dearly loved; held as the cherished object of someone's love
This word is the adjective built from the New Testament's main word for love. It does not describe a feeling someone has; it labels a person (or, rarely, a group) as the one who is loved. So it is almost always a term of address or affection: God's word for his Son, and the early Christians' word for one another.
The two ways it is used are the same idea pointed in two directions. When the voice from heaven calls Jesus the beloved Son, and when the parable's owner sends his beloved son to the tenants, the word marks a love that singles its object out. When Paul, Peter, James, John, and Jude open or punctuate a letter by calling their readers beloved, they are claiming that same singling-out love for the church: these are people God loves, and people the writer loves. The warmth is real, but it also carries weight, because the speaker is usually about to ask the loved ones to do something hard.
The one place readers should slow down is the beloved Son. Some scholars hear in that phrase not only deep affection but a hint of only, the sole and unique Son, since the same Greek word was used to translate the Hebrew for an only child. Others hear only love, plainly stated. The translation beloved keeps both possibilities open, which is why it has held.
Nuances
Whether the word for beloved here, and in the heavenly voice over Jesus, also carries the sense only or unique.
- majorityIt means deeply loved, with any sense of uniqueness coming from the context rather than the word.; BDAG, s.v. ἀγαπητός; Ethelbert Stauffer, "ἀγαπάω κτλ.," TDNT 1:21-55
- minorityIt carries the added sense only, sole, since the Greek Old Testament used this word to render the Hebrew for an only child.; Nigel Turner, Grammatical Insights into the New Testament (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1965), 262-263