09 Jun 2026 8 min read Devotionals

Aim for the Ace: Philautia Love

Originally Published March 30, 2026 by James T. Richardson

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” – C.S. Lewis, “The Four Loves”

He had been given the name from his birth, but never the recognition. He loved her just as much as the next man, but their love never reached fruition. Notorious for being obscene and uncouth, he gathered a cesspool of rejects to spark a revolution. He stood against the constitution, yet held no real power; that didn’t stop him from harassing the masses at every hour. He taught the lowly they were unjustly marginalized and demoted—that the only way to gain dignity was to steal, kill, and destroy like cowards. Those who were gullible and weak-willed followed in pursuit; many, including the man himself, were caught as prisoners.

Philautia: The Mirror of the Soul

As we enter the solemnity of Holy Week, our journey toward the Cross requires a different kind of preparation. We have explored the "quiet love" of Storge, but now we must turn the lens inward. To follow Christ to Gethsemane, one must first understand the "self" that is being surrendered. The Greeks called this Philautia—self-love. While modern culture often treats self-love as a luxury or a bubble bath, the ancient and biblical traditions reveal it as a rigorous, often paradoxical, spiritual discipline.

The Anatomy of the Self

At its root, Philautia is the foundational regard one has for their own existence. Aristotle argued that this was the prerequisite for all virtue. In his Nicomachean Ethics, he proposed that a man cannot be a true friend to another unless he is first a friend to himself. To Aristotle, the "virtuous self-lover" seeks the highest good for their soul—reason, justice, and nobility. If you do not value your own soul, you have no metric by which to value the souls of others.

However, the human heart has a notorious tendency to curve inward in a way that is not virtuous, but parasitic. This is the shadow side of Philautia. Sigmund Freud later categorized this as "primary narcissism"—a state where the ego becomes its own exclusive object of desire. When Philautia becomes untethered from the Divine, it stops being a "friendship with the self" and becomes a prison of the self. We see this in the world today: a desperate, hungry self-love that seeks affirmation through the "seen" (affluence, beauty, and status) rather than the "unseen" (character and spirit).

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? - Jeremiah 17:9 NIV

The Biblical Paradox (The Crucified Self)

Biblical Philautia does not ask us to ignore ourselves; it asks us to see ourselves accurately through the eyes of the Creator. Proverbs 16:16 (and 19:8) suggests that "to acquire wisdom is to love oneself; the one who cherishes understanding will soon prosper." Here, self-love is defined as the pursuit of God's wisdom. It is the act of treating your soul as something worth cultivating through God’s Word.

Yet, as we approach the Cross, we encounter a startling paradox. Jesus tells us that to find our life, we must lose it, and to follow Him, we must "hate" our own lives (Luke 14:26). This is not a call to self-loathing or the destruction of our personhood as some outside of the faith would falsely state. (N.O.I) Rather, it is a call to turn from our "own thoughts"—the ego’s small, self-serving narratives—to the "thoughts of Christ." As Isaiah 55:7-9 reminds us, His thoughts are higher than ours. To "hate" the self in this context is to supplant the ego with the true, God-breathed self of Scripture. It is a "womb of renewal" where the old man dies so the child of God can be born.

This alignment creates an internal warfare. Ephesians 5:15-17 urges us to be "very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise." That carefulness is more precise than we realize. In the Greek, it is akribōs meaning to be exact, precise, or accurate. Biblical Philautia requires the patient labor of "mind-body-soul coordination" with the Word of Christ. It is the recognition that our bodies are not our own to desecrate or idolize; they are "temples of the Holy Spirit" (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Therefore, honoring our entire being—our health, our boundaries, and our mental peace—is not an act of vanity, but an act of stewardship. We purify ourselves "from everything that contaminates body and spirit" (2 Corinthians 7:1) because we finally love ourselves enough to want to be a fitting home for the Living God.

Through him you Gentiles are also being made part of this dwelling where God lives by his Spirit. - Eph 2:22 NLT

The Global Quest for the Center

Across diverse spiritual landscapes, we see humanity attempting to solve the riddle of the self. In Vedic traditions, particularly through Buddhi-yoga or the pursuit of Krishna consciousness, the focus is on a radical form of mindfulness. It is the belief that by aligning the intellect (buddhi) with the Divine, one can transcend the lower, agitated self. Similarly, in Zen Buddhism, the practice of "emptying" is not an act of self-destruction, but a supreme form of self-care. It is the quiet labor of shedding the "false self"—the labels, the desires, and the anxieties—to find the stillness at the core.

