Miss Mary’s blog on Friday inspired me. Well, it got me to thinking. The power of words. I don’t like texting. Abbreviations like Idk and lol and fyi…that is not talking. It may be communicating on a low level. But it says “I don’t have time to really communicate, so here you go.” I suppose that is OK because you are not really communicating, anyway. Verbal communication or, at the very least, written communication, is the way to express yourself. Texting and e-mail abbreviations make me nuts. And to convey real feeling, one can resort to emojis. The first written language consisted of pictures that represented something. This evolved into the diverse and complete communication we can have today. Yet, we have fallen back into the primitive. We call it emoji.

          Miss Mary talked about the word ‘love’ and said it is something we throw around lightly. Its meaning is diluted. It doesn’t carry the weight it should. As I thought about it I realized that I have come to use the word almost not at all. I might say I love dogs or I love a good Subway sandwich, but used in that way, one understands. (Although, for future references, on my birthday I really do enjoy Subway gift cards. Just sayin’…) But I don’t use it toward people. Some years ago one of our Youth, whom I had watched grow up, said or did something that was funny. I was next to her and I put my arm around her shoulder and laughed and said, “Girl, I love you!” She took that the completely wrong way. She went and told one of our ladies, who quietly explained how I was using the word. Yes, words do have power.

          Many of us are familiar with the four Greek words for love found in the New Testament. In the language there are actually seven words, but only four used in the Bible. Agape is often said to be God’s love toward us. This is true, but it also occurs between two people. It is the highest and most noblest form of love, so it is possible between two people. To put its usage into perspective, it is the most common word for ‘love’ in the New Testament, but it is the least used in all other Greek writing. Then we have Phileo, which we tend to say means ‘brotherly love.’ And it can mean that, but there is another word just for that. This word means extreme fondness and is sometimes used in conjunction with Agape. The next word is Storge and this more refers to family type love. To denote a favored family member, it is coupled with Phileo, as in philostorgos. And the last word is Eros and refers to ‘sexual passion. These are the four words of the New Testament. If you said “I love you” to someone in Greece, they would know exactly what you mean. Now, if we say “I love you” to someone in English, it can be misinterpreted. English is a great language for things technical and practical, but not so much about expressing one’s self.

          As I thought on these things, I thought about the Hebrew. It did not come to my mind what the word for ‘love’ was in the Hebrew, but Hebrew is a very expressive language. The words for ‘love’ would likely be beautiful. So I got my smart references out (this is where I go when I want to appear smart, so don’t be fooled) and began to look. It turns out that there are places in the English Bible where the word ‘love’ is used but this is often used to convey a feeling that we have no real word for, or at least didn’t have in the 15^th and 16^th centuries when the first English translations were being made. But there is a single word for ‘love’ in Hebrew and, oddly enough, it is pronounced as luv. I find that interesting. This word means ‘loyalty.’ Jacob loved Rachel (was loyal to her) so much he worked for her for seven years. And when he was tricked, he worked another seven years.

          This is what I think. I think I will Agape God and luv in other instances. I just really like the idea of love meaning loyalty. In the Old Testament, loyalty was in short supply. Food was scarce, clothing hard to come by, life was hard. To say you would be loyal to someone said a lot.

          Wow, Miss Mary! Words do have power! You can’t express that with an emoji!