it's the way you touch me with the warmth of your smile. Maybe it's the way you, I forget the rest of it. Okay, so can you guess, can you guess who that is? Because that's one of the most classic eighties love songs of all time.

Okay. It's one m When I'm with you by Sheriff, sheriff, sheriff is great. Go Google that or just put it on iTunes or whatever, Amazon Music, whatever your music of choice is. Spotify, and do when I'm with you by Sheriff and look at the cover album and look at their, look at their hair. Lemme see. Look at the hair of those guys on that.

Oh wow. And then there's a dude wearing that just screams eighties. There's a dude wearing a black shirt. With z cci, gray pants. And David and I, we never had the money to get Z cavariccis. We wanted some so bad, but they were those big like mc hammer looking pants. Mm-hmm. But they didn't have the low crotch like Mc hammers you, you kind of had to pull 'em up above your belly.

It was really crazy. But I can't believe we dressed like that. Our kids think it's so cool that you like, were. Yeah. You grew up in the eighties. It is. I was born in the eighties, so I don't, I consider myself more of a nineties kid. She's a nineties girl. Yep. I'm, I'm eighties through and through, and, but you can, you can pass down your love for the eighties to your kids.

Our kids now love eighties movies and eighties music. Yeah. It's funny cuz my dad growing up always told me stories and I'm like, man, life was so much better when you were a kid like this. And then I uhhuh when I hear you telling stories, I can see my kids like, man, I wish we grew up in the eighties. But what's crazy is, I mean, I think that's true for anybody that grew up without technology.

Yeah. We, we literally just had to hang out with people. Like you just had to find stuff to do. We played so much whiffle ball and you'd go to the movie theater and you, you made sure the show up 30 minutes before the movie so you could hang out in the lobby and you stayed 30 minutes after the movie to hang out in the lobby.

Cuz that's when you got to talk to your friends, right? Yeah, exactly. You know, and then you were just hoping that you could get a back row seat if you had your girlfriend that you could do a little smooch. I never wanted to do that. Smooch. Smooch. Okay, so now we're talking about six types of love. Okay, let me, let me start with the spiritual definition of love.

Um, love is Jesus, but it is true. Like if you think about it, love is a man. His name is Jesus, right? Uh, truth is the same man. His name is Jesus. So if you're all truthful but not loving, then you don't have Jesus. But if you're all loving and not truthful, then you don't have Jesus. So obviously we know that God is love.

Mm-hmm. So if we need love in our life and we want to give love, we know it starts and ends with God. Mm-hmm. Right. So, Jesus, holy Spirit, God, Jesus Holy Spirit comes into our life. Makes us loving and allows us to love people and then makes us lovable, right? Cuz God loves us. But now if I am gonna put it into words, Dr.

Tony Evans said, love is compassion with standards. And I love that. It's really good. It is. It's compassion with standards. Like you can't have one without the other. You've gotta have compassion. Yeah. And then you have to have standards. Mm-hmm. Like just imagine if I. Really felt passionate for Tori. I've got compassion for her.

I feel affectionate toward her, but I'm not willing to submit to the rules of relationship, which would be, I don't date other women. So just imagine how that would feel for her if I'm like, I'm gonna go on a date tonight, right? Mm-hmm. I don't care what your compassion feels like. If you're not honoring the rules, then that's not love.

That's where we find ourselves in the culture today. Everybody's like, You know, love is love. You can love who you want, right? There's no standard. Yeah. In their mind, love is compassion. Right? There is no standard. Yeah. So you've gotta have both. But now love is, is not just compassion with standards. The angle we're gonna go today tour, and I'm gonna lead this, so you chime in whenever you want, is that love is also an expression.

Mm. So we can express ourselves in a way that draws us close to our spouse and draws our spouse close to us. Okay. Because love is what truly binds us to people. Mm. And it binds us to God, obviously. And the Greeks describe love in six different terms. So we're gonna look at each one of these terms. I'm excited, and I think the first term might be my favorite in terms of marriage.

I think I know what, I think, I know the term you're about to use. Some of these, you've heard some of these you've heard, um, and several you have not. So again, I'm going off of, um, this philosopher mm-hmm. That's a lot smarter than me. So I'm, I'm going with these words and then Tori, and I'll dive into each of them.

First one, Eros, that's erotic love. It's about sexual passion and desire. Okay. Now what's interesting is the Greeks felt like this type of love is the love that controls you. Uh, interesting. It's not love that you can control. Okay. You know that I, I fell madly in love. Mm-hmm. It feels like you're a victim of something that overtook you.

