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By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” ( John 13:34-35). What a wonderful responsibility and calling! Jesus says: “Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. Recognize your responsibility to make God’s love tangible.ġ John reminds us that “no one has ever seen God but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us” ( 1 John 4:12). If you’re seeking to develop any Christians character quality in your life, it will be enhanced if you also “earnestly pursue love” ( 1 Corinthians 14:) at the same time. In Colossians 3:12-13, Paul tells the believers to put the virtues of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forbearance, and forgiveness, but he cannot finish the discussion without bringing love into the picture: “And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” ( Colossians 3:14). As Paul said in 1 Corinthians, doing anything without love being part of it is hollow and pointless. In any discussion of virtues in the Bible, love is always nearby and involved.
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When seeking to grow in any other way, always combine it with love. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” Elsewhere, Paul says succinctly: “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love” ( Galatians 5:16 NIV). 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. Paul makes the crucial point that it’s pointless and even harmful to do even good things without love: “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. Love never ends” ( 1 Corinthians 13:4-8). Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. It does not insist on its own way it is not irritable or resentful it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Paul details what love is in chapter 13, which is often read at weddings but has an application on every day of a Christian’s life: “Love is patient and kind love does not envy or boast it is not arrogant or rude. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” ( Matthew 22:37-40).Įarlier in his letter to the Corinthians, Paul has spent an entire chapter showing them the “still more excellent way” ( 1 Corinthians 12:31) of love. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus didn’t skip a beat, simply saying: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. The command to love has often been used to sum up Christian teaching, such as when someone tried to trap Jesus by quizzing him: “Which is the greatest commandment in the law?” ( Matthew 22:36). What Else Does the Bible Say about Love, Loving Others, and Loving Service?
#Let all that you do be done in love translations how to#
In the lengthy letter, Paul has been giving the believers many instructions for how to live in the world as Christians and how to handle many thorny issues they have been facing, and now he is summing up before signing off with his own expression of love: “My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. This is the kind of love Paul is talking about at the end of his first letter to the Corinthians when he says: “Let all you do be done in love” ( 1 Corinthians 16:14). The unconditional love of God for us which the indwelling Holy Spirit empowers us to show back to God and toward others is called agape love.
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Why Is Paul's Meaning Behind, 'Let All That You Do Be Done in Love'? ( 1 Cor. The biblical idea of love is also multifaceted, but-unlike in the English language-there were different Greek words to express the nuances of different kinds of love. We can say: “I love God,” “I love my mom,” and “I love spaghetti and meatballs,” and mean all three.
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It’s a word that can mean so many things.
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