This is correct. The word translated as “love” or “charity” is agape, that is, a selfless, sacrificial love. It’s not easy to translate into English.
Both words are acceptable and interchangeable. It’s very important for readers to keep the Greek word in mind.
Porthos, Gus & Sugar Ray:
May this will make it easier:
Romans 5:6-11 RSV
While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man – though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received our reconciliation.
etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=RsvRoma.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=5&division=div1
1 Cor 13:4-13 RSV
*Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.
So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. *
etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=Rsv1Cor.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=13&division=div1
The word in these we translate as “love” in these passages is “agape”. Picture someone we’ve treated shamefuly, and have beaten to within an inch of his life, jumping on a mine one of us has triggerred, while pushing us out of the way, in order to save our lives, and you should have the idea.
This is a love we could never hope to produce on our own, and it was seeing this love in action that caused Roman pegans to leave their comfortable, and safe, seats in the Flavian Amphiteater to join the Christians on the floor below so that they could die with them.
Your Brother in Christ, MIchael
