Do you have a dog?

And now you’re all reading this asking if I mistakenly posted that previous sentence. I really meant to ask, “do you have a dog?”

Imagine you are walking to a baseball game. Many times cities do not have adequate parking for their spectators, so the fans have to park all over the city. During the walk to the game, you see a lot of different things. First, you might see a single man selling “PEANUTS! HOT DOGS! GET YOUR HOTDOGS!”. Second, you may see a couple selling their wares, probably a t-shirt or a 3 for 1 hat deal with your favorite team on them. Finally, you most likely will see a panhandler asking for money.

With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls,

For stony limits cannot hold love out

Romeo and Juliet (2.2)

Ah, love. We are finally arriving at what Love is, correct? Right? We’re finally getting there. Especially after the last post derided society’s view of love, surely a man such as Shakespeare can show us what love is, right?

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was a sculptor and artist born in 1475 in Italy. While many know of him, his works have lasted hundreds of years and were commissioned by many very wealthy individuals in medieval Italy. One of his most famous works on display at L’Accademia in Florence is the David. It stands at 17 ft tall and is a marvel at the study of human anatomy and replication of that anatomy. This creation was done out of love and admiration, which Michaelangelo had toward design, biblical history, and the male form. 

We’ve gone over four posts so far overlooking the human ideas of love. I hope and pray I’ve been able to lay out each of these topics for you adequately. I wanted to do a cumulative exercise showing how they all fit together. As I was writing the posts, I realized that they each said what they needed to say; I don’t think they actually portrayed the proper idea and gravity of the situation in total. 

So we went over some really in-depth stuff in the past few posts of this series. In order to understand what love is and how it is manifested within the human condition, we first had to see what man’s purpose was on this earth. Which is to glorify our Creator. 

Well, we have come to the penultimate post of this series, and I am so proud because we finally get to answer the question of “What is Love?”. We’re going to take a look at, all that we’ve learned and place it all together into a final answer. I sincerely hope, that all of you can take this back with you and help defend the hope you have in salvation with this information. Love is so foundationational to our faith, and it is the most misunderstood and oft times twisted concept in our beliefs.