1) Love is patient
- Makrothumein (in the Greek word) means patience with people and not patience with circumstances.
2) Love is kind
- Origin had it that this means that love is "sweet to all."
3) Love knows no envy
- There are two kinds of envy:
(a) The one covets the possessions of other people.
(b) The other is worse. He grudges the very fact that others should have what he has not; he doesn’t so much want things for himself as he wishes that others had not got them at all.
4) Love is not boastful
- True love will always be far more impressed with its own unworthiness than its own merit.
- Love is kept humble.
5) Love is not proud
6) Love is not rude
- There is a graciousness in Christian love which never forgets that courtesy and tact and politeness are lovely things.
7) Love is not self-seeking
- There are those in this world who are always thinking of what life owes them and there are those who never forget what they owe to life.
- Whenever we start thinking about "ourselves" and "our place" we are drifting away from Christian love.
8) Love is not easily angered
- Kipling said that it was the test of a man if he could keep his head when everyone else was losing his. The man who is master of his temper can be master of anything.
9) Love keeps no record of wrongs
- One of the greatest talents in life is to learn what to forget. Many people nurse their wrath to keep it warm; they brood over their wrongs until it is impossible to forget them. Christian love has learned the great lesson forgetting
10) Love does not delight in evil
- Better to translate this that love finds no pleasure in anything that is wrong.
11) Love rejoices with the truth
- Christian love has no desire to veil the truth; it has nothing to hide and so is glad when the truth is revealed
12) Love always protects
- It is possible that this may mean "love can cover anything," meaning it will never drag into the light of day the faults and mistakes of others.
- Love can bear any insult, any injury, and disappointment
13) Love always trust
- In relation to God it means that love takes God at his word.
- In relation to our fellow men it means that love always believes the best about other people.
14) Love always hopes
- Hope here means to expect to know! Love "knows" that god has everything under his control and rests in that promise. (Psalms 25)
15) Love always perseveres
- The verb used here (hupomenein) is translated to bear or to endure but what it really describes is not the spirit which can passively bear things, but the spirit which can conquer. (Philippians 4:13)
Paul has three final things to say of Christian love
1. Love never fails
When all the things in which men glory have passed away, love will still stand. The Song of Solomon 8:7 says "Many waters cannot quench love, rivers cannot wash it away." The one unconquerable thing is love. Barclay says "When love is entered into, there comes into life a relationship against which the assaults of time are helpless and which transcends death."
2. Love perfects us
Love makes us complete. (I John 4:12-18) Love matures us, it allows us to see ourselves as we truly are and God for who He truly is. Love grows us: it keeps us from acting like children only concerned for our own desires. It is a process which will not be complete until Christ’s return.
3. Love is supreme
Great as faith and hope are, love is still greater. Faith without love is cold, and hope without love is grim. Love is the fire which kindles faith and it is the light which turns hope into certainty.
