Notes of Faith February 8, 2025

Philia – Love

All who are with me greet you. Greet those who love us in the faith.

Titus 3:15

In the early 1680s, William Penn made a treaty of friendship with a Native American chieftain named Tamanend. Penn built a port city on the Delaware River to serve as a governmental center. He knew the word philia meant “friendship,” so he named his city Philadelphia—City of Brotherly Love. Penn had experienced persecution, and he wanted to build a city where people loved and respected each other.

Every city, town, church, marriage, and home should have the spirit of philia. In Christ, your husband is also your brother; your wife is also your sister. The Bible says that within the faith we should be “gentle, not quarrelsome” with each other (1 Timothy 3:3). The apostle Paul said, “And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all” (2 Timothy 2:24). In Titus 3:15, Paul spoke of those who loved (philia) him in the faith.

Ask God to give you philia, and let’s love each other as friends in the faith of our Heavenly Father.

In a good marriage the husband and wife are also friends. Friendship means companionship, communication, and cooperation. This is known as philia.

H. Norman Wright

There are other Greek words that we translate love which we will look at on another Notes of Faith. Let us practice philia, loving one another, in humility, thinking others as better than ourselves, sacrificing our needs and concerns for others, with the hope and prayer that they will listen to God and do His will by coming to Jesus in faith believing that He is the only way to be saved!

Pastor Dale