Free Bible Commentary
“1 Corinthians 13:1-7”
Categories: 1 Corinthians“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
“Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
---End of Scripture verses---
I always think of that comic strip from the 70’s, “Love Is…” when I read this passage. We looked at the definition of love yesterday, but we actually could have skipped it because Paul tells us what “love is” in today’s verses. And what love “is not,” and what love “does” and “does not”. We see very clearly from this passage that, although the noun form of the word is used, love is obviously an action word.
“Love is patient.” The King James version reads “Love suffereth long.” That is the Greek word makrothumeo and it literally means “long-tempered”. It is so very easy to be short tempered and lose your patience with your “loved ones” isn’t it? But a “long-tempered” person resists the urge to retaliate, even though he has the power to do so. This is an attribute of God himself. According to Exodus 34:6, our Lord is “slow to anger”. I am really so grateful that my heavenly Father is this way because, if He were not, He would have destroyed me a long time ago because of my foolish sinfulness!
“Love is kind.” The word kind is also translated “good” in various places in the New Testament. This is the word that Jesus used when He said, “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:35-36). A kind person is good to other people even if others do not treat them well.
“Love is not jealous.” A loving person works hard at not being envious or resentful of other people when they have an abundance of the Lord’s blessings or “gifts”. The other side of that loving coin is that “Love does not brag and is not arrogant” when a person does, himself, have a wealth of “enviable” possessions or talents. Loving people rejoice with others when they enjoy success, and share with others out of a heart of abundance.
Love “does not act unbecomingly.” God’s people are not to behave disgracefully or dishonorably or indecently. Those of us who follow our Lord’s example are neither “rude” nor “crude”. Love “does not seek its own” pleasure, profit or honor, at the expense or neglect of someone else. Love is not “self-seeking” but “self-denying”. Love “is not provoked” easily to wrath or irritation. A loving person should not walk around with a chip on his shoulder. Love “does not take into account a wrong suffered.” A faithful Christian should not keep a “running account of” and does not “dwell on” the things that other people have done wrong to them. We should work on not being irritable and vengeful, but amiable and forgiving instead.
Love “does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth.” If we take pleasure in sinfulness, the very thing that God hates, then we do not love God or the people that He created in His own image, the way that we ought to. Notice that “truth” is set in opposition to “unrighteousness” in verse 6. People who “abide” and “rejoice” in “falsehood” or “error” do not practice “righteousness” from God’s perspective. If we see people living in “religious error,” love dictates that we try to teach and show them the truth.
Love “bears all things.” A child of God bears up under persecution and afflictions and helps bear the burdens of those who are crushed by a load of care. Love “believes all things,” but is not gullible or foolish. Love is not suspicious or doubtful, but believes the best in people until given a reason to do otherwise. Love “hopes all things.” Love demands that we hope the best for everyone and believe the best in everyone because we would want others to do the same things for us. Love “endures all things,” because, “love never fails…” (verse 8).
Even when our heath and bodies betray us, love can still come shining through. Even when we lose all of our money and earthly goods, no one can steal our love away from us. And no one can rob us of the love of God. After all the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit “ceased” because they outlived their purpose, love has remained a constant for brothers and sisters to cling to throughout the ages.
Love is greater than all the miraculous gifts put together. The brethren in the church at Corinth possessed a wide array of miraculous gifts, and yet did not use them in a loving fashion. In God’s eyes, all their amazing, miraculous feats were “nothing” (verse 2), because they were done without love. Even if we give everything we have—all our money, time, energy, and even our own lives—it profits us nothing if it is not motivated by a heart filled with love (verse 3). If we only “do good” begrudgingly, out of a sense of “obligation,” we are just wasting our time from God’s point of view.
Please read 1 Corinthians 13:8-13 for tomorrow.
Have a great day!
- Louie Taylor
