Eight Hidden Doctrines We Can Learn From Agape and Phileo - The Pseudo-Scholars' Lie

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There is a constant attack upon the Authorized Version of the English Bible. All across our nation, pseudo-scholars take every advantage they can to correct and demean God’s Holy word. One of the most common ways of doing this is by “going back to the original languages” to get a “deeper meaning”.

This leaves the listener with a feeling of inadequacy in their English Bible, as well as a desire, not to study the Bible, but rather to study Greek.

A steward of the word of God should be trying to get his listeners to fall in love with Jesus Christ, and with the Bible. If Christians were as impressed with their Bibles as much as they are with the brains of Greek scholars, I believe we’d have a lot more unity in the body of Christ and a lot more people getting saved.

By and large, the Greek “nuggets” are not worth the time it took to find them. To prove this, I’m going to go after the biggest Greek nugget of all, the “agape and phileo” one.

First of all, let us define what the words “agape” and “phileo” mean, as is commonly accepted and taught by Greek professors across America.

Agape: “Deep, intimate, selfless love”

Phileo: “Shallow, casual, friendly love”

This is what is used to describe a conversation between Jesus and Peter in John 21:15-17. You may have heard it before, Jesus asks Peter if he’ll “agape” Him, and Peter responds by saying that he’ll “phileo” Jesus. Then Jesus again asks Peter if Peter will “agape” Him, and Peter responds by saying he will only “phileo” him. Very saddened, Jesus now settles for second best and asks Peter if he’ll “phileo” Him, and Peter says that yes, he will “phileo” Him.

This is somehow meant to show that Jesus wanted Peter to love Him deeply, but Peter was only willing or able to love Jesus with a shallow, friendly love. We must all learn from Peter’s poor example, and make sure to love each other with “agape” love.

This is the hidden truth that is only ascertainable by knowing Greek.

Doesn’t it leave you a little bummed out that Jesus had to finally relent to Peter’s lackluster “phileo” love in the end?

That doesn’t sound like the Peter of Acts chapter 2, who preached and 3,000 people got saved.

That doesn’t sound like the Peter who was later imprisoned and faced death, because he would NOT deny Christ.

That doesn’t sound like the Peter who loved Jesus enough to die for Him, hung upside down on a cross.

I think Peter would take issue with that Greek “nugget”.

How about this for an English interpretation, Peter denied Jesus three times. Jesus now takes Peter aside, to reestablish him. Because Peter denied Jesus three times, Jesus asks Peter if he loves Him three times. Every time, Peter declares his love for Christ. Every time Jesus replies by saying “feed my lambs” – take what you’ve learned and feed my little ones. On the final and triumphant declaration of his love to Christ, Jesus lays upon Peter the honor of feeding not only his “lambs” but also His “sheep”. Peter then goes on to be the leader of the apostles until Paul, and then when Paul becomes an apostle Peter still is known as the Apostle to the Jews.

A person doesn't need to be able to read Greek fluently to sound like a "scholar". I have a free Bible search program that places a number by every English word, and then it shows its Greek equivalent.

From there, you can go to a verse that has the word "evil" in it, click on "evil", then look at the Greek word for "evil". It will have the description of how to sound out the Greek word, how it's spelled, and the other possible translations. On the word "evil", you'll learn that it can also be translated "worthless".

Now all you have to do is stand in front of a bunch of people and say, "Another rendering for the word *insert Greek word that you just learned how to pronounce* is 'worthless', now this sheds additional light that our limited English Bible couldn't possibly reveal..."

If you can sound out a word, you can "correct" the Bible. Meaning, a six or seven year old can do it.

Or, you can operate by faith that God isn't stupid and that if He meant "worthless" He would have had it translated "worthless". Believing by faith that God meant what is written in the English, you'll abandon the Greek "enlightenment" for an English dictionary to better understand the word that God used….. in English.

