Christ's Example of True Love (Part 1 of 2)

What do you think of when you hear the word, “love”? What does society think of when it hears that word? To get an idea, I went to Google and typed in the word ‘love.' In the top 10 sites, there is not one that mentions Christ's love! There's a love calculator, a site that connects love to astrology, several dictionary/encyclopedia entries on love, and a matchmaking site from India, to name a few! Unfortunately, these search results give what is probably an all-too-accurate picture of the moral state of our society! Thankfully, the top 10 don't include the pornographic side of the Internet that lurks just below the surface for that search.

When I consider these results as well as the reality I see all around in Bangkok, Thailand, I am tempted to throw my hands up in the air and cry “What’s the use? Our society’s too far gone!” “The Bible could never apply to this kind of gross immorality!” Actually, there was a specific city during the time of the Bible that probably would have had similar search results if the Internet had been a reality back then. That city is the Achaean city of Corinth, in what is today Greece.

Corinth was the foremost commercial center in southern Greece during Biblical times and it was renowned for its sexual corruption. Aristophanes, the Greek philosopher, coined a new word, corinthiazesthai, which means “to practice fornication, or sexual immorality.” Plato also spoke of “Corinthian girls” to talk about prostitutes. Additionally, it is estimated that theTemple of Aphrodite housed up to 1000 temple prostitutes!

Still, into this city of corruption, God sent Paul to bring the Gospel! The church that Paul established in Corinth was not without its problems, however…If we look in the book of 1 Corinthians, we find a whole chapter in which Paul denounces immorality such as that which was present with a man who was sleeping with his step mother!

It’s within this context that we find 1 Corinthians 13. This chapter is not just thrown in out of nowhere! It applies specifically to the believers in the Corinthian Church and I believe it applies to the church today. In the next few posts, I’ll take a closer look at the following passage from the Bible:

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

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.

Go to Part 2