StrongerBible

agapē

ἀγάπη

GreekG0026love, charity

Appears 116 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 24:12Luk 11:42Jhn 5:42Jhn 13:35Jhn 15:9Jhn 15:10 (2×)Jhn 15:13Jhn 17:26Rom 5:5Rom 5:8Rom 8:35Rom 8:39Rom 12:9Rom 13:10 (2×)Rom 14:15Rom 15:301Co 4:211Co 8:11Co 13:11Co 13:21Co 13:31Co 13:4 (3×)1Co 13:81Co 13:131Co 14:11Co 16:142Co 2:42Co 2:82Co 6:62Co 8:72Co 8:82Co 8:242Co 13:11Gal 5:6Gal 5:13Eph 1:4Eph 3:17Eph 4:2Eph 4:15Eph 4:16Php 1:16(17)Php 2:1Col 1:131Th 1:3Jud 1:12
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradeah-GAH-paynoun

What agapē means

love: warm regard and committed care for another, shown in action.

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

This is the New Testament's most common word for love, and the simplest true thing to say about it is that it means "love". It does not, by itself, mean a special, purely divine, or unconditional kind of love. In ordinary Greek the same word group could describe a husband's affection, even Amnon's lust for Tamar in the Greek Old Testament, and in the Song of Songs it names the love between two human lovers. The word is plain; what fills it is the sentence it sits in.

That is why it can feel so weighty in the New Testament. Writers like Paul and John pour deep meaning into it by what they say around it. When Paul says God shows his love by Christ dying for sinners, or when John says God is love, the cross and the character of God are doing the heavy lifting, not the bare word. The famous description in First Corinthians 13 never defines love in the abstract; it shows love in action (patient, kind, not envious), so much so that you could put the name of Christ in its place and it would still read true.

So across its uses the word keeps one steady core (a settled, caring regard for another that shows itself in what you do) while context tells you who is loving whom: God toward people, people toward God, and believers toward one another. The early church also borrowed the word as the name of its shared fellowship meal, the "love feast."

The old idea that this word is a uniquely Christian term, sharply set against the Greek words for friendship and desire, has not held up. Its near twin for affection (φιλία) is used almost interchangeably with it, even of the Father's love for the Son. The lesson is not that the word is shallow, but that its depth comes from the gospel it is used to tell, not from the dictionary.

Nuances

1athe love of God and of Christ toward people: the giving, rescuing love shown supremely at the cross.
Jhn 15:9Jhn 15:13Jhn 17:26Rom 5:5Rom 5:8Rom 8:35Rom 8:392Co 5:142Co 13:11Eph 2:4Eph 3:192Th 3:5
1blove as the way God's people are to live toward God and one another: the great commandment, the chief virtue, and the bond that holds the community together.
Jhn 13:35Rom 12:9Rom 13:10 (2×)1Co 13:11Co 13:21Co 13:31Co 13:4 (3×)1Co 13:81Co 13:131Co 14:1Gal 5:6Gal 5:13
1ca love feast: the shared fellowship meal of the early church.
Jud 1:12
Open human hands offering a broken loaf of bread across a plain wooden table, a simple clay cup beside it, in warm light. Love shown as self-giving and shared, the bread broken to be given away.

What scholars say about agapē

The verb behind this noun is an ordinary Greek word for love, attested from Homer through classical and Koine prose, often in the cooler sense "be content with." Robert Joly showed that it was already replacing the older verb for "to love" in everyday Hellenistic Greek before the Greek Old Testament reached for it, a finding refined by J. A. L. Lee and broadly accepted; so its frequency in the Greek Old Testament and New Testament reflects ordinary usage, not the choice of a special "purer" word. The noun itself was rare before the Greek Old Testament, a back-formation from the verb (Moulton-Milligan). James Barr, Moises Silva, and D. A. Carson dismantled the older view (Anders Nygren, Stauffer's TDNT article) that the word inherently carries a unique divine love, naming it a case of reading a whole theology into a single word; the Greek Old Testament's use of the word for Amnon's lust (2 Samuel 13) and for erotic love (Song of Songs) is decisive against it. The standard lexica now agree: BDAG glosses it simply as warm regard, esteem, and affection, and Louw-Nida group it with the word for friendship, denying any fixed contrast. A mediating position (Wischmeyer, Bons, the recent NIDNTTE, the later Spicq) accepts this discipline while noting that the word's heavy concentration in covenant and Christ-centered texts gave it a strong default association in Jewish and Christian Greek. Care should be taken not to confuse the popular equation of this word with Hebrew covenant kindness: that Hebrew word is rendered by the Greek word for mercy, not by this one (Bons).

