1 Corinthians 13:4-7 meaning
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 defines love as action, in a portrait that runs as one continuous sentence across four verses: Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (vv 4-7).
In the Greek text every item in the portrait is a verb—fifteen verbs in sequence:
- two actions love performs (patience and kindness),
- eight actions love turns away from (jealousy, bragging, arrogance, unbecoming actions, self-seeking, provocation, keeping account of wrongs, revelry in evil),
- one contrast that relocates love's joy (rejoicing in the truth), and
- four actions love sustains (bearing, believing, hoping, and enduring all things).
English translates several Greek verbs as "is" plus an adjective—is patient, is kind—where the Greek uses verbs of action. Thus, the grammar insists that “agape” love in Scripture is a choice and a commitment expressed in action. Agape-love is treating others as God treats us, and every verb in the portrait of love implies a person on the receiving end of a chosen action.
A reader can therefore test for love the way the verbs demand: watch what gets done. Love is the motive behind gaining profit that is eternal, as we saw in 1 Corinthians 13:3. At the judgment of believers, Jesus will judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart, and actions done in love are what will be rewarded.
Nearly every verb answers a failure this letter has already documented in Corinth: jealousy and strife (1 Corinthians 3:3), inflated speech (1 Corinthians 4:18-19), lawsuits over personal rights (1 Corinthians 6:1-7), the shaming of the poor at the supper (1 Corinthians 11:21-22). Paul will next speak of disorder in the assembly (1 Corinthians 14:23, 33, 40). Paul appears to have composed the definitional descriptor of love as a point-by-point answer to the problems in the Corinthian church.
Reading it as such turns an abstract poem about love into an evaluation procedure, and an invitation for the church at Corinth to repent. And through their experience we can learn also. As Paul stated in 1 Corinthians 10:11, what is written down is for our instruction, so we can learn through the mistakes of others.
Reading the portrait in its congregational setting provides an actionable context for our own lives, in our own families, communities, or congregations.
Love is patient (v 4). The word translated patient is the Greek verb "makrothumeo," built from "makros" (long) and "thumos" (temper, anger)—to be long-tempered, to take a long time to reach anger.
The verb describes patience with people. It is the disposition God announced as His own name when He passed before Moses: "The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth" (Exodus 34:6). The long-tempered believer treats the slow, the irritating, and the repeat offender the way God has treated him.
Love is kind (v 4). The word describes being useful and good toward someone, providing active benefit, goodness that does something. Patience is not affected by outward problems, kindness initiates good actions. Here again the standard is God's own conduct: "He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful" (Luke 6:35-36).
Kindness in the body of Christ extends usefulness to members who can return nothing, because that is how the Father extends it. Together the first two verbs set the portrait's frame: love takes a long time to experience anger toward people, and it takes a short time to become helpful. This concludes the two actions love performs. We now turn to the eight actions love turns away from.
Love is not jealous (v. 4). The verb is "zeloo," the same verb Paul used positively as a command a few sentences earlier: "earnestly desire ['zeloo'] the greater gifts" (1 Corinthians 12:31), and will use again to resume the argument: "desire earnestly ['zeloo'] spiritual gifts" (1 Corinthians 14:1).
Zeal is one engine with two possible aims. Aimed at the body of Christ's good, it is love in action. Aimed at another believer's gift, platform, or honor, the identical energy becomes the jealousy that tears communities apart. Love settles the aim. The member governed by love wants the body built more than he wants his own portion enlarged, which frees him to rejoice when another member is honored: "if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it" (1 Corinthians 12:26).
Love does not brag and is not arrogant (v 4). The Greek word rendered brag describes the self-displaying talker parading his advantages; this is its only appearance in the New Testament. The word rendered arrogant is the Greek verb "phusioo," to puff up or inflate, and its New Testament usage tells its own story: six of its seven occurrences are in this letter (1 Corinthians 4:6, 18, 19, 5:2, 8:1, 13:4). Paul states directly to the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 5:2, "You have become arrogant" in failing to deal with sin in their midst.
Inflation appears to have been Corinth's chronic problem and posture. Paul previously asserted that knowledge apart from love leads to arrogance: "Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies" (1 Corinthians 8:1). The point is to apply knowledge to benefit others rather than to elevate self. The actions love avoids continue.
Love does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own (v 5). Unbecoming conduct disregards how one's behavior lands on others. The wealthy eating their own suppers in front of hungry members (1 Corinthians 11:21-22) and the assembly of competing voices that would lead an unbeliever to conclude "you are mad" (1 Corinthians 14:23) were both Corinthian versions of it.
In stating that Agape-love does not seek its own (v 5), Paul states in the negative what he commanded earlier in the positive: "Let no one seek his own good, but that of his neighbor" (1 Corinthians 10:24). An example of seeking the best for others is Christian liberty self-limited for the sake of the weaker brother (1 Corinthians 8:9-13), rights laid down to benefit others, as Paul himself laid down his right to financial support (1 Corinthians 9:12, 15). It is gifts applied for the common good. Love relocates the focus of a person's seeking from himself to his neighbor.
