Ep 33 – Love: Part 1

Hi there tom Mahairas with. It’s all greek to me. And today we start our series on Love, L. O. V. E. The english word. But the greek word has four actually four words. It’s story eros philia and unhappy and story is only given to us in the negative and a store was and then a rose is not really found in the new testament or in the old testament. And then philia and agape. Er and we’re gonna go into a discussion on the first two words. But more than that, this is a unique program because Vicki and I are going to talk about what we had as teenagers and the puppy love and the love that we thought we had. So you’re gonna come in and and and see some pictures and hear some stories and uh we just want you to understand that God’s divine Love, A happy love is so incredible. We join us in this beginning of the new series. It’s all greek to me with tom and Vicky. Hi there, we’re so excited to be able to introduce to you the new subject and the new series on the greatest word in the english language. This four letter word is L. O. V. E. Love and people say I love my piano, I love my car, I love my dog, I love my mother, I love my wife, I love my Children but we all mean different things when we say those things, don’t we? Vicky. Yeah, I love you, I love you. Okay. And it’s forever like that kid cole said when you Fall in Love, It shall be forever. That’s correct. So we want to look at these four words story, he eros philia and Agape E. And we’re gonna do a four part series Right now on these four words and we want to be able to also introduce other things and concerning this. But I want to ask you, do you remember when you were like 16, 17, 18, 19? Yes. What do you remember about those days? Huh? I remember this is what you look like. Yeah, that’s a different girl, Wow, that’s a beautiful girl many moons ago. I’m 71 now, wow, don’t tell people your age because you don’t look at, I’m not afraid of age. Okay. Alright, so that was properly close to the day I met you This here. Yeah, when I was 16. Yeah. And when I saw you, I fell in love. We were at Central Park Zoo. Yeah, it was awesome. You were with Joyce and I was with my little sister and she said what’s that? And she’s looking at the orangutan and I couldn’t, I didn’t, I never saw before in the Central Park Zoo. I said that’s the orange you tank and then you corrected me, I turned around thinking you were a foreigner. Yeah, well, well let’s uh and and then we started hanging together. Yeah, This is when we were 16. Yeah, right there in Northern Manhattan at the park and I just, you know, I was just so attracted. I guess love is attraction. Love is an emotion, right? It’s a strong feeling. It’s a strong feeling. What else can you say about it here when you’re 16? Do you really? I’m in love. It’s a big part of a 16 year olds love, I’m sure, okay. I was I really felt love for you and I wanted to be with you all the time. I couldn’t wait. You still feel of I wanted to always be with you every weekend because I was still in high school at the time and we lived in different neighborhoods and then we have friends. You introduced me to bobby and Lorraine and bruni who was your best friend right there in the middle and uh you know, uh so you know, it’s it love Love allows us to meet other people and get to know other people and that that we’re friends with, that’s a whole nother aspect of love philia love And uh and we thought back in those days in the 60s, you know that rock and roll sex drugs and rock and roll, you know, that was that was all part of that atmosphere. That part of that dimension of love. We really wanted to be in with the flour people, the hippie movement, you know, we would buy all our clothes and everything down in the village. It was it was an aura that we had to have in our life. You had it there you are again, singing with Lorraine, bobby’s wife at the time, and just doing these songs that we we were just uh love songs, basically. Thousands of love songs that people write about love. Okay. And uh, here, here I am your, your eye in the back there, looking peeking out in that particular session that we were in uh singing about love. And here, like you said, the the the whole hippie movement, you know, and this is your famous jacket you always want. That is my famous jacket with the blue jays. And and it’s kind of what kind of material is that? I don’t even it was really soft, like almost like a flan a little bit of a velvety touch on it. It was a light green. So, this is probably what, 1967, you think at least. Yeah. And so, you know, I love getting to know somebody getting to experience their likes and dislikes. Uh that’s part of love. We had this incredible utopian uh philosophy that the hippie movement, the hippies really understood what love was all about, didn’t we? Yep. It was flower power, It was love power. It was, you know, all the music was about the music. And of course there was drugs. And so that whole, that whole uh period of time was was just actually the theme was sex, drugs and rock and roll. It was, it was and then it would be like what we would want to teach our Children about. Well, yeah, because I mean, look, we were Children. I mean, we’re just learning what life was all about. Here’s a being, we’re in a being in Central Park, that’s your head where the, you know, and that’s me singing there with the guitar and in Central Park and part of the love movement, part of the Flower Children movement, part of the hippie movement, and this is our concept. Of course, we didn’t know the bible, we didn’t understand what what the real love, even the secular love, people who love one another, who have like this year will be our 50th anniversary and people that stayed together for, you know, 30 40 50 60 70 years. Some people we meet and we were like, wow, and they may not be christians, but they have this