Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Corinthians · About this commentary
Love Is Patient and Is Kind
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
4 Love is patient and is kind. Love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud, · WEB
Love is defined by what it does and refuses to do, and almost every item on the list names something the Corinthians were doing.
Love is patient and is kind 1 Corinthians 13:4.
The definition is made of verbs rather than adjectives — love is not a state but a way of behaving toward people. It begins with two positives, and they are the two God is said to be toward us: slow to anger, and kind Exodus 34:6 Romans 2:4 Titus 3:4. Patience bears with people over time; kindness does something for them.
Love doesn't envy. Love doesn't brag, is not proud 1 Corinthians 13:4.
Then the negatives begin, and this is where the chapter stops being an ornament and becomes a charge sheet. Doesn't envy — the church that could not rejoice when another member was honored 1 Corinthians 12:26. Doesn't brag — the boasting named in eight verses of this letter 1 Corinthians 1:29 1 Corinthians 4:7. Is not proud is literally not puffed up, the word used of them four times 1 Corinthians 4:6 1 Corinthians 4:18 1 Corinthians 5:2 1 Corinthians 8:1. Read in place, this passage is not a wedding text. It is the previous twelve chapters turned into a portrait of what was missing.
Doesn't behave itself inappropriately, doesn't seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil 1 Corinthians 13:5.
The indictment continues. Behaving inappropriately covers the disorder at the supper and in the assembly 1 Corinthians 11:21 1 Corinthians 14:40. Doesn't seek its own way is the principle already stated twice as the answer to the whole idol-food dispute 1 Corinthians 10:24 1 Corinthians 10:33. Takes no account of evil is a bookkeeping image — love does not maintain the ledger, which is precisely what people in lawsuits do 1 Corinthians 6:7.
Doesn't rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth 1 Corinthians 13:6.
A congregation that had been arrogant about a tolerated scandal 1 Corinthians 5:2 is told that love does not take satisfaction in wrong. And the counterpart is not rejoices in righteousness but with the truth — love is on truth's side, which forecloses any reading of this chapter that makes love a reason to leave sin unaddressed. The most loving chapter in Scripture sits eight chapters after an instruction to discipline a member.
Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things 1 Corinthians 13:7.
Four verbs with the same object, all things, and they describe a disposition toward people rather than a naivety about facts. To believe all things is not credulity — it is the readiness to take the better construction where the evidence allows, the opposite of the suspicion that fills a divided church. And endures is where the list ends, which is the honest note: love in this letter is not primarily a feeling but a staying power, the thing that keeps a body together while its members are still wrong about a great deal.
settled What this mark means