What is Love?
by Kyle Borg
DETAILS: Series: The Bedrock Series Publisher: Grassmarket Press Publication Date: December 20, 2022 Format: Paperback Length: 135 pg. Read Date: February 26, 2023
…deep down we know that love isn’t all we need. We also need to love well. We need to love rightly. So who gets to define that? Which voice is worth listening to, and which voices should be ignored? Is philosophy right? Is psychology right? Sociology? Biology? Politics? Economics? Literature? Hollywood? Music? Social media? Porn? Who gets to tell you what love is?
In the midst of these noisy voices, we need a louder voice. We need a voice that can break through the chatter and clearly, authoritatively, conclusively define for us what love is.
What’s What is Love? About?
This is Borg’s attempt to show what the Bible’s authoritative and conclusive definition of love is. He looks and several texts from all over the canon—spending (naturally) a substantial time in 1 Corinthians 13.
It’s a multi-faceted look at love. Borg considers the love of God demonstrated between the persons of the Trinity as well as toward His creation. But he also looks at the love that humans are to show each other as well as that we’re supposed to show to God.
The seventeen chapters are brief (in 135 pages, they have to be), but he doesn’t shy away from going deep into the topic of the chapter.
So, what did I think about What is Love??
There’s a lot of good material here—helpful, persuasive, and Biblical. But…it seemed to miss the intended goal of the book of giving a strong definition for love. Don’t ask me what was missing, but it just felt to me like Borg fell a little short.
I’ve been listening to Borg for a few years now on a couple of podcasts, and really appreciate his insights and explanations for various topics. So I was a little surprised that I didn’t connect with this the way I expected. I halfway expect that he tried to do too much in such a brief book, and if his goal hadn’t been so lofty, he’d have done better.
The writing is clear and concise—it’s as approachable as you could hope for, no matter your age or groundedness in Christian teaching. This seems to be the intent of the books in the Bedrock series, and Borg succeeded there.
I do recommend the book and think readers will benefit from reading it—I did. While I’m not sure Borg delivered the conclusive definition he intended to, he gave a lot of clear teaching on what the Bible says to lead to that definition, and that’s a good enough place to start.
