Familiar words:
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. . (ESV)
How many weddings have you gone to and heard these words given as some guide to make your marriage work? "Just be all of this and everything will work out" Wrong!
There is no earthly way of doing any one of them in our own flesh and selfishness.
Consider the first verses of chapter 13 in I Corinthians:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 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. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Now in the above exchange the word love for God or better yet, Jesus.
So here is my point. Love referred to in this chapter is not human love. It is the supernatural love of Jesus as He hung on the cross. Agape love!
In the original language the English word translation was charity. Charity was substituted 28 times in the new testament. It has little to do with giving money away. It has everything to do with why Christ stayed on His cross.
Seriously great sermon on these verses:
John Piper-Dying as a means of loving-part-2
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