Talk of JESUS .com

Tag: patience

  • To have and to hold Christian Love

    To have and to hold Christian Love

    Dearly beloved, Paul writes earlier – a greeting of agape love NOT inappropriate for a marriage, but the Apostle’s intent in this section addresses spiritual gifts and love of the CHURCH specifically.

    we have the mind of Christ.

    1 Corinthians 2:16 KJV

    ἔχω – echō

    • to have, i.e. to hold
    • to have i.e. own, possess

    So think of it this way:

    WE (referring to the Church) hold the mind of Christ. And WE possess the mind of Christ as HIS body, the Church. 

    AND, of course, don't miss this application to our vows of Christian marriage as well, (not to mention our relationship to a dearly beloved local church family). 
    Do our marriage vows model a Common Era witness of christianity to an uncommitted world?

    to HAVE and to HOLD

    used of those joined to any one by the bonds of natural blood or marriage or friendship or duty or law etc., of attendance or companionship

    Strong’s G2192 – echō

    Dearly beloved,

    Do you take this bond of your church (etc.) to:

    have and to hold?

    OR do WE just want to try out relationships of LOVE and church es — NOT having or holding any commitment to Christ Jesus and His body the Church?

    But because of sexual immoralities, each man is to have G2192 his own wife, and each woman is to have G2192 her own husband.

    Paul has already pointed the Corinthians to a higher standard.

    Abide in Marriage, Singleness and Christ – 1 Corinthians 7

    Yet HERE the Apostle continues to apply this love to the body of the CHURCH.

    So what is this agape LOVE?

    The Lord Jesus had warned those who would follow:

    And because iniquity shall abound, the love G26 of many shall wax cold.

    Matthew 24:12 KJV

    The Apostle had opened this section by listing what agape LOVE is NOT.

    Love’s clear contrasts in the love of believers 

    Paul now proceeds to list a few of the insufficient adjectives which describe the love of God in Christ Jesus - both what LOVE is and what agape LOVE is NOT.

    Love Charity

    ◄ 1 Corinthians 13:4 ►
    • is patient
      • long-spirited
      • forbearing
      • suffereth long
      • is long-suffering,
    • is kind
      • gentle
      • gracious
      • benevolent
      • desires to do good to others
    • does not envy
    • does not boast
      • brag
      • vaunt itself
      • employ rhetorical embellishments in extolling one’s self excessively
    • is not proud.

    ◄ 1 Corinthians 13:5 ►

    • Doth not behave itself unseemly
      • behave rudely
      • act unbecomingly
      • dishonor others
      • is not disrespectful
      • or inconsiderate.
    • It is not self-seeking
      • seeketh not her own
      • himself, herself, itself, themselves
    • is not easily provoked
      • irritable
      • resentful
      • angered
      • gets annoyed
      • aroused to anger
    • thinketh no evil
      • does not keep an account of a wrong suffered
      • no record of being wronged
      • love that forgives and forgets

    ◄ 1 Corinthians 13:6 ►

    it does not rejoice at wrongdoing,

    but rejoices with the truth.

    1 Corinthians 13:6 ESV

    • ἀδικία – wrongdoing
      • injustice, of a judge
      • unrighteousness of heart and life
      • a deed violating law and justice, act of unrighteousness

    The Greek word for “truth” is “aletheia,” which signifies not only factual accuracy but also sincerity and integrity.

    In the biblical narrative, truth is often associated with God’s character and His revelation to humanity.

    John 14:6

    source: BibleHub Study Bible

    Agape rejoices with the truth;

    It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

    1 Corinthians 13:7 BSB

    • It always protects,
      • always trusts,
      • always hopes,
      • always perseveres.
    • Love never gives up,
      • never loses faith,
      • is always hopeful,
      • and endures through every circumstance.

    ἀγάπη agapē never fails,

    1 Corinthians 13:8a

    And again, the Apostle's list and concern is for spiritual gifts.
    If I.. How NOT to worship

    BUT.. 

    Paul continues,
    • As for prophecies,
      • they will pass away;
    • as for tongues,
      • they will cease;
    • as for knowledge,
      • it will pass away.
    • 9 For we know in part
    • and we prophesy in part,
    • 10 but when the perfect comes,
      • the partial will pass away.

    1 Corinthians 13:8b-10 ESV 

    And let's not forget, the Apostle's instruction to the Corinthians is to contrast these to our agape love in Christ as His body the Church. 

    Now Paul, their teacher for a year and a half concludes his settling of their differences by essentially telling the Corinthian saints to:

    Grow up!

    When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child;

    but

    when I became a man, I put away childish things.

    1 Corinthians 13:11 NKJV

    Have YOU, dearly beloved, 21st century saint?

    For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face.

    Now I know in part,

    but then I shall know just as I also am known.

