Expository gleaning of 1 Corinthians 13 and Matthew 22:36-40 on the fruits, principles, characteristics and responsibilities of love.
The nature of God’s love for our neighbors, friends and strangers requires (a) our understanding of the revelation knowledge of God’s love in the light of his word because he first loved us before we love him (1 John 4:19): therefore, it is our duty to love the brethren and unsaved according to the love we see in God and have of him: namely, the love of God encloses and unfolds in the explanatory character, light, nature and truth of God’s kind’s of love.1John 2: 20-24. (B) that the understanding therein should produced diligent duteous commitment to the love of God according to the pattern or practice of such love to different type or group of people as defined by the scriptures to fulfill the pleasure and will of God (then said he also to him that bade him, when thou make a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompense be made thee. But when thou make a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind: and thou shall be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shall be recompensed at the resurrection of the just. Luke 14:12-14) as people who are not seeking for any vain glory and praises before men for ostentatious display in showy spirit like the men of the world, such behaviors ought to have been crucified to the world and the world to it; lest we come under divine condemnation because of false expression of love like king Hezekiah foolishly and affectionately demonstrated before the servants sent by Berodachbaladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon when he sent to congratulate him for his sickness recovery: he showed them everything in his house and palace: but God condemned and judged him for his showy acts he thought was an act of love, humility and peaceful reception: captivity was pronounced against him into the land of Babylon and his children to serve as eunuchs in the palace of the worldly king he foolishly and pompously loved –love is not showy. 2 Kings 20:12-18.
The scriptures categorize benevolent of charity works and lay a curse on its wrong applications to condemn deceitful acts (a) woe unto you that give to the rich (Proverbs 22:16) you shall become poor: (b) woe unto the mischievous and deceitful person (1 Kings 13:18: Psalms 55:23. Proverbs 23:6-7) who by pretence to love will offer gift to take advantage over the vulnerable or set trap to ensnare others, or to buy their conscience and to corrupt heart, to seduce or entice to sin; or, to offer poisonous food with the intent to kill another – such people are under the curse of God because love is not destructive and deceitful to manipulate his neighbors. Believer should convey all that love is according to God in relationship with his neighbors and to restrain from all that love is not though such firmness of character and purpose require disciplinal submission to the word of God without any sentiment attachment to expect the consequence of man’s immoral condemnation of blind and ignorance criticism of name’s calling such as bigot or whatever from the unlearned and unstable in the word of righteousness.
Love is a debt with a great commandment to owe no man anything, but to love one another Romans13:8. The question is this: if love is a debt, how much is my daily debt of love I am supposed to give to believers and unbelievers alike? I know that I am obliged to salute or greet even those who are not my brethren in the Lord, the people I encounter on my way and in my daily business or other activities; by the way, love is not hostile but friendly with all its characteristics features such as putting on the bowels of mercies and compassion, tenderheartedness, kindness, perseverance, forbearance, self-emptiness and softness. If you salute your brethren only, you are not more than others: and if you love them which love you, what rewards have you? For sinners love those who love them (Matthew 5:47): and though love is not meant to be one sided, yet the Lord have this to say: love your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and you shall be like the children of the Highest: for he is kind to the unthankful and to the evil. Luke 6:35.
How do we love the wicked who has vowed never to change (Isaiah 26:10) lest we make ourselves an easy prey but to safe-guard the peace and safety of our friends and that of the innocent loved souls under our care against uninformed, senseless and foolish love, even when our life seems to be exposed and in danger from the enemy who will not rest until he have our flesh for lunch just as David once demonstrated in the battle to defeat Absalom revolt and to take back the throne: the hard choice he had to make to fulfill his destiny by eliminating the rebellious son who want to live his father’s life and to terminate the life of everyone responsible to his father in order to achieve his evil ambition (2 Samuel 19:6): and not as Samson who was infatuated with Delilah by inordinate affection in the name of love, thereby destroyed his covenant with God and wasted his divine destiny under the laps of a strange woman (Judges16:1-20) but to act appropriately as Joseph rebuff his master’s wife advancements, sinful and ungodly proposals and seduction to sleep with her but would not grant her evil request to abuse the love and trust shown by his master to have sex with his wife – love does not rejoice in evil to behave itself unseemly and would not defraud his brother or neighbor’s spouse as David did to Uriah to defiled his neighbor’s wife. 2 Samuel 11:4.
All the laws and the prophets are established to operate on these two principles: namely, you shall love the Lord your God with all your mind, soul and spirit: and to love your neighbor as yourself: on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Matthew 22:36-40.
