What is Love?
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Corinthians 13:1-7
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
During the season of Epiphany, we have been going through 1 Corinthians 12-14. In this part of the letter, Paul is dealing with a question from the Corinthian church in regards to spiritual gifts. While the church seemed to be exploding with spiritual gifts the people were using these gifts to exclude one another. One person thought their gifts were better than someone else’s so they had more rights/privileges/worth in the church. It created a very tense, very conflicted, very toxic environment. Thus Paul begins this text by saying that even if he should whatever gift God’s given him, whether it be as a preacher, or a prophet, or an academic, or have such faith to move mountains but doesn’t have love, then he’s absolutely nothing. The gift doesn’t matter. It’s worthless. Pointless. Dead.
Love is meek, even when brothers & sisters don’t always return the favour.
But what does Paul mean when he talks about love? What is love? Through Paul, the Holy Spirit defines it for us: Love is patient and kind. Another way of saying “patient” is long-suffering. It is bearing with one another. And this isn’t talking about the friends you like to hang out with, the people you get along with really well at church, or work with really well, or talk like you do, or think as you do. This is about bearing with those who are not anything like you, who may have indeed hurt you with their words and actions, but deciding to forgive and let that evil die in your own flesh. Love is meek, even when brothers & sisters don’t always return the favour. Love doesn’t envy or boast. We aren’t to strive for what the other person has, or in jealousy try to tear down our brothers & sisters to have what they have. Instead, love is content in what it has been given from God and refuses to brag about it saying, “I don’t know how to put this, but I’m kind of a big deal.” Love doesn’t get puffed up in our own self-image. Love isn’t rude or unbecoming to other people. No one is going to call a rude person a loving person. Love doesn’t say that “It’s my way or the highway” but is actually open to hearing out what the brother in Christ is saying even if they end up being wrong. Love doesn’t automatically shut someone’s perspective just because it doesn’t happen to agree with your own. Love isn’t irritable in talking about what really grinds my gears. This isn’t about being an irritant, we can’t always control that. Something as simple as the way we sit down can be irritating to someone and we can’t control that. Love isn’t easily irritated by others but is forbearing with the flaws & errors that are seen in others without wanting to smack them over the head. Love isn’t resentful, meaning that it doesn’t keep a record of wrongs. It doesn’t hold onto a laundry list of sins to use against a sister in Christ on that one fateful day when she’s done one too many things wrong and finally added the straw that broke the camel’s back. Nor does love rejoice at the wrongdoings of others, laughing or taking pleasure in the fall of someone else. Love isn’t there pointing the finger at someone’s sin for everyone else to see, thus humiliating their fellow Christian. Love rejoices with the truth, looking to put the best construction on things, and rejoicing in the truth of God revealed in His Word. Love might know someone else’s sins but doesn’t gossip, but instead bears them close to the chest lest the brother in Christ is destroyed in the hearts of the body of Christ. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
This is the love of Jesus. And it’s the love of Jesus for you.
Perhaps you’ve noticed this already, but this chapter isn’t about marriage. It’s about our life in the body of Christ. Our Christian life in the church as a community of believers. Are you ever going to have this kind of love? Not on this side of heaven. We all will see how far away we’ve fallen from this definition of love. But I want you to try something. Go back and read the text, but this time, where you see the word “love” read “Jesus.” It all fits. This is the love of Jesus. And it’s the love of Jesus for you. He holds this love in our place and does it, not just for us, but for all people, especially His enemies. You and me. For this Corinthian congregation fighting over who has the best gift, who gets the top tier, the Holy Spirit reveals that the answer to all of this tension isn’t in trying better, doing more, or being better. It’s in the love of Jesus. It’s in imbibing, drinking deep the love of Jesus. Gifts will all end. The love of Jesus will never end. And He has loved you all the way to the cross and the resurrection of the dead. And that is the love that endures even into eternity and it is the love that heals and binds His own church.
Your servant in Christ,
Pastor Tim Schneider