What is Love?

"And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

Thomas Aquinas defines love, "to will the good of another."  Such a simple definition, for such a beautiful and sometimes difficult thing.

I've heard love sometimes described as a duty.  While I do realize that love manifests itself in more than merely words, but also in deeds, I do not believe that love is a only a verb or that its definition is so cold and impersonal.  Love is something that you feel in your heart towards another person.  Even when it does describe an action, the action is based on compassion, kindness, and most importantly affection, which arises from the heart, not a mere sense of duty.

I appreciate what Matthew Henry says regarding John 13:1.  Jesus truly is the friend who loveth at all times.  He is our perfect example.

"This is true of the disciples that were his immediate followers, in particular the twelve. These were his own in the world, his family, his school, his bosom-friends. Children he had none to call his own, but he adopted them, and took them as his own. He had those that were his own in the other world, but he left them for a time, to look after his own in this world. These he loved, he called them into fellowship with himself, conversed familiarly with them, was always tender of them, and of their comfort and reputation. He allowed them to be very free with him, and bore with their infirmities. He loved them to the end, continued his love to them as long as he lived, and after his resurrection; he never took away his loving kindness. Though there were some persons of quality that espoused his cause, he did not lay aside his old friends, to make room for new ones, but still stuck to his poor fishermen. They were weak and defective in knowledge and grace, dull and forgetful; and yet, though he reproved them often, he never ceased to love them and take care of them."