What you should know about Love

Love

LOVE NOTES FROM 1 CORINTHIANS 13:4-8

Love suffers long.

It can endure evil, injury, and provocation without being filled with resentment,

indignation, or revenge.

Love is kind.

It is bountiful; it is courteous and obliging. Rendering gracious, well disposed

service.

Love does not envy.

It is not grieved at the good of others; neither at their gifts nor at their good qualities,

or their estates.

Love does not parade itself.

It does not brag or boast nor is it arrogant.

Love is not puffed up.

It is not bloated with self-conceit or pride and does not swell upon its acquisitions.

Love does not behave rudely.

It is careful not to pass the bounds of decency. It does nothing base or vile.

Love does not seek its own.

It does not inordinately desire nor seek its own praise, honour, profit, or pleasure.

Love is not provoked.

It tempers and restrains the passions. It is not irritated or touchy.

Love thinks no evil.

It does not ponder nor meditate upon the wrongs done by others nor seek to find

fault.

Love does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth.

It takes no pleasure nor finds entertainment in evil or sin of any kind. Instead love

rejoices to see people living lives consistent with the Truth.

Love bears all things.

It shelters the good qualities of others in order to protect them and does not publish

their faults and imperfections.

Love believes all things.

It is apt to believe well of all, to entertain a good opinion of them when there is

nothing definite to the contrary.

Love hopes all things.

It is confident in its expectations toward others.

Love endures all things.

It bears up under all injury to person, property and reputation. Love never gives in.

Love never fails.

It is a permanent and perpetual attribute of God, lasting for eternity.

1 John 3:18 My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue,

but in deed and in truth.

Wisdom from Proverbs

Proverbs 26:4, 5 – Wise Answers

Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.

Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.

Should we answer a fool or not answer a fool? :-) These 2 verses seem to contradict each other(?)

We notice in v:4, (depending on your Bible translation) the words "according" and "like." Don't answer and be "like" the fool. A foolish question does not become more wise by giving a foolish answer. You see, to answer his ridiculous question would be as if you are saying this is a worthwhile question. There are questions that does not deserve an answer.

But notice in v:5, there is not the word "like" but the word "wise." Answer the fool wisely so that he doesn't think he is wise. We must be very careful how we answer. The only reason to answer at all is to show him not to be conceited.

Taken together, these verses teach the appropriate way to answer a fool who is an unbeliever who rejects truth. He should not be answered with agreement to his own ideas and presuppositions, or he will think he is right. Rather he should be rebuked on the basis of his folly and shown the truth so he sees how foolish he is.

What may be at one time our duty to restrain, at another time, and under different circumstances, it may be no less our duty to do. Silence may sometimes be mistaken for defeat. Unanswered words may be deemed unanswerable, and the fool become arrogant, more and more wise in his own conceit (Pro 26:12; Job 11:2).

An answer therefore may be called for; yet not in folly, but to folly; “not in his foolish manner, but in the manner which his foolishness required;” not according to his folly, but according to your own wisdom.

Oh! for wisdom to govern the tongue, to discover “the time to keep silence, and the time to speak” (Ecc 3:7); most of all to suggest the “word fitly spoken” (Pro 15:23; 25:11) for effective reproof.

Credit : Proverbs by Charles Bridges

Lessons from Kuya T