Love can be used in so many ways when referring to parts of speech. Of course it can be a thing, a noun, likely its most common use. Love is from God.
It can be an adjective. Throw an -ing on the end and there are MANY ways love can be used. An adjective: A loving God sent His Son. An adverb: God lovingly gave His Son to die for us.
It can be the subject of a sentence. It can be a predicate adjective or a predicate noun. It can be an the object to a preposition.
But the way James uses the word love is the most important way to use the word Love – as a verb. Not just a verb, but an action verb.
When we love others it is the grateful, obedient, joyful response toward God and toward our neighbor, especially the vulnerable and the stranger. Joy arises not from the duty alone to love one another, but from knowing we are already loved and chosen. Loved by our God who would and did die for us. He took our place.
God gives. We respond by loving. Loving with joy, because He first loved me.
- Deuteronomy 10:12-19
- 1 John 4:7-12, 19-21
- John 3:14-21