Yeah. Right, right. That's eros love. Yeah. It's like, like a fire. Right. So it's good to have this in your relationship. Like a fire in the fireplace can heat your house up. Mm-hmm. But imagine if there were no boundaries around that fire. Burn your house down. Burn your house down. That's exactly right. So, so how do you get there?

How can you foster Eros love, which is erotic love in your marriage? I just wrote down two things that I think are so powerful. It starts with appreciation. Mm-hmm. Okay. So appreciation is so, so strong, right? So if you've, if you guys know that you've, it's been a while and you guys haven't been intimate with each other or whatever, and say you're really busy.

And neither one of you're feeling it because that's what happens. I mean, you get busy, your libido drops, you're not really feeling sexual towards your spouse or whatever. You know, one of the things that will get you feeling that way. Appreciation. Appreciation. Yeah. Right? Mm-hmm. We were just talking about this in our marriage retreat last week.

Um, just the power of gratitude and how it releases chemicals in your body called dopamine and oxytocin. Yeah, exactly. And oxytocin is a bonding. Chemical. And so God made us this way. So it, it doesn't surprise me that, that this would be something that would bring you into that kind of Yeah. Appreciation is, that's, that's exactly, so start with appreciation, but then step two for that, if you wanna grow an erotic love is imagination.

Like imagine your sp like you guys, you've been married, right? You've had plenty of sexual and physical encounters with your spouse. Mm-hmm. Go back. Think about those things. Like let yourself think about those things because God wants you to think about those things. He does not want you to think about that outside of your relationship with any other human being.

Right? So it's imagination, appreciation. That's how you grow. Mm-hmm. Now listen, you cannot let your eros love grow into Eros. Lust. Mm-hmm. Right? Here's the difference. Lust is about me and needs to be be fulfilled now. This is how you can be married and operating in lust towards your spouse. You're not thinking about them sexually.

You think about yourself. You need your fix and you need it. Now. That's lust. Mm-hmm. But love is about my spouse and is willing to wait. So lust is about me and needs it now. Mm. Love is about my spouse and is willing to wait and not just wait, but also be patient. Right. You know, love making it. It take goes to another level when you're thinking of your spouse and not thinking of yourself.

And then if your spouse is doing that, then it can go to a whole different level. Mm-hmm. So this is what you want. So that's, that's Aeros love. Okay. That's, that's, um, type number one. The second facet of love is flia love. That's deep friendship. Mm. This is all about, um, deep friendship. Now the, the f Flia love P H I L I A.

C comes from a Greek term that talks about deep friendship that develops between brothers in arms, like people in battle who had fought side by side on the battlefield. Wow. So it's talking about basically like band of brothers type thing? Yeah. Like we got into a battle, you know, we didn't even know each other, but then we started fighting side by side with each other.

Next thing you know, we come out on the other side of that. We're like bozo buddies. Yeah, right. This vale of love isn't just being pals. It's about uniting in battle. Mm-hmm. Fighting together. That's why Tori and I wrote our book. Mm-hmm. Union in Battle, winning in Marriage by waging a War. When you fight together, it draws you together.

So that's a very powerful aspect of love. But Philia also has that friendship. It's uh, uh, side to it component. It's, it's about loyalty, it's about sacrifice, it's about sharing emotions. Mm-hmm. So the question is, what can you do in your relationship to become better friends? Tor what would you do if you wanted to become friends with somebody?

Spend more time with them. Yeah. Doing what? Shared activities. Shared activities, yeah. Mm-hmm. Finding something that both of you Right. Would like to do. And you do it. Yeah. It's not like, Hey, I want to go to a race, you know, like a NASCAR race, and the person's like, Ooh, I hate that. You're like, oh, don't worry about, it's gonna be great.

Yeah, it's, well, you don't do that. You're like, okay, so you don't like race. Well, what do you like? Mm-hmm. Well, I like football. You're like, well, I don't like football. And they say, well, I like basketball. You're like, oh, I like basketball. Okay, so basketball, it is, yeah. Let's go to a basketball game. Yeah, that's what Philia does.

It's like we want to grow in our deep friendship. Mm-hmm. Now I can tell you this, couples who don't have shared activity mm-hmm. I'm telling you, they don't have as deep of intimacy. Yeah. And sad to say, a lot of 'em don't even last. Hmm. And we've seen this happen with couples that we've counseled and, and I, and I hate it, but if you don't have shared activity and you're willing to get outside yourself and go and, and find some things that you guys can do together, it's very difficult.

