Three Loves
A Brief Look at Romantic, Committed, and Sexual Love
by
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INTRODUCTION
Today there is much confusion about love. People want to make love, but not necessarily to live with the consequences. Our society is struggling with marriage, either a reluctance to enter into it or an inability to sustain it. Something is missing. So where does true marital love come from and how do we get it? How do we experience maximum love in our relationships with the opposite sex? That’s what this book is about.
As someone who has a deep respect for history, I feel obligated to start by looking at a giant who’s gone before us. Any book called Three Loves must take into account C.S. Lewis’ classic work The Four Loves. Lewis is best known today for Mere Christianity and The Chronicles of Narnia. In The Four Loves Lewis tackled the problem that all English people must take into account the fact that the word "love" simply has so many meanings and connotations. From "I love chocolate" to "I love you" to "let’s make love," the range of love is exceedingly vast. Lewis attempts to cover the entire spectrum of love, by breaking it into four types based on four classical Greek words for love: storge (affection), philia (friendship), eros (romance), and agape (charity).1 Generations have Lewis to thank for making some sense out of the complexities of human love.
However, for Christians, it is worth noting that two of Lewis’ words, eros and storge, are not found in the Bible, but instead in classical Greek literature. The point isn’t that Lewis’ view is unbiblical or wrong, but that it isn’t necessarily the only or best way of looking at love. Also, Lewis does what I could never attempt to do here, to cover the entire spectrum of the meaning of love.
For my purpose, I would like to simply cover one type of love, the love between men and women; and three aspects of that - Romantic Love (emotional), Commitment Love (volitional), and Sexual Love (physical). My message is that these are the three main types of love involved in dating, courtship, and marriage, and that each needs to be understood in its place. I hope that by categorizing love into three parts it can help us make sense out of some of the great mysteries of love.
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About the Book
Three Loves is a brief look at the three kinds of love involved in dating, courtship, and marriage. C.S. Lewis, in his book, The Four Loves, proposes that there are four kinds of love based on classical Greek. However, only two of his Greek words for love are found in the Bible. For the purpose of looking at the love between a man and a woman, it makes sense to look at three kinds of love—romantic, committed, and sexual.
About the Author
Todd was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, and attended Penn State University, majoring in secondary education. He married Deborah Cox in 1978. Todd attended Ashland Theological Seminary and received MA and MDiv degrees. He was pastor of Hartland Center Community Church for thirty-three years. He is now retired and lives in New London, Ohio.