Ephesians 4:1–3 (ESV) 1 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Strong Relationships are built on love, grow with patience, deepen through forgiveness, and are sustained by humility
Strong Relationships are “built on love.”
1 Corinthians 13:4–8a (ESV) 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. 8 Love never ends…
Agape Love…
Agape: “the quality of warm regard for an interest in another.” It is a love that is concerned with the well-being of another person. To love another person does include having affinity or affection for them, but it means more than that: it means wanting good things for them and working towards that end. It’s to see them improve. The verb agapaō most often means “value, set great store by, hold in high esteem”; it is a love with deep respect, which often goes along with admiration and can become adoration. “Unlike other loves, which can remain hidden in the heart, it is essential to charity to manifest itself, to demonstrate itself, to provide proofs, to put itself on display; so much so that in the New Testament it would almost always be necessary to translate agapē as “demonstration of love.””
“Love is not an affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.” ~ C.S. Lewis
1 Corinthians 13:4-5 (ESV) Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
In describing what love is, Paul begins with a twofold description of love being “patient and kind.” Being patient means to persevere through hardship, being long-suffering with someone.This is a way of tying the character of God into his description of love, “who through Christ has shown himself forbearing and kind toward those who deserve divine judgment.” Here “patient” means “to bear up under provocation…” that is, to be “patient in suffering.”
Love means to persevere through hardship, being long-suffering with someone.
While being patient can many times be a passive verb, “kindness is the more active counterpart to patience.” “Love” being kind means to be good in all circumstances, to be benevolent and favorable, even when it is not earned or deserved. Kindness has to do with actions that specifically demonstrate compassion and mercy. “Kindness recognizes that everyone carries a heavy load.”
Love means to be gracious, benevolent, and favorable to someone, even when it is not earned or deserved.
1 Corinthians 13:4-5 (ESV) Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
In the whole letter of 1 Corinthians, Paul warns them that jealousy and strife are marks of being “worldly.” It seems as though the strife that marked this church came through multiple ways, especially among those of different social statuses. Those of higher social status appeared to humiliate those who have nothing, get drunk at dinners while the poorer had nothing, and appeared to use to use the legal system to their advantage while those of lesser means could not. This would have created a high contrast between the different social statuses and easily could have been cause for envy. “The envy which is carried over from a status-seeking, non-Christian Corinthian culture into the Christian church is … deemed to be incompatible with love…” It is also possible that some who were better off financially and socially found themselves envious of the spiritual gifts of some of the poorer members of the congregation.
Love does not foster competition or status-seeking against others.
How can I best serve those for whom Christ died, regardless of my own desires?
The King James Version, in good ‘ole Elizabethan English, says that “charity… vaunteth not itself.” Love does not brag about itself or its good actions. Love does not parade oneself in order to gain adoring fans or followers who are impressed by its benevolent activity.
Love does not parade itself to gain attention or adoration.
“It is not possible to ‘boast’ and love at the same time. The one action wants others to think highly of oneself, whether deserving or not; the other cares for none of that, but only for the good of the community as a whole.” ~ Gordon Fee
1 Corinthians 13:4-5 (ESV) Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is notarrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
Love is not “puffed up,” it does not have an inflated ego. Love does not think excessively highly (or low) of oneself. Love teaches us not to be arrogant, but being reflective in our motives and behaviors. You cannot both love someone and desire to impress them. “How much behavior among believers and even ministers is actually ‘attention seeking’ designed to impress others with one’s own supposed importance?”
Love does not have an inflated ego, and has no need to be impressive.
This could be translated, “it does not behave with ill-mannered impropriety,” or behaving dishonorably, or acting indecently or improperly.
Love does not act or speak in any way that would cause dishonor to God, ourselves, or others.
