The Face of Affection

How Jesus showed his love to others

Happy Thursday, reader of the Low-Level Theologian!

I’m eager to share this week’s Thursday Devotional below—a continuation of our series on the “Relational Genius of Jesus.” Some reminders are in order. Last Thursday, I shared some fun news about my forthcoming work, A Teachable Spirit: The Virtue of Learning from Strangers, Enemies, and Absolutely Anyone (released April 29th with Zondervan), which came with an invitation to join a reading group I’ll be leading through it. You can read about that here. Also, following today’s devotional, I’m going to give a sneak peek of the cover for a book

Nijay K. Gupta

and I have secretly been working on entitled Slow Theology: Eight Practices for Resilient Faith in a Turbulent World (released September 2025 with Brazos Press). We couldn’t be more gleeful than we are that

Dr. Glenn Packiam

has written a generous and thoughtful foreword. Lots of good stuff is coming down the pike. Lastly, for those looking for next-level theology and Bible nerdery, remember that Monday Office Hours is an option for paid subscribers only. We are wrestling out some of the questions I commonly get around Christian identity.

Okay, that’s it. May the grace of Christ be with you this week. You are in my prayers.

A.J.

---

Like you and I, all human beings need more than just love. Love is vital to our lives. But we also need to experience that love in such a way that is felt. It is one thing to be told or instructed that you are loved. But it is entirely another thing to be shown love through touch, shared time, sacrifice, compassion, and truth-telling. That we need to experience love is true for us; and, it is true for those people in our lives that we are trying to love. The people in our lives need our love as much as they need to feel that love. The distinction between love and affection has been expressed perfectly by theologian Fr. Ronald Rolheiser:

Have you ever experienced a love that gave you the sense that you were lovable despite everything that is weak and lacking in you? Have you ever been loved unconditionally? [Too often], we look at our lives and see a searing lack of unconditional love. The impression is that nobody loves us in a way that assures us at our deepest levels that we are lovable. Our friendships, our loves, our families, our marriages appear to be anything but matrixes of unconditional love. At least, so it seems. But there is a confusion here. When we think of love, we think of affection. These are not always the same thing.¹

And this is true in both directions. Just as we need love that shows itself. We also need more than shallow affection. Sometimes, we experience people’s momentary kindness, care, or compassion—but then soon discover that the affection was not rooted in an abiding love but in the needs of the moment. Love and affection are different. But love and affection also need each other.

I sometimes illustrate the difference between love and affection with a story of a student I had several years ago. Sitting in the front row was a particularly smart, thoughtful, and reflective undergraduate student. Their grade reflected their work. They were one of my top students. Yet, as they sat in the front row of that particular biblical studies course, I couldn’t help but be distracted by their facial expressions. They appeared—every time I would lecture—to disapprovingly frown at everything I said. I once asked the student after class if everything was okay. They assured me it was. In his words, he was “eating the class up.” The student soon realized their face didn’t reflect what was happening in the heart.

Photo by Ekaterina Shakharova on Unsplash

It’s true: sometimes we must remind our faces what our hearts know. Regarding love and affection, love is never content hiding on the inside. Love must be shown. That is affection. Which brings us to Jesus. Jesus loved people. But did they feel that love? Did he go out of his way to show it? Interestingly, one of the ominously rare statements in the Gospels is any statement akin to “I love you.”² Jesus rarely said it. Yet, it seems, the people around him had an undying knowledge that he loved them. The incarnation is God’s method—not just of loving humanity—but of showing that love to humanity. Love that isn’t shown is nearly impossible to believe or receive.

“All truth must be experienced personally,” Eugene Peterson wisely wrote, “before it is complete.”³ The same can be said of all love. Being loved abstractly is useless to the human spirit.

One snippet from his life that shows what those around him would have felt is found in the resurrection story. When Jesus emerges from the tomb, he soon returns to the very disciples who had either run from him or turned their back on him as he approached his death. As Jesus comes into their midst, his words reveal penetrating affection. On multiple occasions, the first glimpse of him came with the phrase “Peace be with you.” (Lk. 24:36; Jn. 20:19, 21, 26) As he comes to Peter (who had denied him), he offers forgiveness and a renewed commission (Jn. 21:15-21). Jesus’s time after the tomb was not marked by vindictiveness or hatred—he approached with affections of love, forgiveness, and kindness.

