Romans 12:10: Love one another

Outline

• Family love
• Family respect

Introduction

There are four words in the ancient Greek language for love. These words are agape; storge; philos and eros. Agape is usually used of God’s love, a love we are called to imitate in 12:9. Storge usually has to do with family affection. Philos is often used of the love of friendship. Eros over time came to be associated with lust. The bible only uses agape, storge and philos, but avoids eros, probably because of the associations it collected. In fact in Romans 12:9-10 all three of the Greek words used in the NT are used. ‘Let agape be genuine…; philos one another with storge.’ We return then in Romans 12:10 to the notion of loving one another. As you look at v10-13 it gives a long list of Christian duties. V10 has two exhortations to love one another. V11 has exhortations with regard to our service. V12 has 3 exhortations with regard to suffering. And v13 has two exhortations about meeting one another’s physical needs.

So today we want to focus on loving each other, but the text directs us to a particular flavour of love – family love. As we do this we want to look at the nature of family love and then at the honour we are to have for each other.