love, How do you figure that out? Well, because God gave us the ability to love, we we love, like you said, our Children, we have love for our mom and dad, and we have that we’re going to discuss these different aspects of love. There are four different words, we were gonna go over and each one is described as a different person or a different feeling that you have, you don’t have the same feeling for your mother and father as you have for your husband and you didn’t have your Children or your Children in my brothers and sisters, I have tremendous love for, but it’s not a physical attraction. Love that you have normally for your, your mate and that love that you have, that’s unique with that one person. Yeah, Yeah. So and uh there you are. I love these pictures of you. I mean, I look at you, it takes me right back like in a time machine with with bob Yeah, and my guitar there. Uh and uh this is uh this was the sixties. This this is the day after martin Luther king was killed uh in Central Park. I’m they’re singing my song, I believe there you are, right there, right in front of the microphone. Yeah. And singing to tens of thousands of people. And then of course when you don’t really understand a lot and you go through pressure and you turn to the wrong things like here, I’m on the floor on drugs and uh, but thank God God had a plan to not only allow us to have that physical attraction for one another that arose love, but we also had philia love, which was friendship love. And then we began to understand more deeply that there is a divine side of love. And that was the day, this is the day when someone actually talked to me, this guy on my left is talking to talk to me on the streets about the love. So this particular day I realized about the love of God, this guy Bruce who I first thought was the devil because I was just high on LSD freaking out, I’m walking the streets and I’m walking around with a cross and a guitar and I’m just in a, in a stupor and Bruce comes up and says, could I talk to you about spiritual things and, and I think he’s the devil. I was reading the last temptation of christ and And he begins to talk to me and then eventually comes to John Chapter three in the Bible verse 16 for God, so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life and we’re gonna close with that in the fourth program. But I wanted to to just make mention of this because this is the first time that I really began to connect the dots and put the pieces of the puzzle together that God’s love. And the God who is love, loves the black man and the white man and the brown man and the red man, He loves everyone. The yellow man, he loves everyone. God so loved the world. It’s a cosmic love. It’s a global love. It’s what they’re also happy, sit on God’s word in the greek language that God so loved the world. And and so this was the day that I began to hear that and uh and then I told you about it and the two of us began to grow together right? And this was Jack words and our mentor, our friend who was kind of uh disciple ng and helping us understand. And he married, he married up, he said, you’ve got to get married, you gotta get married, we’re living together but we’re not married. And so he counseled us and was like a spiritual dad, What a man, what a man. We love him and we can, when we get to heaven we’ll see him. And yeah, and and so here we are, just a young couple learning about not only God’s divine love, but love for one another, love for our Children, love for our relatives and friends and so forth. And then of course we had Children. We had four daughters. I love this picture, Vicki I know it’s Stephanie’s our oldest daughter’s wedding. And uh Stephanie, anesthesia and victoria and Alexandra, my son Tasso in the background. Well they’re twins. Tasso victoria twins. The one on the The uh outside right here and Tasso are twins. They were born on May the 17th yesterday, yesterday. So here we are with our Children and then Children have Children and they’re our grandchildren. We have 10 grandchildren. And so this really you know when you realize go back to the first picture when I saw you and I had all this attraction, I didn’t know this was God, this was all in the heart and the mind and the emotions of God. But he had to bring you and me together for us to be able to see these wonderful, beautiful eternal beings that came from our union. And that that too is love. So talk about that a little bit. Well this is a joy of my life. Everyone that we have five granddaughters and five grandsons and they are incredible. Each one they call us. They want to be around us. They want to know what we’re doing. They want to hang out with us. I want to go on the bunk with me even though they mock me. And they say, you know Captain Crazy. Yeah. They call me crazy. But they love you. They think that we’re still exciting and uh, and we love all of our grandchildren. We have great, great, great family. Yeah. It’s a gift from God to me really, you know, talk about the love that exists, this, this uh, love. That is a story. He loved that, that we have for one another. It’s hard to describe the domestic love that a dad has or a mom has for a child or a grandchild or a brother and a sister, half of one another or cousins. Even in this case, they’re just inseparable. They love hanging out with one another. And encourage, even though sometimes they’ll fight, they’ll, you know, they’ll be involved. But they quit. They quickly forgive it just maintains the love. They do. Yeah. So what I think a mother’s love is very special. That, that you don’t think about, I’m sleepless. I’m hungry. I have no life anymore. You know, we had four Children under three with a set of twins and up on the 5th floor. And as I don’t remember being unhappy, then I just remember being tired, but not unhappy. You beg me, oh, could I just have a half