This love for the neighbor is defined by Christ as the law of good desire, positive outlook and expectation, reaction and response to the sincere and pure affection shown to others that we anticipate to get back as a gesture of mutual understanding for friendship, commune or general welfare: namely, therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do you even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets (Matthew 7:12): by the way, he that has a friend must show himself friendly (Proverbs 18:24) for one good turn deserves another, that a person should do something nice for someone who has done something nice for him or her is acceptable to God: whosoever rewarded evil for good, evil shall not depart from his house. Proverbs 17:13. Note: if any thinks that they are walking in love, let them be sure that they are walking after the commandments of whatever the scriptures says, lest they should be found guilty of pretense and deceitfulness of false charity to God and before their neighbors: this is love that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, that, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it. 2 John 2:6.
Love is holy because the holy God is love, and everything that God is, love is: likewise, everything that love is, God is. There is time for everything under the sun: a time to love and a time to hate (Ecclesiastes 3:8) and there should be a time you have to stop giving holy things unto dogs, and to desist from casting your pearls before the swine, lest they trample it under their feet, and turn again to rend you into pieces. Matthew 7:6.
Sure, love is not allowed to retaliate back because it does not do evil but to give room for God’s vengeance: but how do you cleave in love to an odious wife in marriage whom the earth itself cannot bear (Proverbs 30:23) but would suffocate life out of you? In such situation, love will require the right application of peaceable wisdom because we are called unto peace so that the God of peace and love can continue to be with us (2 Corinthians 13:11) by taking a leap of faith against thoughts, imaginations, judgments of men’s opinion to move from the big house where everything is provided for you except mutual respect, peace and love into the wilderness where you can enjoy a dry bread with quietness (Proverbs 17:1 & 21:9) unless you have chosen to dig your grave prematurely in the name of love which is not verbally or physically violent, neither is it insolent or disrespectful.
Keeping up with the standard of God’s love should be the driving force behind our love for others, namely, as my father has loved me, even so have I loved you (John 15:9): meaning that the love given or shown to your neighbor should be corresponding reaction to the same measure of love you received from God. God’s command is to love your neighbor as yourself; but not lesser than or above yourself. Fathers should love their children by setting good examples, while the husbands should love their wives as themselves without any bitterness; for no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it even as the Lord nourishes and cherishes the church: the wife should love her husband affectionately by showing respect through submission: while the elder women in the church are to be loved as we would affectionately and sincerely love our proper mother at home: and the younger sisters in the church should be loved and treated as any would love their own blood sister with all purity, by not taking advantage of Christian love to defile any of the virgin daughters of Zion: love does not seeks her own interest to hurt others: to wrongfully and selfishly disappoint his neighbor, love does not: therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. 1Timothy 5:2. Romans 13:10.
If biblical love is properly lived out as designed by God, without any doubt, it would bring misunderstanding and hatred before our neighbors as well as before the carnal and ungodly brethren just as the Lord says: if you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you:but this is better before God if our action and lifestyles is put to silence the ignorance of foolish men than to hide hatred with deceit to love by faking our true feelings: let love be without dissimulation (Romans 12:9) abhor that which is evil, and cleave to that which is good. John 15:9.
Love will keep to correct and rebuke because he hope for the best than to feign charity: it shall speak the truth at all cost, though it is not to his advantage and praise (Ephesians 4:15) for faithful are the wounds of a friend, than the deceitful kisses of an enemy (Proverbs 27:5-6): but how many of our neighbors and friends have pleasure to hear or to listen to truth? The children of this world love darkness rather light because their deeds are evil. Love is not suspicious to find fault or to speak any false or ungrounded allegation which is not established by two or three witness against his neighbor. To exalt itself above others and to consider himself better than the rest, love would not (Philippians 2:3) but in honor, he will prefer others honored above him (Romans 12:10) though we are living in an egotistical self-centered world and are worshipping in the churches of ungrateful and unthankful souls of despisers of those that are good (2 Timothy 3:1-5) which the scriptures command us to turn away from such people. Note: though, love is emotional, but it as other natural or spiritual gift which should be precious in the eyes of him has it: but those who have chosen to take advantage of God’s love to abuse, disrespect, manipulate, intimidate, despise, exalt themselves, defraud and misuse others have made themselves unworthy of such love: as snow in summer and as rain in harvest, so honor is not seemly for a fool. Proverbs 17:8: Proverbs 26:1.
It is God’s command to keep company with the humble people in the church (Romans 12:16): men and women of God which are not self-glorifying, but Christ-minded with the heart to serve others and to walk by the principles of the word of God without hypocrisy in a non-competitive spirit with others, not comparing themselves with anyone, neither do they keep malice than to overlooks faults, quick to forgive from the heart without or before any apology is ever received. They are not with biased mind and they don’t have respect of persons to discriminate for preference as love is not churlish nor partial to cause strife or division than to unite because it does not fail or disappoint.