Yeah, to experience true intimacy and it means that you have to be open to some new things, right? Like, yeah, that's true. You know, for us with CrossFit, I wasn't really open to that at the beginning, but I got into it and I actually love it. Yeah. But it took some time before I loved it. You should have seen Tori rap out her deadlifts today.

It was incredible. Yeah. You know? Yeah. 10 straight dead lifts. We're in a little light today, so I could go. You probably were like, wow, she's going really fast. But I was doing like half the weight. You're lightweight. Okay, so that's Philia love. Okay. Third Facet of love. Mm-hmm. Uh, third word for love by the Greeks.

Luddu. L U D U S. You know what this is? This is playful. And I love this because the word itself actually describes playful action between children, but the Greeks use it in terms of love, um, because it's all about laughing with each other, playing with each other, and flirting. I like that. You know, like when you first started dating?

Mm-hmm. You flirted with each other. What is flirting? It's using little humor, jabs, little, you know, kind of fun picking on each other, just doing little things that's flirty. When we date, it's natural to do that. Yeah. But then when you get married, you stop flirting. Mm-hmm. You don't need to stop flirting.

You gotta keep flirting. Yeah. That's good. Pick some of the things that frustrate you guys about each other, you know, that could easily frustrate you guys about each other. Wrap some humor around it. Mm-hmm. And let that be a flirt. You know, I called Tori the other day and I said, Hey, there's a cucumber in here.

I see. And I think it's, it might have come from the, I forget exactly how I said it, but it was like, it is very old. How about you put that on your salad tonight? You know, she just busted out laughing. She's like, why don't you put it on your salad? You know, like little things like that, you know, with spouses.

It's fun. It's flirty. You know? Right. No, I love it. That was not so much, that was a great, just on the top of your head, but I don't think it was our best one. Just it wasn't our best one. Okay. Well you, you picked the best one. I can't think of one, but not on the spot. That wasn't that flirty. No, but good try.

You guys get, you get where he is going. Yeah. It's endearing. It's like I love you. You're cute. I wanna say something cuz you're fun. You know we're not gonna bring you into our real flirting guys. Can't do it. Sorry. Start call, start calling her those little names we cu we'd flirt over cucumbers. Okay. Yeah.

No pda. Okay, so that's lose. It's playful. Like you really do need to be playful with each other. It's very important. Don't be so serious. That's like joker on Batman. Why is so serious? That was pretty good. I gotta admit that actually was dead on. I'm not gonna lie. All right, fourth. Fourth aspect of love.

This is the one everybody's heard of. Agape. Mm agape is selfless love. Um, and specifically it's selfless love for everyone. Not just your spouse, but it's everyone. It's like you're a loving person. The, um, greatest show of agape love in the history of the world is John three 16. Mm-hmm. For God so love the world mm-hmm.

That he gave, right? Yeah. So, CS Lewis referred to Agape Love as gift love, love. It's the highest form of love. Mm. The highest form of love is gift Love where you give of yourself. And what it's cool is that Agape was later translated by the Greeks, um, actually by the Latins, but, but translated from Greek into Latin as Caritas, which is the origin for our word charity.

Oh, okay. Which basically means that I have a heart for people. Yeah. Right. That's agape love. Mm-hmm. It's a giving. Love. Yeah. So figure out a way that you can give to your spouse today with nothing in return. Or as Tori and I say nsa, no strings attached. No strings attached. How about I rub that knot outta your shoulder?

No strings attached. I'm not going anywhere with it. Of course then as any good husband would say, unless you want to, cuz then I'm available. Right? So that's agape love. Okay, number five. Um, this is an interesting one, Pragma. Pragma love, P R A G M A, Pragma love. That's longstanding love. And this is a, this is the facet of love that's mature, realistic, okay?

And it's commonly found along, uh, amongst long lasting couples. Like couples who have been married for a long time. Okay? Kinda like us almost 23 years now. Um, it's about, pragma is all about making compromises. To help the relationship work over time. Mm. And showing patience, tolerance, uh, the psychoanalyst Eric Rom, if you ever took psychology class in college, you heard of Eric Rom.

I don't know that, I don't know that he's a believer or anything like that, but he, uh, said we expend way too much energy falling in love and need to learn more how to stand in love. Mm. Wow. That's where the choice comes in. Yep. Pragma is the husband and wife standing at the altar. Actually, the, the engaged couple standing at the altar exchanging their vows in sickness and in health for richer, for poorer till death.

Do we part? I choose you. That's Pragma. Wow. It's like, that's really good. It's a choice. It makes me think of, I, I heard Brene Brown say one time. That marriage is not 50 50. Yeah. Because there are times where I don't have 50% to give, but that's when your spouse comes in and says, I got your back. Yeah. I can carry the extra load today because I'm in this with you.

