1 Corinthians 13:5 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

Navigator

1 Corinthians 13:5

Comments

‘Does not behave itself unseemly.’ It is a difficult term in the Greek to translate, but love doesn’t behave itself in a way that is not acceptable, a way that is shameful. It means something like this – love doesn’t behave tactlessly. Love doesn’t make a fool of other people. It doesn’t hurt or injure, for example by betraying confidences. It never intimidates or belittles. It isn't scornful or abusive or betraying in any sense. If he does something foolish, or she does something foolish, love doesn’t until there are guests present or the children are around, and then make fun of it before the crowd, to belittle, to humiliate. That is what it means to behave in a way that is unseemly. Love does not act cruelly or without respect. Love cannot do that. ‘Seeketh not her own’, does not seek its own way, its own pleasure. What does the other person want? How does the other person see it? Love does not act selfishly. Human selfishness! – only love can conquer it. How we need to cultivate love. This alone can conquer our selfishness.‘Is not easily provoked.’ It does not fly into tempers at the slightest thing. Our word paroxysm is drawn almost directly from the Greek word. Love is not easily provoked, it isn’t easily angered, it isn’t easily embittered. Paroxysms are manifestations of pride, apart from anything else. It knows how to mortify the rising temperature within and to put it down and to choke back the word. ‘Thinketh no evil.’ Love does not constantly suspect the motives of others in the church, in the family. Some people say it means, plans no harm. But the most likely sense – because the Greek means something like this – is, love keeps no record of wrongs.

Application

Love keeps no record of wrongs done to you by others. You have forgiven somebody, something they said, something that may have been quite serious. You have forgiven your husband, you have forgiven you wife. Do you know what that means? That means you have forgotten it, and you are not going to bring it up again. It is gone, it is finished. We tell people this when they are getting married. It isn’t in a record book, so that you can bring out the long list of complaints. And some people can even remember the dates and the time of day when this or that was said or done or happened. But love forgets; it forgives and forgets. Aren’t we so thankful that even the Lord of glory, who knows all things, chooses, as only the divine mind can do, to put our sins out of his recollection. That is an amazing and an unfathomable and a profound thing. We must do that to each other. There is no simmering. ‘I have forgiven you, but deep down I haven’t really. It is on a record book that I carry about inside me, and it is coming out again one day.’ It does not think upon the evil; it does not keep an account.

One of the old church fathers said, ‘It is rather like this. It is rather like a spark falling into the sea. It can’t harm the sea. So it is with this kind of love: , it just drowns and quenches aggravation and irritations. We should love the person. Do you have esteem and respect for a fellow Christian, and that fellow Christian does something which is potentially aggravating? It doesn't hurt you, it doesn’t send you into a paroxysm, because you have respect and affection for that person. Love gets over all these little things, and most of them really are little things. But touchiness and oversensitivity is due to pride and selfishness, which allows us to get like that.

1Are you married? Do you find things that your husband does make you angry so easily; things that your wife does make you irritated? Do you know why that is? Because you haven’t been expressing love, because you have become selfish in your marriage, because your love is being eroded away. Love is not easily angered, because love for that person prevails over all these things.

Husbands, wives, never talk to third parties about intimate things, or be critical of your husband, your wife. Love will never do anything shameful, underhanded, or deceitful. ‘Unseemly’ is a powerful word that covers all those things, and it convicts us. It urges us to have real love and affection for husband, wife, fellow believers.

Questions

Outline

Purpose

Introduction

1 Corinthians 13:5 Commentary and Bible Study