The King James Version uses "charity" throughout the "Love Passage":
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (KJV)
4 Charity 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.
Of course, that's no better in modern English. The trouble is, as C. S. Lewis points out, there are four Greek words that can reasonably be translated "love". In the Bible the two most common are phileo <5368> and agape <26>. In this passage, agape is used throughout. At least when Paul uses agape, I think we should consider it a technical term that is defined in 1st Corinthians 13. Perhaps the most accurate translation is to just transliterate agape.
A Greek word that captures the idea of "I love waffles" is thelo <2309>, which the KJV occationally translates as love:
Mark 12:38-40 (KJV)
38 And he said unto them in his doctrine, Beware of the scribes, which love to go in long clothing, and love salutations in the marketplaces,
39 And the chief seats in the synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts:
40 Which devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayers: these shall receive greater damnation.
The Strong's definition is:
- to will, have in mind, intend
1a) to be resolved or determined, to purpose
1b) to desire, to wish
1c) to love
1c1) to like to do a thing, be fond of doing
1d) to take delight in, have pleasure
The point is, we have a single word in English that covers a wide variety of positive attitudes toward something and that word is "love". Short of convinceing the entire English speaking world that we are diluting the meaning of the word when we talk about loving passing pleasures and so on, we'll need to come up with some way to translate the Greek words more emphatically. Here is my suggestion:
- thelo—"like" or "desire"
- phileo—"brotherly love"
- agape—"ulitmate love" or "sacraficial love"
The last comes from Jesus' even shorter definition of agape:
John 15:13 (ESV)
13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
