1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

What we have there is simply the greatest description of love ever written. It is as full and complete a description of love, and what it is, as can be found anywhere. Actually, since it is God’s description, I think we need to say it IS the best description.

Dr. Phil, of the daytime talk show, does a rather neat thing in his show quite often. As they run off to a commercial for the last break, he says something like this: “When we come back, I am going to put verbs in my sentences and tell you what I think and what I think you need to to.” All he is really saying is that it is time to move from talking and feeling to doing.

In the above passage, Paul has put verbs in his sentences. I am as far from a Greek scholar as East is from the West, so look this up for yourself; what we have here is not a lot of adjectives describing love. What we see in that passage is nothing but verbs describing what love does.

Does this all sound familiar? Biblical love is NOT primarily a feeling; Biblical love is primarily a set of actions. We have to put legs on our love and let it walk around, or it is meaningless. In upcoming Devotions, we are going to dig into some of the ways Paul has taught us that our love can actually be expressed.

Advertisement