Explain Like I'm 5: Love = God, Part 3

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

“Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, NASB

(This is Part 3 of a three-part post; there was just too much to wrangle into a single post. You can find Part 1 here & Part 2 here.)

Before we wrap up this three-part series of posts, let’s do a quick recap of Part One & Two.

• I have a difficult time remembering and internalizing that God loves me.

• I decided to create a theological mnemonic to remind me of that.

• Based on “God is love” from 1 John 4:8, I swapped out all instances of ‘love” from 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 and replaced it with “God”.

• I’ve covered that God is patient, God is kind, God is not jealous, God does not brag, God is not arrogant, God does not act unbecomingly, God does not seek its own, and God is not provoked which brings us to…

God does not take into account a wrong suffered

If there is one of these theological mnemonic statements that I struggle with, this is the one. And when I dig deeper, my trepidation only grows.

The Greek word for “take into account” is “logizomai”. According to Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, in relation to this verse, “logizomai” means “metaphorically, to pass to one's account, to impute, to reckon”. This brings to mind a line from a 1980’s Violent Femmes song “I hope you know that this will go down on your permanent record!” I certainly can imagine an angel waiting at the Pearly Gates with my permanent record in hand, filled with all my indiscretions.

And it gets worse.

The Greek word for “wrong suffered” is “kakos”. According to Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, in relation to this verse, “kakos” means “evil i.e. what is contrary to law, either divine or human, wrong, crime”. Perhaps “indiscretions” is too mild a description for my permanent record.

So, what am I to do?

Well, you would think I’d have learned this lesson after two posts on this subject, but as I can be obstinate, I’ll restate it again for my, and perhaps your, benefit.

Stop shackling God with our human limitations!

Go read Hebrews 8. That author beautifully states what Jesus the Christ has done as “a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven”.

Jesus Christ has established a new covenant, which in the spirit of Jeremiah 31, concludes with “for I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more” (Hebrews 8:12, ESV).

The Blood of the Lamb has washed us clean. Jesus the Christ has cleansed my permanent record for I am new life in Christ.

There’s not enough space here to tackle the sin question in earnest, but my simple take is that I am new creation, I am not the old me, and Jesus pleads with me to stop harming myself with ongoing sin, all the while comforting me because He knows that is mans’ nature.

God does not rejoice in unrighteousness & God rejoices with the truth

These contrasting statements are plainly obvious.

According to HELPS Word-studies, “unrighteousness” is the English translation of the Greek “adikia” which means “not justice” as in a “violation of God’s standards”. And as Jesus is known as the “Truth”, well…I would be floored if God didn’t rejoice in the truth.

But I want to dig a bit deeper.

As I mentioned in Part One of this series, I tend to try and hide from God when I’m not being the man He intended me to be. It’s silly, like a child putting their hands over their eyes and claiming their parent can’t see them, but I do this because at some deep level, I’m still afraid of God. I’m afraid that I’ve passed on the “carrot” so I’m certain that I’m destined for God’s “stick”.

And once again, I’ve shackled God with my own human limitations.

God does not rejoice when I’m not living right. And, contrary to popular Christian thought, He carries no stick. Sin is its own stick. If I miss the narrow gate of living, the fence post isn’t divine punishment, it’s just a simple consequence.

So, God rejoices when I avoid that fence post by being in Christ and living in His truth.

God bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

This is my favorite part of Saint Paul’s dissertation on love. I think it fully encapsulates how love works, and for the purposes of my theological mnemonic, how God loves us.

The Greek word for “all things” is “pas” which the HELPS Word-studies defines as “each part(s) of a totality” and "all in the sense of each (every) part that applies." Thayer’s Greek Lexicon has a rambling technical definition as the phrase is used hundreds of times in the NT with subtle differences, but this truly resonated with me: “especially with nouns designating virtues or vices, emotions, character, condition, to indicate every mode in which such virtue, vice or emotion manifests itself, or any object whatever to which the idea expressed by the noun belongs”

All things: all the good and all the bad, all the virtue and all the vice.

God has an unbreakable claim on ALL of our being. There is no ala carte with God’s love.

He bears all my stupidity and insolence.

He believes in the man He created me to be.

He hopes that I might see His belief and grow towards bringing that belief into being.

And He endures with me, knowing that I may never fully grow, and loving me just the same.

God is ride or die with us, and nothing can convince Him otherwise.

Conclusion

I hope that you have found as much value in this theological mnemonic exercise as I have. While I love trying my hand at amateur exegesis, I think that exercises like this theological mnemonic are useful in that they get to the “heart of the matter”.

I’ll be back to practicing traditional exegesis in future posts, but I think it important to work out our perceptions (and misperceptions) of God.

So while I don’t think the savage Corinthians would have read it this way, nor do I think Saint Paul intended his words to be read as such, I like to imagine that he would grant me the latitude as a means of growing closer to God.

Amen.

References:

HELPS Word-studies (2021). Discovery Bible.

Thayer, J. (2019). Thayer’s Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament. Hendrickson.