The importance of love.
·
1 Corinthians 13:13: And now abide faith,
hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. A true understanding of the value of “love”
in this passage requires a study of the immediate context, chapters 12 and
14. Briefly, Paul is dealing with a
somewhat volatile doctrinal issue at Corinth, having to do with spirituals
(12:1) and speaking in tongues (14:2). This
issue, a divisive one, needed to be handled with love. Read 13:1-3 again. If I speak in amazing tongues, if I know it
all and have great faith, if I make myself poor so as to care for the poor, but
have not love I’m a clanging cymbal, I am nothing, and it profits me nothing. This is an amazing comparison. No question.
Faith is crucial; and there is no patience without hope. But the greatest is love. It’s larger, older, greater.
·
Gal. 5:22: Of the fruit of the Spirit, love is
first. And as we have suggested, is
likely the inclusion of all the others combined. Enough said as to the importance of love.
·
Colossians 3:14:
But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of
perfection. All what things? It’s in v12-13: tender mercies, kindness,
humility, meekness, longsuffering, bearing with one another, and forgiving one
another. That is a rather significant
list of Christ-like affections. And
here, it’s not so much that love is greater than all; rather love binds them
all together. Except, to be precise, it
is the bond of perfection. Lately
I’ve been spending a lot of time in Hebrews where “perfection” is one of the
most significant terms in the letter. I
will repeat a definition we used of “perfection,” from Kenneth Wuest.
The
fundamental idea in this word is the bringing of a person or thing to the goal
fixed by God. The word speaks here of Messiah having reached the end which was
contemplated in His divinely appointed discipline for the priesthood. This
consummation was reached in His substitutionary death on the Cross.
Thus, in Col. 3:14, when we have come to the
place of reaching the goal God fixed for us, we will find two things. First, we have put on love. And second, we will be conformed to the image
of Christ. The cross is the perfection
of love. More on that in a later post.
·
2 Peter 1:5-7: Again, we see the importance of
love in conjunction with other qualities.
Perhaps this is like the “perfection” we just spoke about. As you go through life as a Christian, you
start with faith; but then you must continue to add: virtue, knowledge,
self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness until you have added
the last: love. The last two are “philadelphia”
(love for your brother) and then “agape,” this love we are talking about.
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