hour asleep? You know? But yeah, so let’s move on. And that was the kind of the story of love, tom and Vicky story of love. But as we move on to the story he loved, which is the referring to the tender family love, like parent fields, apparent fields towards a child or between spouses. Uh, but it never gives it to us in a positive way in the bible. That’s why one of, you know, sometimes people say, well I don’t find this in the bible because it’s given to us in a negative way. And so why don’t we just plow right in in romans Chapter one verse 31. It actually talks about this love Unloving a story goes an A with with the word store. Ye, the A is is the prefix that negates it negative. And let’s just go into it. And I want to just start with romans. Chapter one verse one through 17, which is talking about the love of God, Which is the mercy and the grace of God through the Gospel. And that’s the 1st 17 verses as we see here, but then 18 through 32 Romans 1, 18 through 32 is the wrath of God. And I took the time to kind of break this up a darkened heart, You know. And uh and as you see in verse 21, for even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks. But they became futile in their speculations are foolish. Heart was darkened and I we’re gonna look at this whole thing because where it puts this word us to all of us is at the very end of the four level of degeneration that takes place in the human heart. That’s why he gives it to us in the negative rather than in the positive. And so do you have anything to say about the darkened heart Vicky? We’ll know in the beginning he’s very positive about his great love for us. And then even with God giving us this incredible love and example, we still have these four areas of our life and it shows them through these things just a deterioration of mankind that we can become so hardened that we actually could commit murder on somebody that we once loved. And it’s just amazing this display Deterioration of the human heart and spirit. But look where it starts in verse 21 for even though they knew God. So we know God intuitively they did not honor him and the word honor is vocs glorify him, allow God to impact them and allow this Vanessa, this glory of God uh or even give thanks or be grateful for the very like water in and you know, sleep and rest and the whole way that God created us. But they became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened. So the first thing that happens is that we walk away from God in darkness. The second thing is a dishonored body, so that leads us now to be given over. As you see, God gave them over. So it’s almost like a prison guard, bring in the prisoner to another punishment. And yet to another punishment. There’s four of them and yet to another punishment. He gave them over to in the lust of their hearts to impurity so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. And so here is the a dishonored body. The third thing is a degrading passion for this reason. It says God gave them over yet again. How many times does it say that? Four times? Four times? Well, the first one, it didn’t say it, but it assumes you, you know, because you would not think you’re not glorifying God, You’re not thankful. Then you get a darkened heart that’s like we walk away from God. We don’t honor him. Are not thankful to him, disrespect for many sense. And then it says, there’s three others. God gave them over. God gave them over. God gave them over to degrading here, it’s degrading passions, our emotions and uh, and finally a depraved mind and then notice what it says here. Why don’t you pick it up? And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper being filled with all unrighteous nous wickedness, greed, evil full of envy, murder strife to seat malice. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant boastful inventors of evil, disobedient to parents without understanding untrustworthy. Unloving. Oster goes, yeah, that’s the word that we’re looking at. But it’s all, it’s interesting in both passages, one in second timothy and one in romans. One here, that disobedience to parents disobedient to parents proceeds this word all the time. And both times, that is a star wars without this love that should be there for your mother, for your father, because you’re already disobedient to them, you’re not really looking at them as valuable. And then it’s as Unmerciful. And although they knew the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice such things. It’s really amazing. The second place I told you in second timothy 33 unloving is a story of us. Uh, and it’s it’s found as one of the signs of the last days, realize this that in the last days difficult times will come for men will be lovers of self lovers of money, boastful, arrogant reviles, disobedient to parents. Ungrateful, unholy unloving, which is the word Astoria was right, irreconcilable, malicious gossips without self control, brutal and haters of good notice. Again, disobedient to parents is before this word, a star wars. So it’s the natural degeneration of the human heart to not have this Love for your mother, for your father. And even for uh, the emotional uh attraction and connection is degenerated because the heart goes deeper like Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 17, the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. Who can know it. So that’s the way it uses this word story in the negative Astoria close. And it’s used there. It’s also used one more time in uh phyllo story goes, and this one is used in a positive way with the word fellows from romans 12, 10 be devoted to one another in brotherly love, philo starve us to give preference to one another in honor. Maybe you can read the last part of this Vicki The list goes devoted love shown by family members is the affection shared between members of God’s family. Born