And then, you know, another day it's gonna turn, it's gonna be the opposite. And it's like, I, you know, I'm coming at you with 20% a day. You're like, okay, you know what? That's all right. I'm here for you. I'll get, I can pick up the extra slack. Yeah. And then there are times where you're both depleted and you're just open about it and you're like, we both are, you know, we don't have a whole lot to give's.

Watch the show. You show, let's watch the show together. You love me and we're, we're gonna figure this out. We're not gonna be unkind to one another because of the stress we're under. We're not gonna be, um, we're still gonna choose each other even at the level of energy that we have. Yeah. That's good. And, and I heard, I forget where I heard it.

Marriage is not 50 50. It's 100. 100. Mm-hmm. You know, and so that's, that's really strong. Uh, Pragma is about standing in love, which is making an effort to give love rather than just receive it. Mm. So I choose, regardless of what my emotions might be feeling right now, I choose you. I choose to believe the best in you.

Like I choose to give you the benefit of the doubt. Yeah. I choose to trust you. Like those things. Yeah. Like you're loved, you're understood, you're accepted. All of those things are choices. Mm-hmm. So I'm choosing you. That's Pragma. That's Pragma love. And then the last one, I don't know exactly how to say it, but it's Phil.

Phil Philia. P H I L A U T I A. Philia, which is honestly self-love. Okay. You wouldn't think that an aspect of love in marriage is self-love, but what's the second greatest commandment? You know, we know the first greatest commandment. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul minus strength. Mm-hmm.

And the second, love your neighbor as yourself. As yourself. Mm-hmm. A lot of people forget about that part. It's like, yeah, we gotta love other people. Okay. No, no, no. You're not gonna love other people unless you love yourself. Mm-hmm. Right. So God knows that how we love ourself will determine how we love others.

Wow. Um, who was it that says that said, um, Aristotle, all friendly feelings for others are an extension of a man's feeling for himself. Mm. Which is so true. And now there's two types of self-love. One's bad one's good. The bad is self-obsessed. Right. The good is self-sacrificing. Mm. So the bad, self-obsessed, it's what leads to narcissism where you're thinking of yourself on a consistent basis.

You're not thinking of others. Right. And you end up in narcissism. Yeah. Right. If you don't control that selfishness mm-hmm. You end up a narcissist where it's always just about you. Yeah. It's like every thought goes through the grid of you. Yeah. It's like, oh, how does this relate to me? Yeah. It's like, we're not talking about you right now.

Yeah. That's exactly, that's a good point. Uh, so that's self-obsessed, but the self second self-love is self-sacrificing. Mm-hmm. This is the good kind. This is where you take care of yourself so well. The reason you do that is so you can give yourself to others. Mm-hmm. Right. Why, why do I have such this, this such strong desire to eat healthy?

Mm-hmm. Not to put corn syrup in my body. Yeah. To exercise and all that. Cuz I want to be a. 90 years old celebrating my 65th wedding anniversary with Tori, surrounded by our kids and grandkids and great grandkids and great, great grandkids. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I wanna be here for that. Yep. Well then you have to make some sacrifices for that.

Mm-hmm. Right. So you, and it's like I respect, we what the goal is to respect your body so much to where you won't put poison in it. Right. Corn syrup is poison. Right. There's a lot of other things too. Um, you know, unless that corn syrup is in chocolate chip ice cream, then, and you don't really know about it.

You didn't, then you don't even Yeah. So whenever I go to Cold Stone creamery, just forget everything I just said. Okay. Um, so yeah. But I think with self-love, it's rooted in Christ's love. Yeah. Like, you cannot love yourself unless you've been loved by God. That's a good point. Right. Cuz that's exactly what I was gonna Right.

Like, you have to be open to the way that he loves you and to his love for you. Mm-hmm. In order you have to be in a position to receive from him. His love. In order for you to experience love for yourself, you're like, God made me, therefore I love the way God made me. Yeah, that's good. You know, and you always talk about like the I Am statements, how important it is when you're talking about yourself.

You're, I am represents God and he's inside of us. That's boy, that's his name. Right? And so I am lovely. I am capable. That's good. I am able, I am patient. I like these things are inside of me. God loves me and he's empowered me, and so I can respect myself. Yeah, that is so true. You know, Satan throws accu accusatory thoughts into your mind all the time.

