> I would have thought that in 1 Thess 4:9, we have an excellent example
> of the words being used interchangeably.All compound words containing
> "love" in Greek combine with FILEW, not AGAPH.
> But in verse 9 Paul uses FILADELFIA for brotherly love, but then talks
> about the love we should have for one another with the word AGAPH.
> Surely these words are used synonymously here.
No expert I, but my first impression upon reading these verses when the
question arose was precisely what David has written here - that we have
an excellent example of the words being used interchangeably. It seems
to me that only by straining out lexical gnats and swallowing
syntactical camels would one be able to generate an argument that could
show that the apostle meant something different in the context of this
verse between FILEW/FILADELFIA and AGAPE.
-- "Eric S. Weiss" http://home1.gte.net/eweiss/index.htm eweiss@gte.net