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Love is Humble (1 Cor. 13:4c-5 Study Notes)

Study Notes is where I share some of the fruits of my  weekly sermon studies
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  • Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful
    (1 Cor. 13:4-5).

I offer my paraphrase of vv. 4c-5:

  • Love is not self-inflated; it is not self-assertive, self-seeking, self-conscious, or self-defensive.

1. Love is not self-inflated = not puffed up, not arrogant
2. Love is not self-assertive = not overbearing, doesn’t transgress proper boundaries
3. Love is not self-seeking = it terminates on something other than itself
4. Not self-conscious = not touchy, not prone to fly off the handle
5. Not self-defensive = not keeping lists of acts of aggression

The overarching idea is that love is not prideful. Positively this means that love is humble. Together with all of verse 4 (positively), you get, (1) Love is meek (long-suffering and positively kind), (2) love is content (not envious or boasting), and (3) love is humble (not concerned with self).

The point is clear enough: if you are going to love, you have to get your attention off of yourself and put it somewhere else. You must decrease that Jesus Christ may increase. In turn, you must decrease so that ALL may increase.

You can read previous entries on 1 Corinthians 13 HERE and HERE.

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