“Love” is a key word in the first letter of John… It is, in fact, a key word in the whole Bible. The word “love” is found 484 times in the Bible: 250 in the OT and 234 in the NT, so you can see that there is a greater concentration in the NT. The word “love” is used in every single book of the NT, one of the very few words that is used in every single book. I decided to see which book in the NT has the most dense concentration of the word “love.” So, I took the number of times “love” was found in a book and divided it into the number of chapters a book has:
Matthew 28; 13 uses; a total of 0.46 times per chpt
Mark 16; 5 uses; a total of 0.31 times per chpt
Luke 24; 15 uses; a total of 0.62 times per chpt
John 21; 57 uses; a total of 2.71 times per chpt
Acts 28; 1 uses; a total of 0.03 times per chpt
Romans 16; 16 uses; a total of 1 time per chpt
1 Corinthians 16; 17 uses; a total of 1.06 times per chpt
2 Corinthians 13; 13 uses; a total of 1 time per chpt
Galatians 6; 5 uses; a total of 0.83 times per chpt
Ephesians 6; 20 uses; a total of 3.33 times per chpt
Philippians 4; 5 uses; a total of 1.25 times per chpt
Colossians 4; 5 uses; a total of 1.25 times per chpt
1 Thessalonians 5; 7 uses; a total of 1.40 times per chpt
2 Thessalonians 3; 4 uses; a total of 1.33 times per chpt
1 Timothy 6; 7 uses; a total of 1.16 times per chpt
2 Timothy 4; 6 uses; a total of 1.5 times per chpt
Titus 3; 6 uses; a total of 2 times per chpt
Philemon 1; 3 uses; a total of 3 times per chpt
Hebrews 13; 6 uses; a total of 0.46 times per chpt
James 5; 3 uses; a total of 0.60 times per chpt
1 Peter 5; 8 uses; a total of 1.60 times per chpt
2 Peter 3; 2 uses; a total of 0.66 times per chpt
1 John 5; 46 uses; a total of 9.20 times per chpt
2 John 1; 4 uses; a total of 4 times per chpt
3 John 1; 3 uses; a total of 3 times per chpt
Jude 1; 3 uses; a total of 3 times per chpt
Revelation 22; 7 uses; a total of 0.31 times per chpt
If you combine all of John’s works, he wrote a total of 50 chapters and used “love” a total of 117 times, for a grand total of 2.34 uses per chapter. In all of Paul’s works, we have a total of 100 chapters with a total of 120 uses of “love,” for a total of 1.2 uses per chapter. Without a doubt, John wrote of love more frequently than any other NT writer!
The word “love” slowly picks up its intensity as we move through 1 John. It is not found in chapter 1. In chapter 2, three times. Chapter 3: eight times. Chapter 4: 27 times. Chapter 5: 4 times. Clearly, chapter 4 has the highest density of the word in the letter.
Paul Holland