refers to love expressed among fellow Christians.17 Agape, then, is not a completely different love, but embraces “love of the brethren” as one sphere of Christian love in its fullest scope—that Spirit-given act of the will by which we treat other people with active benevolence. Surely it is not by chance that love, the crown of Christian virtues (see 1 Cor. 13), comes at the climax of Peter’s staircase of Christian qualities. Note the parallel in Colossians 3:14: “And over all these virtues put
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