"I may be able to speak the languages of men and even of angels, but if I have no agape, my speech is no more than a noisy gong or a clanging bell.
"I may have the gift of inspired preaching; I may have all knowledge and understand all secrets; I may have all the faith needed to move mountains—but if I have no agape, I am nothing.
"I may give away everything I have, and even give up my body to be burned — but if I have no agape, this does me no good. In the original Greek, the word for love is agape)
"Dear Friends,... agape comes from God. Whoever loves [with agape] is a child of God and knows God. Whoever does not love [with agape] does not know God, for God is agape. And God showed His agape for us by sending His only Son into the world, so that we might have life through Him. This is what agape is: it is not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven....
"God is agape, and whoever lives in agape lives in union with God and God lives in union with him. Agape is made perfect in us in order that we may-have courage in the Judgment Day. ... There is no fear in agape; perfect agape drives out all fear. So then, agape has not been made perfect in anyone who is afraid, because fear has to do with punishment.
“We love [with agape] because God first loved us [with agape].”