Background Scripture: Hebrews 13:1-6; 1 Corinthians 13

Devotional Reading: John 13:31-35

I loved my wife, Valere; I love my children and friends; Sugar, my cat; my churches; the music of Chopin; and Manhattan clam chowder  and chocolate-chip mint ice cream. The word “love” applied to each of those looks the same, but is not.

In Greek there are several words translated as “love,” but each of these speaks of a different kind of love. So, what is the love of which Jesus, Paul and the rest of the New Testament speak?

The Epistle to the Hebrews is quite specific: “Let brotherly love continue” (13:1). Brotherly love is not physical attraction, romantic love or a super-strong preference. In fact, it is not so much a feeling as it is an abiding resolve. It takes an attitude of concern for others and to make that attitude a reality in the lives of those who are or need to be our sisters and brothers in Christ.

Hebrews spells out some specific answers: “show hospitality to strangers” and “remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them and those who are ill-treated.” I believe he is also speaking of love when he says, “Let marriage be held in honor among all” (13:2-4).

When he prescribes that Christians are to honor the state of marriage, he appears to be rejecting the growing attitude of his times that regarded marriage as a lower calling than that of celibacy. He also calls Christians to “keep your life free from the love of money” – for many of us, our first and true love.

 Paul’s 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians is the most well-known treatise on the meaning and value of love. First he outlines what misses the mark of Christian discipleship when love is lacking: the silver tongues of men and women, the possession of prophetic powers and even a faith that will move mountains.

If our discipleship insists on its own way, it lacks the essential amalgam of love. The manner in which we carry on our lives cannot be irritable or resentful, arrogant or rude, nor can we insist on our own way. Christian witness cannot be irritable or resentful, nor rejoice at wrong (someone else’s).

Instead, we must rejoice in the right. “Love is patient and kind, not jealous or boastful.” (Try reading 1 Cor. 13:4-7 again, this time substituting the term “I” instead of the word “love.” Can you do it?)

The greatest gift

Paul and the congregation at Corinth were in the midst of a dispute over gifts of the spirit, primarily speaking in tongues (glossolalia). Some Corinthian Christians were apparently insisting this gift was incumbent upon all followers of Christ, a phenomenon that still persists in some Christian circles today.

Paul ranks these gifts not on the level of excitement they inspire, but in their effectiveness to express the gospel. He calls the Christians of Corinth to recognize the wide collection of spiritual gifts and givers: prophecy, knowledge, teachers, workers of miracles, healers, helpers, administrators and, then, speakers in tongues.

The Church needs all of these gifts and givers, but “earnestly desire the higher gifts” (12:27-31). And what are they? “So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (13:13). A spiritual gift may be beneficial in various ways, but the essential ingredient in all is love.

In one of his novels, American novelist Herman Melville describes the popular conception of love as “a volume bound in rose leaves, clasped with violets and by the beaks of hummingbirds, printed with peach-juice on the leaves of lilies.” But that is hardly the muscular love of which Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13.

The interesting thing about this great and profound chapter on love is that Paul does not define love, but describes all that it accomplishes. This was how the Israelites handled their experience of God. They did not define God (as if human beings could!), but simply told what God had done, was doing and assuredly would do.

By His acts, God was known and, by the fruits of those acts, love was manifested. And that is also the best way to identify the followers and gifts of the Holy Spirit.

When I was a seminary student in Dayton, Ohio, I wrote articles for the student newspaper. One of these was my report on a lecture in Dayton by Toyohiko Kagawa. I’m wondering, how many of you recognize his name? He was a humble but world-stature Japanese Christian, more known for his Christ-like life of service than his public discourses.

That evening I felt that I was perhaps witnessing a person closer to Jesus Christ than any other I had ever encountered. Preparing for the event, I read some background material and learned that one Christmas Eve in Tokyo, Kagawa, then a young Japanese student, he rented a room 6-by-9-feet in one of the worst slums of the world.

Joining him to live in that tiny room were four “disreputable” outcasts of society, as one writer put it, “the kind of folk that Jesus was always seeking out as if they could belong to his cause.” Kagawa shared with them his full monthly income, the equivalent of $7.50. So that there would be enough for all, he bought the cheapest rice and went without a noon meal.

In time, one of his guests was sent to jail. When he got out he returned to live with Kagawa. Later, when the convict asked for money to get drunk, Kagawa refused and the convict knocked out his front teeth. But Kagawa would not strike back.

Eventually, he was offered a job with the city of Tokyo to direct its social services bureau. He accepted with two provisos: “You must obey me, and you must give me no salary. I can’t have any strings.”

In the last book that he wrote, Kagawa revealed the secret of his harmonized life: “God reveals himself to me only when I will to love.” If we want to experience God more often, more closely, more deeply, more everlastingly, we must first seek to be love and bestow it on others.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Rev. Althouse may write to him in care of this publication.