The Agape Love of God
Although we can experience God’s love, it remains impossible to fully comprehend.
I thought about this long and hard over the past week and realized that the Apostle Paul gave us a mirror image of God’s love in his letter to the Corinthians.
Many of us have borrowed lines from 1 Corinthians 13 in order to express our love to a girlfriend or boyfriend, or to a fiancé, or to our husbands or wives written in a card or in a special letter on a milestone anniversary.
As a pastor, I frequently quote from this passage during wedding ceremonies. The words are so appropriate and carry a ton of meaning when it comes to the subject of true love.
As we read through the passage together, I want to point out that the word the apostle uses for the word “love” is the Greek word “agape.”
Agape love is the highest form of love. It’s not the sappy love shared between two people attracted to each other, nor is it the brotherly love that best friends have for one another. It’s actually a love that “does” something. The immediate example is what Jesus “did” on the cross.
The first three verses of 1 Corinthians 13 say, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.”
The Apostle Paul is writing this section of his letter in response to the Corinthian church elevating spiritual gifts and prophecy above all else in the church.
His frustration is easily detected in his exaggerated expressions. Did you catch them?
Nobody has all of these abilities, but the apostle is declaring, “If I had all these abilities but lacked “agape” I would be totally bankrupt!”
He goes on to say in verse four, “Love suffers long and is kind.”
Love suffers long? Yes, agape love does. Agape love stays in-step with another through the hardships and through the thick and thin circumstances of each other’s lives. It does not give up.
Continuing in verse four through the first part of verse six, the apostle shifts his attention to a list of things that agape love does not do, “Love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity.”
Can you imagine Jesus displaying any of these behaviors? The answer is a resounding “no.”
As he continues in the last part of verse six through verse seven, the Apostle Paul pivots to list a series of things that agape love does, “But rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
Agape love is a love that “does” something.
The apostle ends this portion of his letter in verse eight with these three powerful words, “Love never fails”.
I encourage you to read the rest of this short chapter as the Apostle Paul exhorts the Christians in Corinth to make agape love, the reflective love of God, their most coveted gift to attain.
May we do the same!
Pastor Adam
I thought about this long and hard over the past week and realized that the Apostle Paul gave us a mirror image of God’s love in his letter to the Corinthians.
Many of us have borrowed lines from 1 Corinthians 13 in order to express our love to a girlfriend or boyfriend, or to a fiancé, or to our husbands or wives written in a card or in a special letter on a milestone anniversary.
As a pastor, I frequently quote from this passage during wedding ceremonies. The words are so appropriate and carry a ton of meaning when it comes to the subject of true love.
As we read through the passage together, I want to point out that the word the apostle uses for the word “love” is the Greek word “agape.”
Agape love is the highest form of love. It’s not the sappy love shared between two people attracted to each other, nor is it the brotherly love that best friends have for one another. It’s actually a love that “does” something. The immediate example is what Jesus “did” on the cross.
The first three verses of 1 Corinthians 13 say, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.”
The Apostle Paul is writing this section of his letter in response to the Corinthian church elevating spiritual gifts and prophecy above all else in the church.
His frustration is easily detected in his exaggerated expressions. Did you catch them?
- “Though I speak with the tongues of angels!”
- “Though I understand all mysteries and all knowledge!”
- “Though I have all faith and can move mountains!”
- “Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor!”
- “Though I give my body to be burned!”
Nobody has all of these abilities, but the apostle is declaring, “If I had all these abilities but lacked “agape” I would be totally bankrupt!”
He goes on to say in verse four, “Love suffers long and is kind.”
Love suffers long? Yes, agape love does. Agape love stays in-step with another through the hardships and through the thick and thin circumstances of each other’s lives. It does not give up.
Continuing in verse four through the first part of verse six, the apostle shifts his attention to a list of things that agape love does not do, “Love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity.”
Can you imagine Jesus displaying any of these behaviors? The answer is a resounding “no.”
As he continues in the last part of verse six through verse seven, the Apostle Paul pivots to list a series of things that agape love does, “But rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
Agape love is a love that “does” something.
The apostle ends this portion of his letter in verse eight with these three powerful words, “Love never fails”.
I encourage you to read the rest of this short chapter as the Apostle Paul exhorts the Christians in Corinth to make agape love, the reflective love of God, their most coveted gift to attain.
May we do the same!
Pastor Adam
Posted in Pastor Adam Gomez