Different take on the Five love languages by Gary Chapman

I know that many ppl, may they be married or unmarried have read or have known of this book - the Five love languages by Gary Chapman. I myself am guilty of buying the book and giving it to my bro as a birthday present (though i haven't read it). But i kinda know what the book is about - it's about the FIVE LOVE LANGUAGES (obviously).

Anyway, I would like to share an article that i've got from another book by David Powilson titled "Seeing with new eyes". I would really recommend ppl to buy and read this book - anyway.. back to my point - I wanted to share what the book says about the 5LL. It is not meant to be a sarcasm of the book, but what the article says does mentions some important and crucial "hidden message" of the 5LL book.

Niway, here's how i'm going to summarise the article - i'm going to snip here and there quotes from the book and give my take on it (if i have any further comments). Here it goes:

Recently a friend asked me a question that I think is of wider interest. He wrote, "I wonder what to make of the ideas presented in the 5LL book. Some of it seems to make sense. It accurately describes some of the differences between my wife and me. I'm an actions-speak-louder-than-words person; she's wired for honest sharing and quality time. Our conflicts frequently boil down to collisions between our very different expectations. And we've learned that part of loving each other is giving what actually bless the other. But something about the book doesn't sound right to me. It seems like a glorified form of 'You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.'"

(the chapters goes on explaining the pro n cons of the book - read it for yourself - it's good and the author takes a objective view of the book which i found rather encouraging)

(this is the part that i found most encouraging)

Jesus puts things in a different light. Your ability to really love your enemies, to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect, and to do good even to the ungrateful or wicked absolutely requires the intervention of the Godhead. It required that Christ suffer and die because of your natural enmity to God. It requires the Holy Spirit's power to give you a wholly new life. It requires the Father's patient hand to prune and grow you in a way of life that is otherwise impossible - even inconceivable. It requires nothing less than radical repentance, living faith, and renewal of your whole heart that you might begin to learn how to really love. Such a faith working through love is the product of a good news worth living and dying for.

Chapman's couples live in a world whose problems they caused and they can fix... The love of Christ speaks a "love language" - mercy to hellishly self-centered people - that no person can hear or understand unless God gives ears to hear. It is a language we cannot speak to others unless God makes us fluent in an essentially foreign language. We might say that the itch itself (an ear for God's language) has to be created, because we live in such a stupor of self-centered itchiness....

God's grace aims to destroy the lordship of the five love languages, even while teaching us to speak the countless love languages with greater fluency. Consider what Chapman's five so often sound like in real life.

- Affirming words? I feel loved when the crowd cheers, and when you offer me flattering compliments, like the "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of the all?"
- Quality time? I feel loved when you drop everything to focus on me, are completely understanding, give me unconditional love, agree with all my opinions, and never disagree with me, question me, or interrupt me
- Gifts? I feel loved when you are my Sugar Daddy, giving me money, buying me lots of nice stuff, taking me on exotic vacations, and pampering me
- Acts of service? I feel loved when you do exactly what I want, and don't make any demands on me, and say, "Your wish is my command"
- Physical touch? I feel loved when you go along with my kinky sexual fantasies and when you make me feel like the most special person in the world.

(so much for unconditional love like what the Lord gave us)

"The love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live may no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf"(2Cor5:14). Grow fluent in the love of Christ, the love language that no one naturally speaks or hears, but everyone needs.

(So how about that? Does this makes us think of what we think about "love" all this time? or does this make any of us angry? Whatever it is - think bout it... are we loving just to be loved back or do we love not so that people would love us back but because God had put the desire in our heart by giving us a perfect unconditional love in the form of His Son's death?)

* this article is taken from David Powilson book titled "Seeing with New Eyes"