First Corinthians 13:1-8 has been oft quoted at weddings simply because its topic is love. But Paul the apostle did not have marriage in mind when he wrote this. He had church gatherings in view. First Corinthians 13 is the middle of three chapters addressing this church’s lack of order in their gatherings.
We display this love to our brothers and sisters in the meetings when we all have a work to do, a contribution to make. This particular love to one another creates an orderly meeting. “Let all things be done decently and in order” is the summation of these three chapters (1 Cor. 14:40). Love promotes order.
The point of this love is to let every member of the church shine with the gift they brought in to build up the body. We are not to grab the ball and try to do everything ourselves to dunk it. Harmonious teamwork wins the game. By myself, I’m just dribbling around. Without the teamwork of love, we are nothing (1 Cor. 13:2).
Let’s look afresh at this passage with the aim of loving our fellow believers in the church.
v4 “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant” (ESV)
We all want to shine. But love is patient. Let others have their turn. Love can do this. We can be patient and still be kind (not impatient and grouchy) because when they do their thing, we the church will be bettered by it, and we can all grow. We can let them practice faithfulness in the small things, knowing they will take on greater responsibilities in time, with growth.
We do not envy others who have “better” gifts than we have. (We may not yet know what our own gift is.) Every member is a part of the body, and every part of the body is needed for the functioning of the whole (1 Cor. 12:14-17).
Note that perspective. Love is not a feeling we have toward others. It is an attitude we have because we put the Word above our feelings. The word is saying, “This is My vision for the church.” In love, we take up the same vision. Love is not arrogant, because love knows it is part of the whole, and God has put every part where it belongs (1 Cor. 12:18-27). We are not better than they.
v5 “or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful [literally, does not count up the wrongs];”
Love is not rude. To be rude to another member is to strike your own body. Christ died for each of us to put us in His body and build up him or her. We are the body of Christ. What we do against the body we do against Christ. When we are rude, we exhibit self-love: “I am more important than you are.”
Love can’t insist on its own way because biblical love is submissive to the Lord. God’s way rules; the Spirit leads. The Spirit gives the gifts as He pleases (1 Cor. 12:4-11). We are living sacrifices devoted to God and His vision, otherwise the gatherings can’t further God’s work. God is love (1 John 4:8). If we don’t act in love, we cannot fulfill the vision of the church, which is to be a physical expression of Christ’s love to the world. We can’t express Christ’s love with hatred or apathy.
In Ephesians 3:14-17, Paul prays that the church would discover the strengthening of the Spirit in them (overcoming the flesh and sin), that they’ll know Christ in them by faith, and be moved to love as He did. He’s praying for their personal, spiritual growth. What happens then? It’s that we may “comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (vv18-19).
“To know the love of Christ,” we live it out in our midst, “with all the saints.” Not one person standing out, but teamwork. We forgive and receive one another, bear one anothers burdens, preferring to honor one another, love and serve one another, teach and comfort each other. Then our meetings “are filled with all the fullness of God” on display as each member loves.
“You are the light of the world,” Jesus said in Matt. 5:14. Through our gatherings of love, we show a world that walks in darkness what God is truly like, what blessings he showers on those who live in a community devoted to him.
The world sees the love of Christ when we gather together and love one another from the heart doing God’s will. This is the Lord’s desire, that when visitors come, they see our patience and care as we bear with one anothers faults, working together for the gospel. Then for the visitor, “the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you” (1 Cor. 14:25).
v6 “it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.”
How can it have a good time with doing wrong or boasting about it? We are a new creation and have died to sin (Rom. 6:1-2). Far from being rebellious, we are committed to loving like Christ, and being a model of Him who showed mercy to sinners. It rejoices in the truth we see each other walking in, not in the bad exploits we did. We treat those things with shame (1 Cor. 5:1-13). We don’t boast in retelling them.
v7 “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
Be careful of the word “all” in this verse. The context is the gathering, not the situations we find ourselves in at large. For instance, we are not to believe everything we hear!
Love bears all the imperfections we see and dislike in others. We are no better than they. We are all working out our salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12), and are patiently expecting the fruit of love from it.
Love believes all things. It believes what is in harmony with the Word regarding the gatherings. It believes everything about God’s vision for the church, that all the teachings we personally follow in the Word are about more than us being “good people.” We are growing into something bigger than our private lives, beyond our private struggles. We believe because with God all things are possible, including redeeming a fallen people for His glory.
In the bible, to hope is to have a confident expectation because God has said it. So love hopes all things, that no matter how deep a pit we’ve fallen into, how unworthy we are, how disadvantageous a situation we’re in, Christ will build his church. Christ will take these broken pieces and fashion something greater by his power: “in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (Eph. 2:21-22). Believe it. Let God be God and work out His purposes in you.
Love endures all things for the sake of the vision. We endure the battle between the flesh and the Spirit, expecting to overcome. We endure those in our midst who still don’t get it. We choose to love because Christ dwells in us and expresses Himself through us when we love our brother (1 John 4:7-11).
v8 “Love never fails.”
Because God is love, we cannot go wrong when we make the choice to forgive and love. We will not fail when we continually look to the Lord for strength and to his word for direction and wisdom. We also pray, knowing that with prayer we are inviting the Lord to do a divine work in our midst that is beyond what we can accomplish on our own.
We give all the glory to Jesus. “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen” (Eph. 3:20-21).
Because of its general wording, this love portion of scripture, though principally written for the church gatherings, is nevertheless an excellent guide for any gathering of committed Christians. This is true whether in a prison cell, family home, business meeting, church gathering, or any other meeting where the members are expected to participate in God’s work in love.
People can’t see God’s Son because he has gone above, but they can witness us. What would happen if people saw Christ by seeing us love one another?
