u/LogosAuditStudio

Revelation 19:7: “His bride has made herself ready.”

The Greek verb here is active voice, with a reflexive pronoun — she is the one doing the preparing, not a passive recipient of it.

If that's the case, here's the question: can someone genuinely go through the active process described in this verse — their own doing, not someone else's — and come out the other side with zero awareness that anything happened?

Some people say they're not supposed to know — it's God who judges. But I would say: if the verb is active, and it's the bride doing the readying, there's no way she has zero awareness of where her doing is leading to.

From Revelation 2:2-4, it is obvious that to the Lord, the "first love" far outweighs all the commendable works mentioned in 2:2. If so much time and effort are spent building and maintaining those external practices in 2:2, there is no reason we don’t talk more about the “first love” in 2:4. But what is it? How to get it?

I know the New Testament had two Greek words, agape and phileo, both were translated to “love” in English, so in English we lost the distinctions there, but clearly the Bible is very specific when using them. For example, it says that God “agape” the world, but only a handful people does the Bible recorded that God “phileo”. Also the Lord asked Peter two times using “agape”, but “phileo” the third time (John 22:15-17). Those two kinds of love must be very different, but in which ways?

I know the Bible always says we should “agape”, and implies how important “agape” is, but what is it? Like is it being nice to people? Don’t blame when being offended/robbed/stolen, etc., or else? I know Paul said “love (agape) your enemy”, but how? Like give them water and food, don’t whip them, bite your tongue when your enemy says mean things to you, etc.? How do you know you’re actually “agape”-ing but not “phileo”-ing among all the possible feelings that can be confused with loving?