Beholding Love
A Pastoral Study of Love in the Writings of John
Love That Kneels (John 13:1–17, 34–35)
Love That Obeys and Abides (John 14–15)
Love That Restores (John 21:15–17)
Loved First (1 John 3:1; 4:9–19)
Love in Deed and Truth (1 John 3:16–18; 4:20–21)
Love Made Visible (2 John and 3 John)
Before You Begin
Few words carry more weight and less precision than the word “love.” We use it of pizza and of our grandchildren in the same breath. We speak of falling into love and falling out of it, as if love were something that simply happens to us. Most of us have picked up our working definition of love from songs, films, and the people around us more than from Scripture.
The apostle John will not let us stay there. In his Gospel and in his three short letters he writes about love more than any other biblical writer, and he does so with great care. He shows us where love comes from, what it looks like, what it costs, and what it produces in ordinary people. The love he describes begins in the heart of God and reaches all the way into a church kitchen, a hospital room, and a strained family relationship.
This study walks through John’s writings with one aim: not simply that you would know more about love, but that you would be loved more deeply by God and love others more faithfully. It is written for every member of the church, whatever your knowledge of the Bible.
A word about words. The New Testament uses two main words for love. The first, ἀγάπη (with its verb ἀγαπάω), is the word John uses most. It describes a love that is not first a feeling but a commitment of the will to seek the good of another, whatever it costs. Before the New Testament it was an ordinary, little-used word; one old lexicon calls it “a purely Biblical and ecclesiastical word,” because the apostles filled it with new meaning.[1] The second word, φιλέω, describes the warm affection of friends. John uses both without embarrassment.
Each section below opens a passage, considers what it means for your life with God and with others, and closes with questions for reflection, a short prayer, and one small step to practice in the coming week. Take your time. John wrote these words as an old pastor to people he dearly loved. Read them as written to you.
Love That Gives (John 3:16)
What the Passage Says
John 3:16 (NKJV): For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
This may be the most familiar verse in the Bible, and familiarity can dull us to how astonishing it is. John does not say that God loved the lovable or loved those who first loved Him. He says God loved “the world,” the same fallen world that John elsewhere says “loved darkness rather than light” (John 3:19). This is love with no conditions on its object.
And notice the verb that follows: God so loved “that He gave.” From the first appearance of love in John’s Gospel, love and giving are joined together. God did not merely feel kindly toward the world. He gave the most precious gift He had.
What It Means for Your Life
Our culture often thinks of love as something that flows naturally toward whatever is attractive, compatible, or deserving. John 3:16 shows the opposite: love that moves toward the unworthy, by choice, at great cost. If we want to know what love is, John says, we do not begin with our feelings. We begin with the cross.
That is good news for you. God’s love for you did not begin when you became lovable. It reached you while you were still part of a world that turned away from Him. You do not need to earn it; you need only receive it by faith.
It is also a pattern for the way we love. Christian love is not limited to people who are easy to love. It gives, and sometimes it gives to people who will never give anything back.
Reflect, Pray, Practice
Reflect. Where did your own definition of love come from? How does John 3:16 challenge it? Who is hard for you to love right now?
Pray. Father, You so loved the world that You gave Your Son. Thank You that Your love reached me when I did not deserve it. Teach me to love as You love, by giving and not only by feeling. Amen.
Practice. Give something this week, time, help, or a gift, to someone who cannot repay you, and do it quietly as an act of love.
Love That Kneels (John 13:1–17, 34–35)
What the Passage Says
John 13:1 (NKJV): Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.
This verse is the hinge of John’s Gospel. Everything before it shows Jesus revealing Himself to the world; everything after shows Him loving His own “to the end,” to the uttermost. And how does John show that love? Not first with a speech, but with a towel and a basin. Jesus rises from supper, kneels, and washes His disciples’ feet, the task of the lowest household servant. Love, in John’s Gospel, is not first spoken. It is first knelt.
Later that evening Jesus gave a command:
John 13:34–35 (NKJV): A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.
The measure is new: “as I have loved you,” a love shown by a towel and, within hours, by a cross. And the stakes are high: this love is the mark by which the world will recognize Christ’s disciples.
What It Means for Your Life
Love that kneels is love that serves in humble, practical ways, often unnoticed. It may look like caring for an aging parent, cleaning up after a church meal, sitting with a sick friend, or quietly doing the task no one else wants.
Jesus did not say that the world would know His disciples by their buildings, programs, or even their doctrine, important as that is. He said they would know us by our love for one another. That makes every congregation a kind of window. When outsiders look in, what do they see? Do they see people who serve one another humbly, forgive one another, and care for one another’s needs?
This kind of love is not natural to us. It flows from having first been loved by the One who knelt before us.
Reflect, Pray, Practice
Reflect. When have you been served with “towel and basin” love? Where is Jesus asking you to kneel and serve right now?
Pray. Lord Jesus, You loved Your own to the end, and You knelt to wash their feet. Humble my heart, and teach me to serve others as You have served me, so that the world may know we are Yours. Amen.
