From: Pastor Vitale
Dear XXXXX
Your love existed in a spiritual place called emotional and sexual satisfaction. This is another way of saying that unmet childhood needs for love and affection were met and satisfied in this relationship, and that is a good thing, because we cannot progress to emotional adulthood until the emotional needs of childhood are met. Some people never experience this maturation, and remain emotional children for their entire life.
As we mature into emotional adulthood, however, we realize that, as adults, we need more than emotional and sexual satisfaction. We need to communicate. We need to understand and to be understood...we need a mechanism for mediation, arbitration and Godly compromise in our life. We need mutual respect. We need to be free to serve God and develop our potential in life.
Unfortunately, what happens in a lot of relationships is that one person matures into emotional adulthood, and the other does not. One person now has adult needs that their partner is incapable of satisfying.
When the above-described conditions are met, the perception is that the love has gone. For those who are brave enough to look, however, the truth is that what was previously perceived as love, was the emotional feeling of well-being that we experience when previously unmet emotional and sexual needs are satisfied. This is a manifestation of eros love, the third and least enduring kind of love.
True fileo love survives the emotional and spiritual growth of one's partner, and requires a corresponding change in the person not growing (at least at that time). If the partner cannot or will not change, love, the emotional feeling of well-being, dissipates, because emotional and sexual satisfaction are no longer enough for the maturing adult, and the partner, who does not understand what is happening, usually becomes threatened and unhappy.
The partner then begins to try to control the other party by clinging to, or making demands upon her. Such an attempt to maintain the status quo (to maintain the relationship the way it was when it supplied the emotional feeling of well-being), now completely belies the whole concept of love, and reveals the truth of the fallen nature of all mortal men. Our foundation is selfishness, and we can be no other way, because without God we are lacking, needy and only half a man.
The love of God equips us to love other mortal men selflessly and sacrificially because God satisfies us.
When another human being is our source of satisfaction (which is the case in all human relationships, including marriage), there is always the danger that the nature of mortal man will stop loving when it is threatened with the loss of its source of emotional and/or sexual satisfaction. At a time like this, it is revealed whether the love that we have so enjoyed was eros (immature) love, or filio (mature) love, the sacrificial love that mortal man is capable of. Filio love is usually found manifested as a mother's love for a child, and sometimes, but rarely, between partners.
[XXXXX] This is the 2nd time today she printed out Corinthians 13, and left it for me to see. I wonder what she is trying to tell me.
[Pastor Vitale] 1st Corinthians 13, or 2nd Corinthians 13? I think you probably mean 1st Corinthians 13.
These Scriptures are talking about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, as opposed to the love of Christ Jesus.
You may recall that I have already explained to you that the Holy Spirit anointing is the female spirituality, and that the Christ anointing is the male spirituality. The Holy Spirit comes with gifts, such as speaking in tongues, prophecy, etc., which are given without repentance:
Rom 11:29,
For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. KJV
But Christ is the wisdom of God:
1 Cor 1:30,
But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:
and the love of God:
Rom 8:39,
Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The Holy Spirit is the power of God,
Acts 1:8,
But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. KJV
which influences the Carnal Mind of mortal man towards his good side:
John 16:7-8,
Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send [the Comforter] unto you.
8 And when [the Comforter] is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: KJV
but Christ Jesus is our New Man, whose nature is the image of God:
2 Cor 4:4,
. . . the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. KJV
Eph 4:24-32 (our new nature),
24, And that ye put on the New Man, which after God is created in righteousness and TRUE holiness.
25, Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.
26, Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:
27, Neither give place to the devil.
28, Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.
29, Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
30, And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
31, Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:
32, And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. KJV
Paul is saying in 1st Corinthians 13, that Christ, the love of God, is more valuable than the gifts of the Holy Spirit, because the gifts of the Spirit will not always be available to us:
1 Cor 13:4-8, 10
4 Charity [the love of God] suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge [the gifts of the Holy Spirit], it shall vanish away.KJV
10, But when [Christ], that which is perfect is come, then [the gifts of the Holy Spirit], that which is in part, shall be done away. (KJV)
There are three Greek words translated love in the New Testament: 1) agape, the sacrificial love of God, 2) fileo, emotional love for a friend or mate, and 3) eros, sexual love. The Greek word translated charity in 1st Corinthians 13 is an old English translation of the word agape, which is, undisputedly, translated love in all the modern English translations of the Scripture.
XXX misunderstands 1st Corinthians, Chapter 13, to mean that the fileo love that you have for each other is greater and more important than the love of God, by which we receive new life in Christ Jesus, resurrection, and deliverance from hell and death.
John 3:16,
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (KJV)
John 5:24,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. (KJV)
John 6:35, 35
And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.(KJV)
John 11:25-26, 25
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? (KJV)
John 20:31, 31
But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.(KJV)
