Years ago (many years ago) as an undergraduate student I read Erich Fromm’s classic, “The Art of Loving”.  This summer I reread the book and I was amazed at all that I missed.  Fromm has a large number of Biblical allusions that I did not fully understand when I first read the book.  The book had not changed but I have.

It’s fascinating to see how Fromm’s Judeo-Christian perspective influenced his worldview.  He makes a number of insightful points in the book, here is just a sampling:

“They take the intensity of the infatuation, this being ‘crazy’ about each other, for proof of the intensity of their love, while it may only prove the degree of their preceding loneliness.”

“Immature love says: ‘I love you because I need you.’ Mature love says ‘I need you because I love you.”

“Unconditional love corresponds to one of the deepest longings, not only of the child, but of every human being; on the other hand, to be loved because of one’s merit, because one deserves it, always leaves doubt; maybe this, or that – there is always a fear of love that love could disappear.”

“Love isn’t something natural. Rather it requires discipline, concentration, patience, faith, and the overcoming of narcissism. It isn’t a feeling, it is a practice.”

“The ultimate aim of religion is not the right belief, but the right action.”

As I reread “The Art of Loving” it was interesting to see the ideal of love that Fromm described is the ἀγάπη (agapē) love that is depicted in the Bible.  The Apostle Paul writes one of the greatest treatises on love in 1 Corinthians 13,

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, ⁵ does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, ⁶ does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; ⁷ bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸ Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part; ¹⁰ but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. ¹¹ When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when became a man, I did away with childish things. ¹² For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. ¹³ But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

This is a message that is always timely – take some time and reflect on 1 Corinthians 13 this week.