Practice. Do one humble, practical act of service this week for a fellow believer, especially a task that no one is likely to notice.
Love That Obeys and Abides (John 14–15)
What the Passage Says
Three times in one chapter Jesus ties love and obedience together:
John 14:15 (NKJV): If you love Me, keep My commandments.
John 14:23 (NKJV): Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.”
Then in chapter 15 He describes love flowing in an unbroken chain:
John 15:9–13 (NKJV): As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.
Love flows from the Father to the Son, and from the Son to us, and we are to “abide” in it, as a branch abides in a vine. Obedience is not the price of that love; it is the way we remain in it. And the outer limit of love is defined in one sentence: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
What It Means for Your Life
Many people today assume that love and obligation are opposites, that “real” love is spontaneous and rules are what love must overcome. Jesus teaches nearly the reverse. Obedience is the language in which love for Him is spoken. A love for Jesus that never shows itself in a changed life is, in John’s eyes, not yet the real thing.
But notice the promise in John 14:23: “We will come to him and make Our home with him.” Obedience is not cold duty. It opens the door to deeper fellowship with God. The Father and the Son make their home with those who love and obey.
And notice that love is a place to dwell, not a burst of energy we must keep producing. “Abide in My love.” We do not generate love on our own and hope it lasts the week. We remain where Christ’s love already holds us, and from there we love others.
Reflect, Pray, Practice
Reflect. Is there an area of obedience you have treated as optional? What would it mean to “abide” in Christ’s love this week rather than try to produce love on your own?
Pray. Lord Jesus, I want to love You, and I want my love to show itself in obedience. Make Your home in me. Help me to remain in Your love and to love others as You have loved me. Amen.
Practice. Identify one clear command of Jesus you have been neglecting, and take one concrete step of obedience this week as an expression of love.
Love That Restores (John 21:15–17)
What the Passage Says
After the resurrection, beside the Sea of Galilee, Jesus speaks with Peter, the disciple who had denied Him three times:
John 21:15–17 (NKJV): So when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me more than these?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Feed My lambs.” He said to him again a second time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Tend My sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?” And he said to Him, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.” Jesus said to him, “Feed My sheep.”
In Greek, the first two times Jesus asks Peter whether he loves Him, He uses ἀγαπάω; Peter answers with φιλέω, the love of a friend. The third time Jesus uses Peter’s own word. Careful readers differ on how much weight to put on the change. But no one misses the pastoral heart of the scene. Peter had denied Jesus three times beside a charcoal fire (John 18:18). Now, beside another charcoal fire (21:9), he is restored: three declarations of love, answered by three commissions to serve.
What It Means for Your Life
Perhaps you carry a failure you have never quite gotten over: a time you denied Christ by word or silence, a relationship you damaged, a season when you walked away. This passage is for you.
Jesus did not shame Peter or demand a perfect love before He would use him again. He met Peter where he was, drew out his love, and gave him work to do: “Feed My sheep.” Christ’s love pursues the failed and the ashamed, and it always turns restored people outward toward the care of others.
This is also a pattern for how the church treats those who have fallen. We are called to meet them with restoration, not suspicion, and to help them find their place of service again.
Reflect, Pray, Practice
Reflect. Is there a failure that still makes you feel unworthy of serving Christ? How does Jesus’ treatment of Peter speak to you? Is there someone in your church who needs to be restored?
Pray. Lord Jesus, You know all things, and You know that I love You, even when my love is weak. Thank You for restoring me after my failures. Give me work to do for Your people, and help me to restore others as You restored Peter. Amen.
Practice. If you have been holding back from serving because of a past failure, tell the Lord honestly, and then take one step toward serving again. If you know someone who has fallen, reach out with a word of grace.
Loved First (1 John 3:1; 4:9–19)
What the Passage Says
If John’s Gospel shows love lived out in Jesus, his First Letter gives the theology behind it. And he begins not with a command but with an exclamation:
1 John 3:1 (NKJV): Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.
Then, in the heart of the letter, he tells us who God is and what His love has done:
1 John 4:8–10 (NKJV): He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
1 John 4:18–19 (NKJV): There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us.
“God is love.” Not merely that God loves, but that love belongs to who He is. And His love is never sentimental. It deals honestly with sin, sending the Son as the “propitiation,” the sacrifice that turns away God’s judgment. The initiative is entirely His: “not that we loved God, but that He loved us.”
What It Means for Your Life
John’s order matters. Before he tells us anything we must do, he marvels at what has been done for us. Every command to love in this letter is given to people who have already been loved, adopted, and named children of God. Christian love is always response before it is duty.
This truth sets us free from fear. Many believers live with a quiet anxiety: Am I really accepted? Have I done enough? John says that “perfect love casts out fear.” A heart that has grasped how thoroughly it is loved by God no longer needs to perform, prove itself, or hide.
