While waiting in line at the DMV recently, I noticed a countertop sign that read, “Love is all you need.” It struck me how loosely and sentimentally our culture defines love—as if love, undefined and unbounded, is the ultimate cure for society’s ills or the penultimate solution to every human problem. The world is full of similar abstract cliches and glib notions of love, such as “Love Conquers All,” “Love Will Find a Way,” “Love is Blind,” and the classic, “Love Makes the World Go Round.”
But the Apostle Paul offers a more complete picture of love in Philippians 1:9–11.
“And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”
Paul’s prayer is not simply that we love more, but that our love will abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment. In other words, love does not exist in isolation as a self-interpreting construct. Biblical love—true love—is to be shaped by truth and grounded in the knowledge of God: “We love because he first loved us (I John 4:19) and “he [Jesus] has made him [the Father] known (John 1:18).”
True love is the product of loving God, knowing His Word and abiding in Christ as “the Word made flesh.” It is informed by His character and nurtured by His wisdom. Properly practiced, it tunes our spiritual senses to discern rightly in a world overflowing with competing values and priorities. Without it, human love is often nothing more than a well-intentioned sentiment without purpose, potentially driving us toward things we feel are good but ultimately lead us away from what is excellent, pure, and blameless.
Love without knowledge is not noble—it’s dangerous. It can excuse sin, enable folly, and mask idolatry. But when our love is trained by truth and led by discernment, it becomes a powerful force for good while producing the “fruit of righteousness.” Paul's desire is that believers live in such a way that their lives are full of spiritual fruit—including a love rooted in Christ, not reliant on fleeting emotion alone. This kind of love reflects the glory of Christ and characterizes the life of a true believer:
“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:35.”
So yes, love is essential—but only when it is rightly ordered. A love shaped by truth and discernment reflects the very character of God—not merely a human-centered ideal or virtue.