The eight "is not" statements continue with love is not provoked (v 5). Where patience takes a long time to reach anger, this verb addresses the flash point: being set off, sparked into sharpness by another person's conduct. Love does not provoke, and it also does not react to provocation from others. When we have our eyes fixed on the rewards of the judgment seat of Christ, anchoring our desire for approval in the next life, it allows us to shrug off rejection in this life. This is how Jesus lived, "despising the shame" by keeping His eyes on "the joy set before Him," which was the reward of gaining all authority for His faithfulness (Hebrews 12:2).
When a believer is easily set off by provocation, it is an indication that his desire for affirmation rests in man rather than in Christ. It is an indicator that a shift in perspective is warranted.
The phrase rendered take into account in the clause love does not take into account a wrong suffered (v 5) translates the Greek verb "logizomai." This is an accounting term: to calculate, to enter in the ledger. Scripture uses the same verb for the greatest entries in God's own books: "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness" (Romans 4:3), and "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them" (2 Corinthians 5:19).
Love handles wrongs the way God handled ours—the ledger of offenses closes. Jesus prayed for the men nailing Him to the cross: "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34). A believer keeping a mental file of wrongs suffered is running an accounting system God shut down at the cross.
Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth (v 6). Love locates its joy where God locates His. We may celebrate unrighteousness because it gives us a sense of being justified for our own faults. Or perhaps it gives us a sense of superiority. But love does not seek such an avenue. Rather, love rejoices with the truth (v 6).
The verb rendered rejoices with is the same compound Paul used for the body's shared celebrations: "if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it" (1 Corinthians 12:26). Love throws in its joy with the truth wherever the truth wins, including when the truth honors someone else.
Four verbs, each with all things, close the portrait of love's action: love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (v 7). The use of all things indicates that love is the house built on a firm foundation that can endure any and all circumstances a believer might encounter.
The word rendered bears carries the sense of covering or concealing. Agape-love carries the weight of others' failures and shields them from exposure, as Peter wrote, "love covers a multitude of sins" (1 Peter 4:8). Covering a sin and condoning a sin differ at the point of exposure: love addresses the failure with the person and seeks their restoration rather than their destruction.
Agape-love also believes all things: love extends trust first, reading others' words and actions in the best light truth allows. A congregation whose members read one another generously has closed most of the openings through which offense enters. Offense is the bait of Satan; he is the accuser, and he desires division. Love seeks truth and unity at the same time.
Agape-action-love also hopes all things. Whatever tide of negative circumstances we encounter in a fallen world, love keeps hope alive regardless of the darkness. Love expects God's promised good ultimate outcome and keeps expecting it through disappointments.
Hope in Scripture is the confident expectation that God will deliver what He promised, and love applies that expectation to people. Love keeps praying toward, working toward, and watching for what God can yet do in them. Ultimately, our hope is in a full restoration promised in an age that is to come. Agape-love puts that hope into action.
Agape-love also endures all things. Love prevails under the weight of adversity. The verb describes the steadfastness that carries a soldier through a campaign—remaining at one's post under fire. Love outlasts the offense, the dry season, and the difficult member. Love perseveres through seasons of difficulty in relationships, illness, or disappointment. The four verbs of verse 7 work as one motion: love covers what it finds, trusts what it can, hopes for what is promised, and remains steadfast until hope is realized.
Agape-love's demanding portrait requires divine empowerment. No human can even come close to living up to this standard. But every believer has full access to the unlimited resurrection power of Jesus. Every believer is indwelt by the Spirit. So the key to the full exercise of love is to walk in the provided power.
Agape-love heads the list of the Spirit's fruit (Galatians 5:22). God pours His love into believers' hearts through the Spirit (Romans 5:5). The fifteen verbs in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 describe what the Spirit produces in a believer who walks in step with Him, following the Spirit's lead and leaning on the Spirit’s power.
Jesus specified the precondition for believers' effectiveness as choosing to abide in Him: "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). The believer's assignment is the walk of dependence; the verbs are the fruit that walk bears.
The agape portrait Paul paints matches the recorded life of Jesus. He was long-tempered with twelve slow learners, kind to the ungrateful, free of self-seeking. He "did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28). He asked His Father to forgive those who executed Him (Luke 23:34). The fifteen verbs describe the example we have already been given by Jesus our Lord. Loving other members of the body means walking in those footsteps through the power He has provided.
These verses are often read at weddings and are often considered beautiful and poetic. This is for good reason; they are exceedingly aspirational words. But they are intended as a challenge. They are a standard to live up to; a standard Jesus set. He gave us the power of the Spirit; now it is for us to walk in it. These verses give us a tangible measure to track our progress.
Every verb in the portrait is a deed done in the body, the kind of work that withstands the judgment fire of 1 Corinthians 3:13-14, meaning the kind the Lord will reward. Living up to this standard of agape-love is what the Lord promises to reward. As Paul says in his letter to Colossae:
"Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance."
(Colossians 3:23-24)
The way of love is how the spiritual gifts described in Chapter 12 are to be applied. The next section states how far the path goes: past the gifts themselves, into eternity.