Devotional Tuesday: Love and Action, Together

A reflection on 1 Corinthians 13

Estimated Read Time: 3 Minutes

Photo by Hanna Morris

1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³ If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶ it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸ Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. ¹² For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

¹³ So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

— 1 Corinthians 13

We have all heard this chapter quoted many times if you are near Christian faith communities. I have heard many weddings and sermons include this passage from Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth.

Sadly, we often are not told the intended meaning of this chapter, but rather, we hear the meaning that is most convenient to our modern understanding of “love.”

This week during my morning prayer, this was one of the New Testament readings. I sat and listened to the chapter and noticed that the readings started with the concluding verse of chapter 12.

³¹ Now eagerly desire the greater gifts.
And yet I will show you the most excellent way.

1 Cor 12:31

Love that does not lead us to loving action is not truly love. Rather, love without action is merely emotive self-pleasure. Love without action is an internal joy that blesses our soul alone.

John Mark Comer’s book, Practicing the Way, points out that love cannot sustain anything. Comer highlights this in the context of marriage—a picture I have come to understand quite well the last three years. Love will not sustain a marital union. The commitment is what sustains love, and commitment is only measured by action.

This is difficult for us to remember because we are saturated in a world that views love through the lens of feeling and emotion, rather than action. Rom-coms, high school romances, online dating, and every other modern expression of love are primarily valued by our feelings. Thus, at some point when feelings dwindle or shrink, our problems begin to grow.

We bring this context to the scriptures—in this case 1 Corinthians 13.

Yet, Paul is talking about actions, our way of living. He lays out a way to live… actions by which we can model our live to look like Jesus. Hospitality… Wisdom… Healing… Service and compassion… Preaching the Good News of Jesus…

But at the center of these things… Love.

Yet not the feeling of love, but the action of love. Love that leads us into actually doing these kinds of things. Paul calls it the “most excellent way.”

In fact, it is the only way.

Without love, actions are meaningless. Without action, love is a fake illusion—a cheap magic trick devoid of any true meaning and value.

Love must be connected with action. They are not able to be separated. When they are they lose their meaning and become something entirely different. They become a mutated and devolved shell of its original design.

Paul says love is…

⁴ Love is patient and kind;

Love is not passive, but active—always looking to do as a response of its presence. Love does not get acted upon, but takes part in the acting. To only receive is to love, but to be loved. Love must engage as an active participation. To love is to be, and thus become. To love is not to feel and express, but to feel then respond.

Love is always coming in then going out. When we view love as a reception, but never a response, we have devolved love into our own selfish isolation.

Love is our foundation for life. Life is not a feeling, but an ever-growing experience of action. Thus, may we build our life on the constant cycle of love and action—hand in hand, heart in heart, connected in perfect union.