Mm-hmm. And he's accusing two people. One, he's accusing you to yourself. Right. And the other, he's accusing other people, so don't agree with the accuser. Yeah. He's gonna accuse you against yourself, and he's gonna try to convince you that you're terrible at things. Mm-hmm. And nobody likes you and all sorts of crazy stuff.

I am not. The minute you say, I am not, you have invoked the I Am, which is God's name, and you placed a negative after it. And when you do that, you give that thing power. Yeah. In your life. Like, don't do that. Yeah. And now all the neuroscience is coming out showing us the power of the brain. The, the, what you think about can either make you sick, it can physically hurt your body, or it can heal you.

Yeah. So, and, and these are all ways that God can heal people. So, Knowing you're loved is the foundation for loving yourself. Mm-hmm. So God said to Jesus, when Jesus was, came up out of the, uh, when he was baptized in the Jordan River, came up outta the water and God said, specifically, I love you. No, this is my son, whom I love with him.

I'm well pleased. He said, you're mine. I love you. I like you. Mm. So God is saying that to you right now as you're listening to this. Yeah. You're his. He loves you and he likes you. Mm. Now you need to like yourself. You need to accept yourself and you need to love yourself so that you can be loving. And that is what Falasha, mm-hmm.

Love is. Okay. So that's, that's our six arrows. So good philia. Mm-hmm. Ludas, agape, Pragma and facia. We can grow in each one of these. The message of the Greeks is that you need to nurture the varieties of love and tap into its many sources. Don't just seek eros, but cultivate philia by spending more time with.

With your spouse, develop Luda by dancing the night away. Develop these things with your spouse. Start flirting. Mm-hmm. Enjoy it. There's six aspects of love and we can grow in it. I love it. That was so good. Um, thanks for researching that. That was really all helpful. My pleasure. Tour. Okay. Gonna share a recipe with you guys.

One that we tried this LA this past week. Um, And it's from half-baked harvest. So I'm borrowing this one and it's half-baked. I kind of wanna tweak it in some ways because, um, I think the, the magic, um, ingredient here is the gar is the Greek yogurt. Um, but the name of the recipe is one pan lemon pepper, yogurt, chicken and Rice by Half Bake Harvest.

Oh, that's a mouthful. Yeah, it is a mouthful. But it, I love it because it's, Was super easy. It's one pan. I love those. So one, one pan to clean up. Okay. And it was just so simple. You basically just marinate chicken thighs in, um, in a Greek yogurt, um, concoction. It's like Greek yogurt, lemon zest, garlic.

Oregano. Just a bunch of spices. Right? Right. So you marinate that overnight and then all you do the next day. This was a dream dinner guys and ev everyone liked it. So that's why I'm sharing it with you guys. I've done many of these easy ones that everyone's like, uh, gag. But this one was good. So you take a a sheet or not a sheet.

I did like a nine by 13 pan and you put in your rice dry rice. And then you put, um, some broccoli, just some raw broccoli. I did like, I actually doubled the recipe, but for one sheet it would be like a head of broccoli and then your chicken thighs that have been marinating overnight. Put that on top of that and pour water on top.

Bake it for like 45 minutes. 400. It's so easy. It is. And it was so good. It was very good. This is what I loved about it and this is why I wanna like try different spices to go with it, to kind of see what our family likes best. Cuz this was kind of very much like a Mediterranean flavor, um, which I love, but in the kids loved it, but they don't typically love those flavors.

I wanna try some other ones too. But what I loved so much about it and what everyone loved about it is it almost tasted like it was breaded chicken from the Greek yogurt, right? Uhhuh, like the Greek yogurt, gave it almost like a, a little bit of a crisp, a little crisp, um, on the outside, which was good. Is so good.

So anyways, you guys should try it out. Half bay Harvest. One pan, lemon pepper, yogurt, chicken, rice. Wow, that's a mouthful. But it was, but you got your, it was a mouthful and a mouthful. Pardon the pun. Yeah. Is that a pun? No, I didn't even get it. I don't know what a, it was just awesome, just straight. Awesome.

Um, but um, you got your protein, your vegetables, and your carb. I did actually did brown rice cuz it doesn't spike your insulin. Another, another, it doesn't podcast with carpet, but later. Anyways, I just felt like it was like a perfect, balanced, healthy meal. Super easy. A perfect balanced meal gang. And we love you and six types of love.

I can't pronounce any of them. Yeah, yeah. Well, me neither, but nobody knew that. All right. Hey, if you haven't taken our five day challenge, take it. Go to beauty and battle.com and uh, hang out with us. Yes, until next time, you guys soon. See you next week. Bye-bye.