What Does John 13:34 Mean in the King James?
A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The command’s measure is the love already given to you, now passed from one person to another.
THE MEANING
This verse gives love a shape you can recognize: it is the love Jesus has shown you. That love moves between people, as the repeated words “love one another” make clear.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that love must be earned before it can reach you is undone by the words “as I have loved you.”
THE ROOT
ἀγαπᾶτε
agapate
GROWS FROM
ἀγαπ-
agap-
The Greek word family carries the sense of loving or regarding with love.
The same verb family appears in “love one another” and “I have loved you.” The verse joins the love received and the love extended: one becomes the measure for the other.
ALSO GROWS
agapē: love
ἀγάπη
The related noun names the love that is given and received in the verse’s pattern.
agapētos: beloved
ἀγαπητός
This related word describes someone held in love, echoing the place from which love for another can flow.
THE PATTERN
Love moves outward by taking its measure from love first received or known.
Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.We love him, because he first loved us.THE THREAD
Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.The same Greek verb family links being loved with loving one another. This verse spells out the movement that John 13:34 compresses into “as I have loved you”: received love becomes the pattern carried outward.
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