If your love for God feels weak, do not try to work it up. Look again at His love for you. “We love Him because He first loved us.”
Reflect, Pray, Practice
Reflect. Do you live more from fear or from the knowledge that you are loved? What would change if you truly believed that God’s love came first?
Pray. Father, what manner of love You have given me, that I should be called Your child! Cast out my fears with Your perfect love. Let my love for You and for others grow from the love You first gave me. Amen.
Practice. Each morning this week, read 1 John 3:1 aloud and say, “I am a child of God, loved before I did anything.”
Love in Deed and Truth (1 John 3:16–18; 4:20–21)
What the Passage Says
John will not let love remain a feeling or a slogan:
1 John 3:16–18 (NKJV): By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.
And he will not let love for God be separated from love for people:
1 John 4:20–21 (NKJV): If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.
John defines love by an event, Christ laying down His life, and then tests our love the same way: not by what we say, but by what we do when a brother or sister is in need in front of us.
What It Means for Your Life
This is a searching passage. John does not ask whether we feel warmly toward the people in our church. He asks whether our love has ever cost us anything: our goods, our time, our comfort.
“Laying down our lives” usually does not mean dying. More often it means laying down our schedule to help a neighbor, laying down our money to meet a need, laying down our preferences for the sake of peace, or laying down our pride to reconcile.
And love for God that never becomes love for the people God has placed around us is not, John says, love for God at all. The difficult brother, the cranky neighbor, the family member who has hurt us: these are the very places where our love for God is proven.
Reflect, Pray, Practice
Reflect. Is there a relationship in which your love has never yet cost you anything? Who is a brother or sister in need right in front of you?
Pray. Lord Jesus, You laid down Your life for me. Keep me from loving only in word. Open my heart and my hands to the needs of those around me, and help me to love in deed and in truth. Amen.
Practice. Meet one tangible need this week, a meal, a ride, a bill, a repair, for someone in your church or neighborhood.
Love Made Visible (2 John and 3 John)
What the Passage Says
John’s two shortest letters add the final strokes to the picture. In 2 John he writes “to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth” (2 John 1), and he joins love and obedience once more:
2 John 5–6 (NKJV): And now I plead with you, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have had from the beginning: that we love one another. This is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it.
In 3 John he commends Gaius for his hospitality:
3 John 5–6 (NKJV): Beloved, you do faithfully whatever you do for the brethren and for strangers, who have borne witness of your love before the church. If you send them forward on their journey in a manner worthy of God, you will do well,
And he grieves over Diotrephes, “who loves to have the preeminence among them” and refuses to welcome the brethren (3 John 9–10).
What It Means for Your Life
“Love in truth” guards against two opposite errors. Love without truth becomes sentimental, approving anything in the name of kindness. Truth without love becomes harsh, correct but cold. John holds both together: real love walks according to what is true, and real truth is spoken in love.
Gaius and Diotrephes give us love’s simplest test in ordinary church life: does this person’s life make room for others, or only for himself? Gaius opened his home to traveling workers and strangers. Diotrephes wanted first place and shut the door.
John’s final word on love is not another definition but a small, concrete story about hospitality. That is fitting. In the end, love is proven at the door of our homes and in the welcome of our congregations.
Reflect, Pray, Practice
Reflect. Are you more prone to love without truth, or truth without love? Is your life more like Gaius’s or Diotrephes’s? Whom could you welcome?
Pray. Lord, help me to love in truth and to speak truth in love. Make my heart and my home open to others. Keep me from seeking first place, and give me the joy of welcoming others in Your name. Amen.
Practice. Invite someone into your home this week, a newcomer, a lonely member, or a family you do not know well, and offer simple hospitality.
Bringing It Together
Across everything John wrote, one picture of love emerges:
- Love begins in God. God is love, and He loved us first.
- Love gives. God so loved the world that He gave His Son.
- Love kneels. Jesus loved His own to the end, with a towel and a cross.
- Love obeys and abides. We remain in Christ’s love by keeping His word.
- Love restores. Christ pursues the failed and gives them work to do.
- Love casts out fear. Those who know they are loved need not perform or hide.
- Love acts. It shows itself in deed and truth, at real cost.
- Love welcomes. It makes room for others in our homes and our churches.
To take John seriously is to let his vision correct ours wherever they differ: to stop asking whether love feels a certain way and start asking whether it looks like Jesus. John did not write these words so that we would admire them from a distance. He wrote so that, having beheld what manner of love the Father has given us, we might live in it, and give it away.
A Note on Sources
Scripture is quoted from the New King James Version and should be checked against a printed NKJV before the study is taught or posted. Word meanings are drawn from the full study, Beholding Love: An Exegetical Study of Agape in the Writings of John, where the Greek vocabulary is discussed in more detail. Definitions should be confirmed in BDAG before they are taught.
Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[1] Joseph Henry Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (New York: American Book Company, 1889), s.v. “ἀγάπη,” as cited in the full study Beholding Love. Confirm in BDAG before teaching.