Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

—1 Corinthians 13:7

First Corinthians 13, sometimes called the Love Chapter, has become one of the most famous chapters in the Bible. Since the Bible tells us that God is love (1 John 4:8), it is fitting that this beautiful description of love should be well-known. The apostle Paul used the word love nine times in this short chapter and colorfully and powerfully illustrated what it is and is not.

1 Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Paul used the Greek word agape, one of several Greek words that can be translated love. Agape in the New Testament is used to describe the deep, constant, unselfish love that is God’s very nature. Agape is God’s love often described as “unconditional love” by Christians. It is unconditional in the sense that it does not depend on the one being loved, but on the commitment of the one who is loving. Love that is passive is not the most important kind of love, but it is the active love that we give others that is more powerful and true in God’s eyes.

Paul uses fourteen active verbs to describe love. Seven are positive statements about what love does, and the other seven are negative statements about what love does not do. In all cases, true Christian love is about setting one’s self aside for the good of other. Lack of love was at the heart of nearly all the problems Paul had confronted in his letter to the Corinthians.

Love is patient and kind. It actively waits and actively moves for the good of others. On the other hand, love doesn’t envy or boast, not even regarding the spiritual gifts of one’s self or others. Love is not arrogant, convinced of one’s superiority over others. Love is not rude, meaning that it does not act indecently, sinning, and breaking cultural norms to bring attention to one’s self.

Those who love like this have given up on seeking their own status and satisfaction first and foremost. Instead, they genuinely commit themselves to seeking good for others. Because of that, they don’t get irritable or provoked when other people get in their way. The other people are the point, not the obstacle. Love also means truly letting go of past hurts instead of storing them up and keeping a record or wrongs.

Love refuses to take any joy or pleasure from wrongdoing. Instead, it declares that which is true, and is worth celebrating above all. Love loves the truth. Love doesn’t set limits on love. Love does not declare, “This far and no further.” Love bears, or puts up with, all things for the good of other believers. That is true even if that means loving from a greater distance to avoid the active abuse of others. Just because a church may reject LGBTQ+ people does not mean that God does not love us, but that those who call themselves Christian but reject others are not doing God’s will. They are actively working against God, and sometimes we have to find other ways to worship and love God. We do that by actively loving others and not dwelling on rejection, because no true Christian would reject anyone.

Love believes all things, pushing the burden of truthfulness onto others instead of carrying the burden of uncovering falsehood. By rejecting someone and making love conditional, we are not showing love but hatred. Love doesn’t stop hoping for other believers to do good, no matter the evidence of the past. Just because many churches preach hate, does not mean that we can stop loving and worshipping God because others make us feel unwanted, but it means remaining faithful to God’s love against all odds. Love doesn’t quit when the trials of life pile up. Love keeps going.

God is love. God in His love wants us to welcome His love and guidance. Paul begins 1 Corinthians 13 by describing just how useless, even destructive, spiritual gifts are when not applied from the standpoint of love. He tells us that it doesn’t matter how pious we appear or how we display our spiritual gifts are worthless if not used as intended by God, out of a heart of love for Him and others. Even the most extreme selfless acts, such as selling everything to give to the poor and becoming a martyr in the name of God, gains a person nothing if not given in love. We can show all the things we do for others, but if it is not given in unconditional love, then it means nothing.

Paul sums it up: Love never fails. Christians may fail to love, as the Corinthians had demonstrated and many modern Christians do today, but God’s kind of love will always be effective and will last forever.

Historical Note about the Celebration of Love:

Wednesday is Valentine’s Day, and love is in the air. Saint Valentine is the name of one or two legendary Christian martyrs. Valentine was a popular name in ancient Rome, and there are at least 50 stories of different saints by that name. But the earliest surviving accounts of the two February 14 Valentines, written starting in the 500s, have a lot in common. Both were imprisoned for performing secret weddings and said to have healed a child during their captivity which led to the whole household’s conversion to Christianity. Both Saint Valentines were said to be executed on February 14 around the year 270 and buried along the same highway.

However, neither story mentions romance. In fact, Valentine’s Day only became associated with love in the late Middle Ages, thanks to the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. No record exists of romantic celebrations on Valentine’s Day prior to a poem Chaucer wrote around 1375.

In his work “Parliament of Foules,” he links a tradition of courtly love with the celebration of St. Valentine’s feast day–an association that didn’t exist until after his poem received widespread attention. The poem refers to February 14 as the day birds, as well as humans, come together to find a mate.