THE MANNER OF LOVE
I CORINTHIANS 13
INTRODUCTION: I Corinthians 13 is often used as a text in weddings, quoted in Valentine’s Day cards and applied to the love between a man and a woman. However, this passage of Scripture is to be understood in light of its context. Paul is writing to the church at Corinth and is addressing the problems in the church. While the statements in this passage can and ought to apply to the love that a couple have toward each other, it primarily is speaking of how love is to be demonstrated within the church between believers. It is important to note that there are four Greek words which are translated “love” – Eros, which refers to passionate love including love between the sexes, the fervent patriotic love of a citizen, and ambition for power, wealth, or recognition; Storge, which is the affectionate love between a parent and child; Phileo, an endearing love between husband and wife, closest of friends, and brother for brother; Agape, divine love that loves even if a person does not deserve it or is completely unworthy of being loved. Agape love is a gift from God and can only be possessed by born-again believers. Paul says in the closing verse of I Corinthians 12 that he is going to show the church a more excellent way of conducting church – the agape way. In I Corinthians 13, Paul then stresses the necessity for the believer to demonstrate agape love in the church as a way of life.
I. The Importance of Love (1-3)
A. Talk without love is meaningless – 1
1. Ephesians 4:15 exhorts us to “Speak the truth in love.”
2. More people have been brought into the church by the kindness of real Christian love than by all the theological arguments in the world, and more people have been driven from the church by the hardness and ugliness of so-called Christianity than by all the doubts in the world. - William Barclay, Leadership, Vol. 9, no. 3.
B. Spiritual Gifts without love are worthless – 2
1. Paul says without love the exercise of supernatural gifts amounts to nothing. Note that he does not say he is a nobody but that he is an absolute zero.
2. All courage, skill and faith are nothing, if they are not judged according to love. - Ulrich Zwingli
C. Giving without love is profitless – 3
1. 2 Corinthians 9:7 Every man according as he purposes in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loves a cheerful giver.
2. Without love, almsgiving is no more important an action than brushing your hair or washing your hands, and the Pharisees had just as elaborate a ritual for those things as they had for alms, too, because all these things were prescribed by law, and had to be done so. But love does not give money, it gives itself. If it gives itself first and a lot of money too, that is all the better. But first it must sacrifice itself. - Thomas Merton in Run to the Mountain: The Journals of Thomas Merton
II. The Performance of Love (4-7)
A. Love suffers a long time without resentment, anger or seeking revenge whether by wrong or neglect - 4
1. Colossians 3:13 Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
2. Never does the human soul appear as strong as when it foregoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury. - Edwin Hubbel Chapin
3. Luke 17:3-4 Take heed to yourselves: If your brother trespass against you, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turns again to you, saying, I repent; you shall forgive him.
B. Love is courteous and helpful – 4
1. Love is not communicated in the big event but in the small acts of kindness.
2. Ephesians 4:32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.
3. Kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.
C. Love does not envy nor attack another’s abilities or successes – 4
1. Galatians 5:26 Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.
2. The man who keeps busy helping the man below him won’t have time to envy the man above him.
D. Love does not seek recognition or applause – 4
1. Romans 12:3 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
2. An admirer once asked Leonard Bernstein, celebrated orchestra conductor, what was the hardest instrument to play. He replied without hesitation: “Second fiddle. I can always get plenty of first violinists, but to find one who plays second violin with as much enthusiasm or second French horn or second flute, now that’s a problem. And yet if no one plays second, we have no harmony." – James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988), p. 450.
E. Love does not think itself better than others, not arrogant – 4
1. A know-it-all always seems to have the solution to every problem right in the hollow of his head.
2. Luke 22:26 But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve.
F. Love is not rude or unmannerly but acts orderly treating others with respect – 5
· We may disagree, but we do not have to be disagreeable.
G. Love is not selfish insisting on its own rights or way – 5
1. The secret of every discord in Christian homes and communities and churches is that we seek our own way and our own glory.
2. A selfish heart loves for what it can get--a Christ-like heart loves for what it can give.
3. 1 Corinthians 10:24 Let no one seek his own, but each one another’s.
H. Love is not quick to take offence – 5
1. James 1:19 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:
2. Speak when you’re angry--and you’ll make the best speech you’ll ever regret.
I. Love is not resentful holding on to or dwelling on the wrong done – 5
· Romans 12:17 Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.
J. Love does not take pleasure in seeing others stumble – 6
· Matthew 7:3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
K. Love takes pleasure when others are promoted or succeed – 6
L. Love does not seek to expose the weaknesses or sins of others – 7
1. 1 Peter 4:8 And above all things have fervent love to yourselves, for love will cover a multitude of sins.
2. Proverbs 10:12 Hatred stirs up fights, but love covers all sins.
M. Love is eager to always believe the best in others – 7
1. This does not mean being gullible, but having faith in fellow believers.
2. Goethe wrote that his mother said, "I always seek the good that is in people and leave the bad to Him who made mankind and knows how to round off the corners." All too often we look for the bad and overlook the good.
N. Love refuses to accept failure or give up – 7
1. Whatever the injustice, the malice, the cruelty of others can inflict love perseveres and refuses to quit.
2. Never cease loving a person and never give up hope for him, for even the Prodigal Son who had fallen most low could still be saved. The bitterest enemy and also he who was your friend could again be your friend; love that has grown cold can kindle again. – Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
O. Love stands firm against anything seeking to cause it to become unloving – 7
1. 1 Corinthians 15:58 So that, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not without fruit in the Lord.
2. Satan will seek every opportunity to destroy love and bring strife. Agape love stands firm against his assaults.
3. Disturbers are to be rebuked, the low-spirited to be encouraged, the infirm to be supported, objectors confuted, the treacherous guarded against, the unskilled taught, the lazy aroused, the contentious restrained, the haughty repressed, litigants pacified, the poor relieved, the oppressed liberated, the good approved, the evil borne with, and all are to be loved. - Aurelius Augustine,
III. The Supremacy of Love (8-13)
A. Love is Permanent – 8
1. Agape love is divine love. It is God’s love. God loved us and came to rescue us because He loved us, and His love never ends.
2. Jeremiah 31:3 The Lord has appeared to me from afar, saying, Yea, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with loving-kindness I have drawn you.
B. Love is Superior to Everything – 13
1. Faith, hope, love - Are the sum of perfection on earth; love alone is the sum of perfection in heaven.
2. In Heaven we will not have need of faith and hope for we shall see, but love will be perfected, we shall perfectly love God and our fellow believer.