Though, charity is not easily provoked, but love can be provoked (Galatians 5:26) after going more than two miles you have compel him to go with you (Matthew 5:41) but you continue to take it for granted as a dunderhead. Love will put up with any stupidity as long as God will give grace for longsuffering with joyfulness in the Spirit because of the kindness of the Holy – Spirit who is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance: nevertheless, he will not always strive with man if they should continue to observe lying vanity to forsake their own mercy as long as it does not also rejoice in iniquity, but in truth –love is not blind or stupid. 1 Corinthians 13:4-6.
Love is the most excellent way to walk, live and deal with all men because your love walk and motives therein (and though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profited me nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:3)shall be the criteria of judgments and your answer for accountability before God in Christ Jesus as your brother’s keeper: therefore, let all your things be done in charity (1 Corinthians 16:14) if haply you may provoke others to love and unto good works (Hebrews 10:24) through your faith demonstrated by practical charitable deeds – I was hungry, you gave me food to eat: thirsty, you gave me water to drink: naked, you clothed me: sick and in prison, you visited me.
Love is spiritual because God is love and a Spirit. None can love as God requires if they are not born of God’s Spirit and be led by his Spirit to cultivate this precious fruit. –the fruit of the Spirit is love. It is found in all goodness and common sense: to him that know how to do good and does not do it sins (James 4:17): nevertheless, charity recompense is not guaranteed in heaven if it is not found in the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, lest our good works and charitable deeds be counted as filthy rags before God. This is the spirituality of love and not the wrong and the false concept of humanity to gain heaven by good works through the righteousness of the law. Obedience to God should come first (by this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments: he that say I know him; and keeps not his commandments, he is a liar, and the truth is not in him: but whoso keeps his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected. 1 John 2:4-5. 1John 5:2) to be followed by acceptable and practical good works to the believers as a matter of priority (Galatians 6:10) and unbelievers as a matter of necessary uses (Titus 3:14): but whoso hath this world’s good, and sees his brother have need, and shuts up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwells the love of God in him? My little children let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth: and these commandments have we from him, that he who loves God loves his brother also. 1 John 3:17-18. 1 John 4:21. Note: charity begins at home as said the ancient proverb: it is not God’s kind’s of love if piety is not shown right from home: first to the members of our own family by taking good care of our wives and children (1 Timothy 5:8: Ephesians 5:28-29) and to requite our parents for the unending debt we owed them for their labor of love bestowed on us for upbringing: then to our widows if there is any, for this is good and acceptable to God before we move out to extend our charitable work to help outsiders. We should therefore watch, lest our good be evil spoken of, lest we fall after the deeds and condemnation of the Pharisees of whom the Lord despised and cursed:for God commanded, saying, honor thy father and mother: and, he that curse father or mother, let him die the death. But ye say, whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, it is a gift, by whatsoever thou might be profited by me; and honor not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. 1Timothy 5:4. Matthew 15:4-6.
Whatever it is, whether it is man’s love for his God or man’s love for his neighbors, it should be the love from the fruit of the Spirit of God, been shown and given in proportional to the quality of such love from the heart. This love can and should grow increasingly if we ask in prayer and give all diligent to walk in it as Christ has also loved us, and gave himself unto us as sacrifice of sweet smelling savor to God.
Love is the best and the bond of perfectness: such life which God never ceases the continuation to prune the believers for its fruitfulness, to work in them unto perfection, so that they should be presented un-blamable in his holiness (1 Thessalonians 3:12-13) rooted and grounded in his love: that all may grow and increase in charity, becoming more and more in conformation into the transformation of divine resemblance and in the true nature of the God of love in whom should be our ultimate and greatest affection, desire and satisfaction, as the sole creator, in whom all satisfactory and contentment is hidden and could be found; if we chose to trust and rest in his love. Charity is the foundation and the end of the commandment, namely, charity out of a pure heart, and of good conscience, and of love unfeigned: from which some having swerved have turned aside after vain jangling, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm. 1Timothy1:5-7.
It is the simplicity of life that is in Christ Jesus because it believes in all things until the God in whom all things are opened and naked reveals otherwise (1 Corinthians 13:7) and to take any offence whatsoever, love would not because of the blessedness of such character in the sight of God (Matthew 11:6) which reckoned any injustice or injury done against it as against himself: as it is written, the reproaches of them that reproach you fall upon me. Romans 15:3. Charity would count it a blessing and privilege to suffer for Christ sake of the persecution, affliction or any trouble from his friends and neighbors to demonstrate the power of God’s love which can endure all things, while hoping for (a) repentance and change for his ignorant friends and enemies (b) in the hope of the recompense of reward which the Lord has promised to them that loves him. He is not grieved at the joy of his friends nor rejoices for the destruction of his enemies: but he will weep with those who weep; and will rejoice with them that rejoice. As light triumphs over darkness, so is love, he is not overcome by evil, but he overcomes evil with good: though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling 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, and have not charity, I am nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-2):when I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.And now abides faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:11-13.