Love is the Greatest of These. See Why According to Paul

Hannah Morris

Love is the Greatest of These

“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” Love is the greatest of these. 1 Corinthians 13

Isn’t it astounding that a middle-aged, male, first-century jew wrote one of the greatest expositions on love? And yet there it is, in plain Greek, nestled in my bible. It leaves me gawking anytime I flip to its page. 

Paul starts off his letter to the Corinthian church in a powerful way: by declaring love’s value.

Love, the Apostle says, outshines any virtue we could have as Christians.

We’re told from a young age that we must obtain certain attributes, such as faith, discipline, peace, knowledge, purity, etc. All good and necessary things.

Only Paul has the boldness to declare with certainty that without love, any virtue we can boast in in this life is virtually worthless. Cheap. Rubbish.

Without Love Everything is Meaningless

You have the spiritual gift of tongues, friend, but no love? You might as well be fluent in gibberish.

You’re knowledgeable and understanding? Without love, a newborn child has greater faculty of mind than you.

Do you have a spiritual treasury? That’s wonderful. Ah, but no love? Look down at your hands, friend; they are empty.

Paul not only states that love is better than any spiritual virtue we could possess but that it is only by love that we obtain virtue truly. Without love, any pretense of having spiritual treasures is null and void. 

Loves Behavior

After dropping that bomb on his readers, the Apostle moves on to discuss what love actively does. He gets into some down-to-earth, mundane descriptions of love’s behaviors here. Love doesn’t boast or hold grudges. It doesn’t have a temper. It doesn’t insist on having its way. He doesn’t leave it there, though.

Paul ascends the mundane by providing a succinct, concentrated description of love’s character.

Love constantly does four things in any scenario: it bears, believes, hopes, and endures everything. And it’s in these four absolutely connected points we find why love is so valuable.

 Love is the character of God. And by it, we obtain everything else we need. Hannah Morris

Love Bears All Things

In the text, “bear” comes from the word στέγει (stegō), meaning “cover.” It’s the word that’s the root of Stegosaurus. You know, the same dinosaur, Spike, was from The Land Before Time series. But I digress. 

Stegō means to preserve, protect by covering, and keep off something threatening. 

God is not subject to the universe He created. He does not change with a world that can’t stop. God is not injured in a creation marred with pain. Time does not make lines on God’s face; He weaves all timelines in His fingers.

Even they will perish, but You endure;
And all of them will wear out like a garment;
Like clothing, You will change them, and they will be changed.
But You are the same,
And Your years will not come to an end. -Psalm 102:26-27

Love can’t be separated from God, and so it withstands everything. It cannot be truly injured or damaged to the point of obliteration. If a storm tosses a little boat on the Sea of Galilee, love walks on the waves and isn’t bothered by the rain. Only love can bear being spat on and whipped. Only love can withstand public shame, nudity, and crucifixion. Only love can experience death and live to tell about it. 

Having love means having hold of the one thing in this whole world that is truly indestructible. If God cannot be obliterated, then love cannot. If we have love, we have God. And if we have love, we are protected from anything that would harm us. From anything that could weary us. From anything that would be a threat. Oh, death, where is thy sting?

Love believes all things.

The word “believes” means to credit, place confidence in, to acknowledge the fact. If this is love, then how does God exemplify this? When I say, God believes, I don’t mean to imply there is any possibility God could be convinced by a lie. Here’s something to chew on, though. 

God fully understands and is convinced, without fault or failure, of His own character.

Do you ever notice how matter-of-factly God talks at any given time, whether in the Old or New Testament? When asked who He was by Moses, God replies, ‘I AM WHO I AM.” (Exodus 3:14). In the face of non-belief, God “laughs at the wicked, for He sees his day is coming.” (Psalm 37:1) 

I can only imagine what fire was in the eyes of Jesus when He looked at Peter -the man we remember for denying Christ under pressure- and said, “on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18) Jesus didn’t say that with conviction because Peter was perfect, but because He knew God was perfect. God fully knows what is because He fully knows Himself. 

Am I falling down a rabbit hole here? I’ll move on to say that love is fully rooted in the truth of who God is. And so, with love, we can acknowledge what is truly real. With love, we can be thoroughly convinced and give credit to our Father in Heaven. It is with it that we fully know God’s character. It acknowledges His handiwork in our lives and in the world. It also sees that He is infinitely and unwaveringly good. 

That is Why Love Hopes all Things.

“Hope” in this chapter means more than blindly wishing for something. It means to anticipate with pleasure. It is a joyful, confident expectation. Love, because it knows God, enables us to anticipate goodness. Like a giddy child jumping out of bed on Christmas morning, hope jumps with excitement at the prospect of God’s goodness. 

It’s around this part where all points converge, and we can finally begin to see why Paul says love is so incredibly worth having. God has no beginning or end. He doesn’t feed off anything; He sustains Himself with Himself. He is totally undamageable and knows all things. He is infinitely good. 

Love is the same way. True love is. Love cannot be destroyed or broken because God cannot. Love is fully convinced of the truth and sees the reality of God. It fully entrusts in the indestructible character of God. Because of this, love rejoices with lasting hope. Love looks at the world with eyes unclouded and says, “I know God will do it, and I can’t wait till He does.” And because love sustains itself by virtue of its own character, it will survive when everything else fades.

Love Endures all Things. 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand’ring bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

-William Shakespeare

To Him who is able,

Hannah 

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Love is the Greatest of These