Here goes more in this creative expansion by the Apostle Paul of 1 Corinthians 13, now from verse 4:
“Let me shift from talking about me, to talking about love itself. This is the love which God gives, which He models and which He expects and demonstrates through us. I’ve used the Greek word agape. But how can I describe it?
First, it’s long-suffering. That is, it puts up with a lot. (Interesting to start the list with that one, I think!) Anyone who has ever sacrificially loved knows this one. There’s no getting around it. It requires perseverance, patience and stick-with-it.
Secondly, it’s marked by kindness. Stated positively, when interacting with others, we can tell that agape love is in motion because the one doing the interacting is demonstrating nice-ness to others. Stated negatively, love is not in operation or not recognized when kindness is absent or mean-ness is present in the interactions.
And now I’ll give you a whole list of things it’s not, so that you can compare that list with the positives. First, it’s not jealous! Or, it’s not marked by jealousy, and I take that to be jealousy which results in inappropriate behavior. After all, our God is described in Scripture as a jealous God, and He didn’t tolerate any rivals in his love relationship with His people. But that’s not this. This “wrong” jealousy is the one that results in the human spirit being suspicious, never at ease, always questioning and wondering and not trusting the whereabouts or intentions of the person to be loved.
Another thing this love is not, it does not brag, or put the attention on self. But let me ask, what harm would there be if “it ain’t bragging if you done it?” Or “if you got it, flaunt it”? Well, it seems that the agape love part is not marked by putting itself forward and telling others how great it is. I’ll say it a different way: if you love someone in the agape way, and are demonstrating this relationship, then you aren’t focused on you, and how great you are (and telling others about that), you are focused on others, and how important they are (rather than how important—or seemingly important—you are). You aren’t drawing attention to your giftings and importance (see the list of extraordinary skills or attributes I previously described in this chapter) .
This is all about putting others first, not being in control, not being in the driver’s seat, but serving others.
That is some kind of love.
Freddy Boswell 