again, divinely adopted people serving the same heavenly father. So, you see in the book of Romans where in Chapter 12 where it talks about the gifts of the spirit and the body. Life, that one of the key things that God restores to us as part of his gifting to be able to work with one another in the body of christ is this wonderful feeling of phyllo star wars which means that we have love that is a family type. Love to be able to work with one another with the different gifts of the spirit. Isn’t that a wonderful thing? But the fellows is also a friend, right is a friend. So you, it’s in the story a story, it’s a natural family love. But the friendship love is united with that and that’s like so I talked to people sometimes they tell me their Children hate each other. I’m like how is that possible? Something’s missing in that family when we can’t teach our Children to love their brothers and sisters and honor their father and mother. And we have this problem right now in America, one of the problems is mom and dad when they get into a fight, when they say something wrong, when they do something wrong, there’s no Brokenness, there’s no repentance and there’s no reconciliation. So you have to be able when you sin when you do something that’s wrong. When you violate God’s principles of husband is to love his wife. Like christ loved the church and gave himself for her and a wife is to be able to submit and respect her husband. And those are the just a one thing plays off the other. It’s it’s uh when I do my part, she does her part when she does her part, I do my part, I’m supposed to focus on me doing what God wants me to do in regard to my wife. And she’s supposed to focus on what jesus christ wants her to do in regard to me as the husband. And if we don’t then we have an option. We can we can confess our sins one to another and pray for one another. We can humble ourselves and ask God to forgive us and God will forgive us. But when we don’t then this emotional feeling of that intimate love just as it becomes callous. And when the Children are watching this then they don’t learn to reconcile and come back and and restore that relationship and that’s what’s happening in America. Today, you’re 100% right. The next word that we want to look at is a rose. And of course these two words are very. the first one story is not used, it’s used in the negative Astros. And this one, a rose is not used at all in the new testament. But they mean love, This is romantic love. This is uh ERos was the god of love, lust and sex uh in mythology in uh Cupid in in in the latin version of the romans. And uh EROS, the greek version and the emphasis emphasizing passion and desire not found in the new testament cubit was from the ancient roman god of love in all its varieties. And then of course the ERos was the greek one. And when you have a rose was known as cuba to the romans. And was the greek god of sexual attraction and constant companion of Aphrodite, the goddess of sex and love. And this was the goddess Aphrodite was the one that they had to temple up in the uh the Corinthian. The echo corners up on top and many believe that there were several 1000 temple prostitutes there, Vicki, why don’t you pick up the last name and Heroes is mostly commonly represented is represented with a bow and an unlimited number of arrows, which he uses to overpower the reason and insight, erotic feelings in any mortal or God per Aphrodite is or his own wish. Once though he accidentally scraped himself with an arrow and that’s how he fell in love with psyche who will later become his wife for eternity. Of course all of this is mythology. And uh you know, again, none of this is in the bible. And so we’re gonna be looking at Filia next time around and I got b next time around uh in the next program of love with on our program, it’s all greek to me. So I just want you to understand that our story was really what we introduced the subject matter in because it’s so important that we where we come from the grid that we have in Vicki’s life, it was an italian home in my life. It was a greek home. We met here in new york city and two young people starting life and thinking we understand and know everything about love, You know? And so here we are 50 years later and we’re learning something about love in this june, this june 5th we will be married 50 years, 50 years. And so I wanna just end with my favorite passage of scripture, which is john 3 16 we’re gonna, we’re gonna in the fourth program talk about it. But God saw a happy, I love the world, the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him Should not perish but have everlasting life. It’s interesting that giving is part of that divine love that the one who loves gives to the cherished object what that object needs. And in our case we needed a redeemer, a savior. And uh when it talks about in Ephesians five, it says husbands love your wives. And uh, and it also says that and then you give your life Up the way Jesus Christ gave his life for the church. And so the husband is to love his wife in such a way that he would give himself up for her in John Chapter 15. What does it say that greater love has no one than this than to lay down his life for his friends. And so This is the most important part of what we’re talking about is not only the the domestic love of a mom and dad or the eros love of uh to romantic teenagers that fall in love and get married and have families and together 50 years later. But the philia the friendship love and the greatest of all the unhappy love. God loves you and wants to touch your heart and change your life. Do you want to say something as we close a man? I never have regretted accepting christ as my savior and I never really have regretted marrying you. Oh that is so cool and God bless you Until next time. It’s all greek to me with tom and Vicky.