Love

February 14 is Valentine’s Day, the day we set aside to celebrate love. Love means many things to many people: warm fuzzy feelings, romantic dinners, a special someone. While love biblically defined doesn’t preclude any of those things, it does have a sharper focus and a more practical bent. To love someone, biblically speaking, means to seek their well-being, even at cost to yourself.

1 Corinthians 13 is the great “love chapter” of the Bible. While it is often read at weddings (and certainly does have something to say about marriage), it actually applies first to believers generally in their relationship to one another in the church. Notice how the chapter is sandwiched between a discussion  on cooperation (ch. 12) and spiritual gifts and worship (ch. 14).

Paul tells us in verses 1-3 that there is no substitute for love. Talk (v 1), knowledge (v 2), and religious devotion (v 3) may be good things, but they cannot take its place

In verses 4-8 Paul paints what is arguably the best picture of love ever:

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;  it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

These words define love without killing it. They give it shape and a robust vitality. They are a yardstick by which to measure our own love for others. They move love out of the mushy and sentimental into the day-to-day reality of life.

Finally, Paul shows us how love is an aspect of Christian maturity. There is a permanence to it, a rock –like quality.  Other aspects of the Christian life may pass away, if not in this life, then in heaven. But love remains.

Taken together, the verses of 1 Corinthians 13 show us Christ. They describe how he loved. He wasn’t just noise, he wasn’t just sentimental mush, he wasn’t just a flash in the pan. His love sought our well-being, even at unspeakable cost to himself.

How is your love life?

(posted 2/15/10)