Philadelphia
“Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.” – Romans 12:10
As we continue in our study of 2 Peter 1, ‘Making your Calling and Election Sure,’ we come to a word in the Greek that all of us have heard before, philadelphia.
There are four primary words in ancient Greek that can be translated as love. Eros, from which we get erotic, is a passionate, romantic love; storge, which means affection, is primarily the love between family members; and phila, which encompasses people beyond the immediate family, but can include friends and other in the community at large. It is a general type of love.
The other half of this word is adelphia from the Greek word for brother, adelphos, which in the plural is not always specifically male, but can mean male and female members.
I would think that we should all know how to show love to our brothers and sisters in Christ, but Paul makes it very simple in his letters to the Romans. We are to put others above ourselves or to use another phrase from Paul, we ought not to think too highly of ourselves, but instead with sober judgment.
So if you want to express philadelphia when dealing with others, be kind and gentle with them, be willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt, and remember before you condemn someone that without God’s grace, we would all be condemned.
Above, I said that there were four Greek words for love, yet only two appear in the Bible. The first is phila and the second one I haven’t listed yet, but many of you know it. It is agape. And agape is the final ingredient Peter lists in making our calling and election sure and the subject of our final devotional in this series.
In Christ,
David