1 Corinthians 13:4-5 (ESV) Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
Love understands its opposite to be, “thoughtlessly pursuing the immediate gratification of the self, despite what is good for others.” Love does not seek its own interest or edification, but seeks the interest and edification of others. Paul is asserting that love seeks the good, the advantage, and the edification of others. Love is not forceful in getting its own way, it does not put “me first.” It is not demanding of its own rights or privileges. Love is not self-centered in any way, but others-oriented. “Love is characterized by having regard for others. It is the dynamic, creative endeavor of finding ways to pursue the welfare of others rather than one’s own interests.”
Love does not force to get its own way, and does not put “me first.”
“[Love] does not believe that ‘finding oneself’ is the highest good; it is not enamored with self-gain, self-justification, self-worth. To the contrary, it seeks the good of one’s neighbor—or enemy.” ~ Gordon Fee
1 Corinthians 13:4-5 (ESV) Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
Tying into the characteristic of love being patient in verse 4, here love is not easily provoked to anger, but is able to be patient with someone without being easily angered or upset. Love does not carry a “low-grade fever” of anger seething beneath the surface of an otherwise chill demeanor.
Love is able to be patient with someone without being easily angered or upset.
Not being resentful carries a few meanings. Love does not set its mind on evil at all. It’s not just avoiding evil actions, it’s not pondering evil thoughts at all. It also means that love does not keep a record of wrong done to it. A person who is marked by love does not keep score in any relationship. It refuses to allow a hardness of heart towards others.
Love does not keep score or harden the heart with one another.
“Just as God in Christ does not ‘reckon our sins against us’, so the one who loves does not take notice of the evil done against him/her in the sense that no records are kept, waiting for God or man to settle the score.” ~ Gordon Fee
1 Corinthians 13:6 (ESV) it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
Paul could be referring to “malicious joy or gloating over people’s failures” or even being “overly ready to delight in prophetic rebuke and pronouncing judgment on failures within the congregation.” Especially since chapter 13 is nestled between the two chapters Paul is giving direction on how the church should behave when gathered together, and the proper exercise of their numerous spiritual gifts.
- 13:6 (NLT) It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.
- 13:6 (MSG) Doesn’t revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
- 13:6 (TPT) Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no delight in what is wrong.
Love takes no delight in people’s failures or their deception, but is joyful when truth and justice prevail.
1 Corinthians 13:7 (ESV) Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
- 1 Corinthians 13:7 (NLT) Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
- 1 Corinthians 13:7 (MSG) Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end.
- 1 Corinthians 13:7 (TPT) Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up.
One way this could be translated, if only looking at one level of meaning:
Love “never gives in (to the pressures of the world), never gives up its faith (in the Lord), never loses its hope (in the future he has for us), never fails to endure.”
Love never gives up. It never quits. It never dies or comes to extinction. It perseveres or endures through all the challenges of this life and finds itself alive and well in all the ages to come, in all of eternity.
- 1 Corinthians 13:8a (NKJV) Love never fails… (ESV) Love never ends… (NLT) Love will last forever! (MSG) Love never dies…. (TPT) Love never stops loving…
Conclusion
John 13:34–35 (ESV) 34 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Love is the only sure foundation in life. It is the critical foundation of our relationship with God and the necessary foundation for our relationships with one another. We first have to see clearly that this is how God loves us, and in seeing how much he loves us, we can then love one another with the same love.
1 John 4:19 (ESV) We love because he first loved us.
1 Corinthians 3:3, 11:21-22, 6:1-8
1 Corinthians 1:4-7
1 Corinthians 8:1-3 (NKJV) “Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.”
Gordon Fee, God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 638
Cross-reference 1 Corinthians 13:5, “does not insist on its own way” with 1 Corinthians 10:23-33.
Michael J. Gorman, Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross, 160
Cross-reference with Philippians 2:4-10; Gordon Fee, God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 638
See 2 Corinthians 5:19 (or the larger context of 2 Corinthians 5:16-21)
Gordon Fee, God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 639
See Luke 6:47-49 — Jesus says obedience to his words are like building a solid foundation for our lives.
See 1 John 4:7-21