Photo by: Lawrence OP

Claiming to be a follower of Christ, the Apostle Paul  wrote that without love, our words are like meaningless noise (1Cor 13:1-3).

He followed up saying that “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out” (1Cor 13:4-6 NLT).

After reading those words, I am aware that someone could be rightly asking of me, “So, how did it go this past week? Moving in the right direction? What about the slip ups? What was going on there?”

Paul seems to want his readers to weigh the way we handle our doctrinal, personal, and family issues against the standard of that kind of love.

But another question comes to mind. Are Paul’s words the only standard for understanding this kind of love? Or are we supposed to consider his words with another question like, “From what we are told about Jesus in the Gospels, how did our Lord show patience, kindness, a lack of jealousy and pride etc?”

For me, personally, the issue here is not whether Jesus walked what Paul wrote, but how.

So let’s try a test case. How does Jesus show patient and kind love when he is angrily turning over the tables of the moneychangers in the temple? (John 2:13-17; Matt 21:12-14). Or is that a moment when he was angry instead of loving?

Is there a time to love and a time to not love? Or is there a time to show love by patience and a time to show love without patience? Or are even the times that Christlike love seems to act without patience actually acts of patient, and kind love?

Can we really even reflect on our own growth in “how we are caring for others”  without thinking daily about how Jesus showed that he really cares even for those who consider him The Enemy?

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