    1 Corinthians 13:12 NKJV

    Take a look in the mirror

    TalkofJesus.com post [2 min.] from September 11, 2013

    and now abide 

    νυνὶ δὲ μένει

    menō – not to depart

    • to continue to be present
    • to be held, kept, continually

    to remain as one, not to become another or different 

    These are just a few of the meanings when the Apostle pleas with his beloved church to have and to hold Christ -- the love of God for saints chosen to abide in the love of the Lord.

    What Paul writes here sounds like a benediction — a closing thought. But is not since the Apostle has more to say about spiritual gifts.

    And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love [ἀγάπη agapē].

    1 Corinthians 13:13 NKJV 

    NEXT: (with an interruption for Lent 2025 CE) in chapter 14 the Apostle Paul will conclude this section of his epistle on order in worship and spiritual gifts.

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  • Hebrews 12-Grow Not Weary and Lose Heart

    For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

    Hebrews 12:3 NASB

    Endurance for the race

    Life wears me out – daily and year to year. My faith fades into a fog of uncertainty as I wonder if the Lord has any use for me at all. I am weary of sin and sinners, my heart broken and soul suffering. How will I endure this marathon of mortal life?

    Can you relate to that? Do your days run endlessly with all around you asking you to sprint to their end rather than endure the race of hope to finish?

    It was no different for a persecuted church, yet in Christ we have found our Hope and Light to victory over death and the joy of the prize.

    The author of Hebrews has just connected a genealogy of Jewish faith where ‘faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Now he urges us to continue in Christ by faith.

    Lay aside every burden

    Cast your burden on the LORD,
    and he will sustain you;
    he will never allow the righteous to be shaken.

    Psalm 55:22 CSB

    Many know well the comfort of our Lord’s invitation to give to Him the great weights of our lives which hold us down.

    At that time Jesus said,

    “All things have been entrusted to me by my Father.

    “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

    excerpt from Matthew 11:25-28

    The author of Hebrews has just shown us many witnesses who have gone before us in this long journey of faith. He has provided the evidence.

    Hebrews 12:

    Therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us.

    Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith.

    Hebrews 12:1b-2a CSB

    Clear imagery of our remaining days, as well as the persecuted lives of the early Christians to whom the author of Hebrews wrote his letter. We are not in the race alone, but have run it with Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, the many Prophets of God and all the others.

    We have received a baton of hope from our forefathers, which we may place gently into the hand of our children by faith. Jesus, the Messiah is our hope of winning the prize joyfully awarded by our Heavenly Father.

    Fix your eyes upon Jesus

    It bears repeating: Jesus IS our pacesetter. He has run this same race of mortality before us.

    Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

    ἀφοράω – aphoraō

    • to turn the eyes away from other things and fix them on something

    He exhorts us to turn away from things that are not part of the race of eternity and fix our eyes on the finisher of our faith.

    The once-familiar hymn based on this passage expresses the authors same desire.

     
    O soul, are you weary and troubled?
    No light in the darkness you see?
    There’s light for a look at the Savior,
    And life more abundant and free.
     
    Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
    Look full in His wonderful face,
    And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
      In the light of His glory and grace.
    2
    Through death into life everlasting
    He passed, and we follow Him there;
    O’er us sin no more hath dominion
    For more than conqu’rors we are!
    3
    His Word shall not fail you, He promised;
    Believe Him and all will be well;
    Then go to a world that is dying,
    His perfect salvation to tell!

    Do not lose heart

    These three verses appear as an introduction to Hebrews 12, but they comprise the heart of the author’s conclusion continuing in chapter 13.

    3 For consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself, so that you won’t grow weary and give up.

    Fix your eyes upon Jesus. Our race is not ended, but Christ our Redeemer assures our victory!

    Striving against Sin

    Have your forgotten the exhortation, the admonition and encouragement of scripture?

    Proverbs 3:11 Do not despise the Lord’s instruction, my son,
    and do not loathe his discipline;
    12 for the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
    just as a father disciplines the son in whom he delights.

    7 Endure suffering as discipline: God is dealing with you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline?

    Are you an obedient son or daughter of God our Father? The author of Hebrews continues with the example of earthly fathers. They discipline their child because the love them. It’s just for a few days, but God’s discipline to our holiness ‘yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.’

    Therefore, strengthen your tired hands and weakened knees…

    Hebrews 12:12 CSB

    Walk the straight and narrow so that your woundedness may be healed.

    ἁγιασμός – Sanctification

    We are all broken though perhaps we have not yet shed blood for the sake of God. Our lives, disjointed by the sin that surrounds, wander the paths of unrighteousness.

    What is needed? How will a sinner like me ever get to the holiness required of heaven?

    The writer of Hebrews will continue to chastise us as a loving father when we continue in chapter 12.

    To be continued…