NOTE: I’m generalizing these concepts the best way I can. I have books like the Bhagavad Gita and Books on Zen Buddhism and it’s not entirely clear to me. For those who have grown up in these Eastern traditions, please forgive me if anything I say is false or not entirely true of the practices.

When we reconcile these traditions to Christ, we see them as expressions of the "one Spirit" searching for its home. Mindfulness, in a Christian sense, is the practice of Psalm 139—inviting the Creator to "search me, O God, and know my heart." It is the realization that we cannot truly know ourselves until we are known by Him. The "emptying" of Zen finds its fulfillment in the kenosis of Christ, who emptied Himself so that we might be filled with the fullness of God. These traditions teach us the discipline of self-awareness, but Christ provides the destination for that awareness.

The Prophetic Self-Love of the Cross

As we walk through Holy Week, Philautia takes on its most radical, prophetic form. True biblical self-love demands an "unrelenting self-awareness," as seen in David’s cry: "Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts" (Psalm 51:6). We see this perfectly modeled in the Incarnation. The fact that the Word became flesh (John 1:1-5) is the ultimate validation of human existence. God did not rescue a "thing"; He rescued a "Self." By becoming human, Christ showed that the "self" is worth the highest possible price.

The most shocking display of this love occurs in the shadow of the Cross. Consider Jesus’ relationship with Judas and Barabbas. In a sense, Jesus’ love for them is a form of "prophetic self-love." As the New Adam, Jesus is the Head of the human family; when He looks at the betrayer or the insurrectionist, He sees the brokenness of the humanity He has claimed as His own. By loving His enemies, He is loving the "Body" He came to redeem.

On the Cross, Jesus submits His own mortality to the Father, not out of self-loathing, but out of a perfect, trusting Philautia. He knew His value was not found in escaping death, but in fulfilling His purpose. As we observe Holy Week, we are invited to do the same: to love ourselves enough to let our "false selves" die with Him, so that our "true selves" can rise in the morning.

Phase 5: Philautia and the Corporate Body

True Philautia is never a cul-de-sac; it is a thoroughfare. While the journey begins with an inward look at the soul’s value, it does not end at the borders of our own skin. In the economy of God, a healthy self-love naturally expands until it encompasses the community. This is where we see the "Individual Self" reconcile with the "Corporate Body." If we truly love ourselves as temples of the Holy Spirit, we must eventually recognize that we are but one room in a much larger House.

The New Testament describes this interconnectedness with the metaphor of the Body. In 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12, Paul explains that we are "members of one another." Just as a hand cannot despise itself without harming the whole, a believer cannot practice a true, biblical Philautia while being detached from the Church. To love your "self" in the Kingdom of God is to love your role within the Body. If the eye refuses to see or the foot refuses to walk, the entire "Self" of Christ on earth suffers. Therefore, caring for your spiritual gifts and your mental health is actually a service to your neighbor.

This reverberates back to the second greatest commandment: "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:31). This command assumes that a baseline of Philautia already exists. You cannot provide a standard of care for a neighbor that you have not first established for your own soul. When you honor the Christ in you, you become capable of honoring the Christ in them.

In this corporate sense, Philautia becomes a collective responsibility. We are "members of each other," meaning my well-being is tied to yours. During Holy Week, this becomes exceptionally clear: Jesus didn’t just die for a collection of individuals, but to birth a new humanity—a single Body. When we practice healthy self-love, we are maintaining a vital part of Christ’s living presence on earth. We love ourselves so that we have a healthy, whole "self" to offer to the world. When we become rigorous in perfecting a self-love that doesn’t become self-absorbed, we enter Heaven’s realm while simultaneously inviting Christ to return to Earth. (Eph 5:25-30; Jam 4:8; 1 Jn 3:2-3)

So far, we have explored three of the major Greek loves: Philia (brotherly love and friendship), Agape (the universal, sacrificial love of God), and now Philautia (the discipline of self-love). If the Lord wills, we will dive into Eros before Easter Sunday. I believe it is vital to address erotic love during this season, especially considering the historically warped views of desire often found in American Christianity.

I am looking forward to seeing and hearing the art from my favorite boo(s). May God continue to grow our bond in the Spirit, as we collectively receive His gift of perfection. I love you all… especially you… you know who.

As Always,

James

Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons' sons; - Deuteronomy 4:9 KJV

Aim for the Ace: Philautia Love