Another snippet is how his ministry was marked by a radical expression of forgiveness—something he regularly drilled into the disciples’ heads. In Matthew 18, for example, Peter asks if he has a responsibility to forgive his brother seven times. Given that the rabbis of his day would commonly say that one had the responsibility to forgive up to three times, it appears as though Peter is, in the words of Josh Turner, “hoping to sound super loving and gracious.”⁴ But Peter could not outdo the gracious affections of Jesus with his attempt at virtue signaling. What are exaggerated attempts at grace for humanity are always understatements for Jesus.

Jesus corrects Peter. “I tell you,” Jesus says, “not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” (Mt. 18:22) Is Jesus saying that 490 is the limit of grace? Not even close. Jesus is seeking—for a people with no calculator at the ready—to awaken the endless nature of the forgiveness we should extend to one another. Love isn’t just saying, “I forgive you.” Love is expressing forgiveness in a sustained way that is communicated, felt, and received time and time again.

How affectionate Jesus must have been in his relationships. No doubt, he got this from his Father. When Christ is baptized, the Father doesn’t merely say, “This is my Son, whom I love.” Indeed, the Father loves the Son. But the Father goes further. “This is my Son, I love,” he declares, “with whom I am well pleased.” (Mt. 3:17; italics mine) A Father doesn’t merely say, “I love you.” A good Father shows and expresses pleasure over the Son. Those who looked on were watching the affections of the Trinity on full display.

Humans need both love and the experience of that love. When we are told we are loved but that love is never shown or felt, it can lead to great emotional damage in our lives. Years ago, David Seamands at Asbury Seminary wrote a book entitled Healing for Damaged Emotions. I’ve learned a great deal with Seamands over the years. And he says that the result for people who never really have the experience of feeling the affection of another is that they are constantly being easily hurt. Seamands called this “supersensitivity.” He writes:

The supersensitive person has usually been hurt deeply. He reached out for love and approval and affection, but he got the opposite, and he has scars deep inside of him. Sometimes, he sees things other people don’t see, and he tends to feel things other people don’t feel. Supersensitive people need a lot of approval. You can never quite give them enough. And sometimes they seem very insensitive. They have been hurt so badly that instead of becoming sensitive, they cover it by being hard and tough. They want to get even and hurt others. So, quite unbeknown to them, they spend their lives pushing people around, hurting and dominating them. They use money or authority or position or sex or even sermons to hurt people.⁵

Indeed, the experience of not being shown love leads to a constant, never-ending pursuit of approval in spouses, children, employees, parishioners, social media, and followers. The result can be damaging to us. And to others. What Jesus has shown us by the way he lived his life was that the people around him needed to be shown his love. He didn’t need to say, “I love you.” They saw it in everything he did. The loving fire in his eyes said everything.

The incarnation, in part, is God’s heart put on a face.

---

Thanks for reading. You can always find me wasting time on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Or check out the podcast with Dr. Nijay Gupta at Slow Theology. With that, Nijay and I have finished the manuscript for our forthcoming book under the same title: Slow Theology: Eight Practices for Resilient Faith in a Turbulent World. The publisher has finished the cover, and the manuscript is undergoing final edits. This book is our attempt at capturing the heart of our podcast—a manifesto on how to hold faithful to the way of Jesus in turbulent, challenging, and tumultuous moments like our own. There will be much more to say in due course. But, for now, we are so pleased with the cover. And hope you like it too!

1. Rolheiser, Ronald, “Expressing Our Affection,” found at https://ronrolheiser.com/expressing-our-affection/.

2. On occasion, he did. But not often. See Jn. 13:34-35; 15:9; 12-13.

3. Peterson, Eugene. Run with the Horses: The Quest for Life at Its Best. Downer’s Grove, IL.: IVP, 1983, 80.

4. Turner, Josh B., Into the Storm: How to Face Down Any Crisis with Deep, Unshakable Faith (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2025), 75. The rabbinic concept of the tripartite—three-time forgiveness—appears to be rooted in an ancient interpretation of Amos 1:3-9 which repeatedly reads, “for three sins of Israel, even for four.” Jesus seems to be attempting to shake his disciples from this misused text.

5. David Seamands, Healing for Damaged Emotions (Colorado Springs, Colorado: David C. Cook, 2015), 20.