We generally read 1 Corinthians 13, “The Love Chapter”, and think, “This chapter teaches us how to love other people.” That is true. However, that doesn’t tell the whole
story. Why are we to love people the way described in “The Love Chapter”?
We are to love people the way described in “The Love Chapter” because that chapter describes God and God’s love . In part, this chapter teaches, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, 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” (verses 4-7).
God’s love is given to us freely, without condition. Jesus’ death and resurrection was God’s way of showing us just how deep for us really is.
Are you letting God love you? Are you acknowledging His love for you?
One way we can tell if we have allowed ourselves to filled with God’s love is to be filled with God’s love is to notice if we are showing God’s love to others. If we are filled with God’s love we can’t help but let it overflow from within us and spill out into the lives of others.
Other ways to show God’s love are:
* Witnessing to those around us.
* Obeying God.
* Serving God and others.
* Acting kindly toward other people.
* Treating God & others with respect.
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Now it’s your turn to explore 1 Corinthians 13, a.k.a., “The Love Chapter for yourself. Click
the image to the right, download the Inductive Bible Study pdf, and use it as your guide as you read and study Genesis 1 below.
1 Corinthians 13: The Love Chapter
“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor 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. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”