Love is ...

This week in our life group (bible study and fellowship group), we were looking at a passage that is very familiar 1Corinthians 13. The study material is the Bible Societies "lyfe" series, which we are finding really helpful. It got me to thinking again about what I mean by love and how we use the word in our everyday and how that might vary with what Paul was talking about.

Do you remember the series of "love is ..." pictures that used to circulate, which mostly connected with an emotional love? As I reflect on the ways in which I love, I can see that to a degree I express it in ways that show it. Telling Nicola, my wife that I love her and giving her a kiss is one way, although it works better if I do the clearing up, cook or fill the dishwasher. Giving a grandchild a hug and making them feel safe when they stay is another. Doing the things that I do noticed or unnoticed for others and for church, is yet another way.

Do all of these indicate the same love or are they different? The book 5 love languages, which to be fair focuses on human love in relationships with each other, suggests different ways we can show love to those we are in relationships with and that they can show to us. The key being that we are all different and it is really easy to simply show love in a way that we would like it shown to us. I guess that's fairly human.

This is something we use and refer folks to when preparing them for Christian marriage in our church.

But what about what Paul is writing, how does that work or is it different? To gain the context, its worth reading it as a part of the section in which it sits, rather than on its own 1Corinthians 12-14. Taking aside that there are some controversial words in this section, I want to concentrate on what 1Cor 13 has to say about love.

The point is that it is about the use of spiritual gifts in a church context and not abusing them. There is no doubt in my mind that God blesses his church with spiritual gifts to build it and to encourage it, but at times our humanity gets in the way of using them well. At times some even "fake" such gifts, perhaps to big themselves up. 1Cor 13 gives us the key, they should be used with an attitude of love, agape love;

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. 

What Paul tells us, I think, is that worship should include these gifts being used, but underpinned with a kind of love that means they are used as God would have them used, not perhaps as we sometimes want. If we check ourselves and our use of the gifts that we have been blessed with, with this, it will help us use them well and appropriately. The focus is on others and not ourselves, on God and not ourselves. When we also practice this love in our relationships it will grow them, enrich them and change us. This passage written for the church and its use of gifts, has application also in our relationships.