The Loving Church

The Bible tells us again and again that we should love one another. Love is like the glue that holds us all together. The apostle John wrote, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7).

The Bible’s definitive chapter on love, 1 Corinthians 13, is, in fact, the most comprehensive description of love in all of Scripture. Paul shines love through a prism, so to speak. We see many of its colors and hues, so we can more easily understand love and apply it in a practical way. Each ray gives a different facet of God’s agape love.

The Bible does not focus so much on what love is, but on what love does and does not do. The love of God that we are to demonstrate toward one another is not merely feeling or emotion. Nor is it abstract or passive. It is active. It engages. It works. It moves. God’s love does not merely feel patient; it is patient. God’s love does not simply have kind feelings; it does kind things. Love is fully love only when it is active: “My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:18).

At the same time, the Bible tells us the goal of the Christian is to be conformed to the image of Christ (see Philippians 3:10). This is what God wants you to strive for. This is what He wants you to aim toward—that the love He speaks of will work its way into your life.