Now let’s back up a little. Taking the logic for the Greek interpretation of the conversation between Jesus and Peter, and the same exact definition of agape and phileo, I’d like to demonstrate what can happen if you apply this fallacy to other passages of the Bible. Please forgive me for being a little tongue-in-cheek here, I’m only trying to demonstrate the fallacy of what is commonly taught and accepted as TRUTH. This agape-phileo love teaching is a lie, it is heresy, and you do not need Greek to understand that.

All you need is an English Bible.

Here are the eight “hidden” doctrines we can learn from
agape and phileo

1. God loves some people more than others.

While it is commonly taught that God loves us all the same, and that His love and acceptance for us is based solely upon the blood atonement of Jesus Christ, we can now be sure that some of us He loves more than others. The qualifications to meet God’s deeper love are, however, at this point uncertain.

Rev. 3:9, “…and to know that I have loved (agape) thee.
Rev. 3:19, “As many as I love (phileo), I rebuke and chasten...”

We see here that God loved one church more than the other. We can also ascertain from this that the children that God chooses to discipline are the ones that He only loves with a shallow love.

John 11:5, “Now Jesus loved (agape) Martha…”
John 20:2, “…the other disciple, whom Jesus loved (phileo)…”

We see here, that though John the disciple referred to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved”, the truth is Jesus only really kinda-sorta loved him. It was a shallow, friendly love. In contrast though, Jesus had exceptionally deep love for Martha. Perhaps delving deeper into the Greek will help us to understand this one day.


2. God’s love for the Son is shallow.

John 5:20, “For the Father loveth (phileo) the Son…”

What more could be said? Now we really know that God the Father does not love His Son with a deep and intimate love, He’s more of like a buddy, or perhaps a friendly acquaintance at work.


3. God’s love for us is shallow.

John 16:27, “For the Father himself loveth (phileo) you, because ye have loved(phileo) me…”

God the Father must not really be in the loving business. Sure, He gave up His only begotten Son to die for us, but according to our Greek professor, Jesus really isn’t all that special to God anyways.


4. We are supposed to love each other more than God does.

I Cor. 16:24, “My love (agape) be with you all…”
I Thess. 3:12, “…abound in love (agape) one toward another…”

Here we see Paul loving others more than God! Before I realized the hidden richness of the original languages, I always believed something like this was impossible. But now that I know God really doesn’t love me or even His Son all that much, it makes much more sense!


5. Women are not required to love their husbands really all that much.

Titus 2:24, “…to love (phileo) their husbands…”

One would assume that God would want a wife to love her husband as deeply as possible, but that’s simply not the case.


6. Husbands must love their wives deeply, more than their wives love them.

Eph. 5:28, “…men to love (agape) their wives…”

While God doesn’t really expect much out of women other then how they’d treat a fellow employee, He does however expect men to love their wives with a deep, unfathomable love.


7. Women are required to love other men outside of their marriage more than their husbands.

I Peter 2:17, “…Love (agape) the brotherhood…”

Amazing as it may sound, we are all commanded to love each other with deep love, and that includes women loving other men. Now we already know they are only required to be “buds” with their spouses, but now we see that they are supposed to love other men more than their own husbands!


8. Jesus doesn’t really love us all that much.

Titus 3:4, “…the kindness and love (phileo) of God our Saviour…”

Sure, He died for us, but a deeper understanding of the Greek goes to show us that God our Saviour (Jesus) only loves us with a shallow love. This is an amazing thing to learn when you consider the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour!

Or maybe this is all a bunch of phooey.

Maybe “agape” and “phileo” are interchangeable.

Maybe they both just mean “love”, plain and simple.

Maybe the words love, cherish, adore, affection, charity, and devotion are more descriptive than agape and phileo are.

Maybe this is the biggest flap ever created by those who would seek to undermine our faith and confidence in a book we can hold in our hand.

Maybe we don’t really need an understanding of the Greek to know the deep truths of the word of God.

Maybe if we study the King James Bible, we’ll learn it, while others study Greek and just wind up learning Greek.

You know what, maybe we should just ignore the Bible correctors who, as Romans 1:22 puts it…

“Professing themselves to be wise,
they became fools…”