What is Biblical Love?

“Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.”

- C.S. Lewis

What is biblical love? The apostle Paul answers this question his first letter to the church in Corinth. Paul says, “If I speak human or angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end. 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 put aside childish things. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known. Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love — but the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians‬ ‭13:1-13, CSB).

Biblical love is...

- patient

- kind

- not envious

- not boastful

- not arrogant

- not rude

- self-seeking

- not irritable

- not condemning

- rejoicing in truth

- endures all things

- never ending