Where scholars disagree about agapē

Whether this word itself carries a special, uniquely Christian content (selfless, unconditional, divine love), or whether it is an ordinary love word whose deep New Testament meaning comes entirely from its contexts. Today's scholarly consensus is the latter; the popular pulpit version of the first position is widely regarded as an overreach, though the three careful positions are largely compatible as descriptions.

  • majorityAn ordinary word, colored by context: the word group is a normal Greek term for love with no built-in theology, and its rich New Testament meaning is supplied by the sentences, narratives, and the cross, not by the word. This is the prevailing view in modern linguistics-aware scholarship and is reflected in the standard lexica.; James Barr, "Words for Love in Biblical Greek" (1987), 3-18; Robert Joly, Le vocabulaire chretien de l'amour est-il original? (1968); D. A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies, 2nd ed. (1996), 28-33; Louw and Nida, Greek-English Lexicon (Semantic Domains), §25.43
  • minorityA word made distinctive by Christian use: the New Testament writers loaded the word with such consistent cross-shaped content that, within Christian Greek, it effectively functions as a near-technical term for divine, self-giving love. This continues in much homiletic and confessional theology.; Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros (ET 1953); Ethelbert Stauffer, "ἀγαπάω, ἀγάπη, ἀγαπητός," in TDNT 1:35-55; Leon Morris, Testaments of Love: A Study of Love in the Bible (Grand Rapids, 1981), 273
  • minorityAn ordinary word with a strong religious default: a mediating view that the word carries no special dictionary meaning, but its heavy concentration in covenant and Christ-centered texts gave it a strong default association whenever it appears in religious writing.; Oda Wischmeyer, "Vorkommen und Bedeutung von Agape in der ausserchristlichen Antike," ZNW 69 (1978): 212-238; Moises Silva, ed., NIDNTTE, 2nd ed. (2014), s.v. ἀγαπάω
In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • BDAG (Bauer-Danker-Arndt-Gingrich), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 3rd ed., s.v. ἀγάπηlexicon
  • LSJ (Liddell-Scott-Jones), A Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. ἀγαπάω, ἀγάπησιςlexicon
  • Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, 2nd ed., §25.43lexicon
  • Moises Silva, ed., New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis (NIDNTTE), 2nd ed. (2014), s.v. ἀγαπάωdictionary
  • Robert Joly, Le vocabulaire chretien de l'amour est-il original? Philein et agapan dans le grec antique (Brussels, 1968)monograph
  • James Barr, "Words for Love in Biblical Greek," in The Glory of Christ in the New Testament, ed. L. D. Hurst and N. T. Wright (Oxford, 1987), 3-18article
  • James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford, 1961), 218monograph
  • Moises Silva, Biblical Words and Their Meaning, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, 1994)monograph
  • D. A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, 1996), 28-33, 51-53monograph
  • Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros, trans. Philip S. Watson (London, 1953)monograph
  • J. A. L. Lee, "The Puzzle of John 21:15-17: A Formality Solution," Novum Testamentum 59 (2017): 27-30article
  • Eberhard Bons, "Hesed and Eleos: Reflections on their Lexical Equivalence in the Septuagint," in Collected Studies on the Septuagint (FAT 83; Tubingen, 2012), 97-111article
  • Ceslas Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, trans. James D. Ernest (Peabody, MA, 1994), s.v. ἀγαπάω, ἀγάπηreference

All attested forms of ἀγάπη

nominative f s

ἀγάπη

Mat 24:12, Jhn 17:26, Rom 5:5, Rom 12:9, Rom 13:10, Rom 13:10, 1Co 8:1, 1Co 13:4

accusative f s

ἀγάπην

Luk 11:42, Jhn 5:42, Jhn 13:35, Jhn 15:13, Rom 5:8, Rom 14:15, 1Co 13:1, 1Co 13:2

dative f s

ἀγάπῃ

Jhn 15:9, Jhn 15:10, Jhn 15:10, 1Co 4:21, 1Co 16:14, 2Co 6:6, 2Co 8:7, Eph 1:4

genitive f s

ἀγάπης

Rom 8:35, Rom 8:39, Rom 15:30, 2Co 8:8, 2Co 8:24, 2Co 13:11, Gal 5:6, Gal 5:13

dative f p

ἀγάπαις

Jud 1:12