Love is love. I see it on little signs in people’s yards. What people are trying to say is that romantic affection and sexual acts are the same from one person to another regardless of boundaries and should not be criticized. But the truth is, nobody really believes “love is love.” Everyone knows that love has boundaries and the boundaries are significant.
For example, romantic and/or sexual love from an adult to a child is perverse. It’s a perversion because it is an alteration from the correct form of love. A child does not have the mental capability to consent to romantic love. An adult should not show romantic affection to a person this vulnerable. (And as a father I will protect my children from such advances with the full force of my capabilities)
There are many more boundaries that prove love is not love: consent, biology, and even one’s own conscience. But, the greatest travesty to the idea that “love is love” is that it reduces love to sexual acts- which love is not. Such a suggestion is demeaning.
This passage of scripture is often cited at weddings, but the meaning is rarely exegeted. You can see that love does not seek it’s own, meaning it does not seek its own interests or pleasures. And importantly, love does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices in truth. And here we see the inextricable link between love, morality, and truth that is so often woven in scripture.
Love can never entertain a lie. Love can never be an act of evil, an act of self gratification, or a deviation from purity. Call it anything you like, but it’s not love.
“True love” we often read and hear thinking it means “very passionate” love. But, it in fact, true love means “faithful and longsuffering” love. Love endures all things. Love never fails. Love is always in agreement with what is true. Most importantly, love has a source- and that source generates, defines, and supplies true love to all those who seek it.
-Pastor Jake
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