Love Bears, Believes, Hopes, and Endures All Things
By Jacob Tanner - Posted at Place for Truth:
Published August 17, 2026
For a good portion of my childhood and teen years, I heard 1 Corinthians 13 referred to as the “love chapter” of the Bible. It seemed to be a dependable text for the yearly Valentine’s Day sermon, or to be read at weddings. If I recall rightly, I believe I also heard it read at several funerals. But my wrong-headed belief was that this was a chapter of Scripture reserved for directing married couples in how to love one another. As it turns out, 1 Corinthians 13 contains much more than directives for loving marriages (though this is a genuine use of this chapter). This chapter contains directions for all Christians, in all relationship statuses, during all stages of life, for how we ought to love one another, and how we ought to love the Lord.The Apostle Paul opens the chapter by stating, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (vs. 1). If ever you have seen one of those wind-up toy monkeys with cymbals in each hand that clash together when it is wound up, you will have a somewhat good picture of what Paul is describing here. If one of those toys is wound up for a long time, it becomes a nuisance and a headache. What starts off as a fun and novel toy quickly turns into something you would much prefer to see in a garbage dump somewhere, under piles of trash. A loveless “Christian” is like this: Pointless, loud, abrasive, and without rhythm or meaning in what they do.
In fact, such a person can hardly be called a Christian at all, for “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20). Love is an essential fruit borne of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian (Gal. 5:22), and without it, one can hardly be called a Christian at all. A person may do good things, say good things, and imagine that they are actually a good person, but without love, there can be no genuine goodness. A loud gong or clanging cymbal really is an apt description of such a person, for that is all they are. Loud noises without rhythm or purpose.
The need for love in the life of the Christian is clear enough, then. The question we ought to pose is, how should such love operate? What should it look like in the life of the Christian? Thankfully, verses 4-7 of 1 Corinthians 13 provide us with sold and meaningful explanations of what love is and how to perform it, and verse 7 is particularly helpful in explaining how a Christian ought to love others: “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
