Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Corinthians 13:7
Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
7. beareth all things ] Suffers, Vulgate, and so Wiclif and Tyndale. See note on ch. 1Co 9:12, where the same word is used. Here it means to endure patiently indignities and affronts, save of course where the well-being of others requires that they should be repelled.
believeth all things ] “Not that a Christian should knowingly and willingly suffer himself to be imposed upon; not that he should deprive himself of prudence and judgment, so that he may be the more easily deceived; but that he should esteem it better to be deceived by his kindness and gentleness of heart, than to injure his brother by needless suspicion.” Calvin. “It is always ready to think the best; to put the most favourable construction on anything; is glad to make all the allowance for human weakness which can be done without betraying the truth of God.” Dr Coke. Similarly Erasmus and Wesley.
hopeth all things ] (1) Of man, of whom love will ever hope the best, and deem reformation possible in the most hardened offenders; and (2) of God, that He will bring good out of evil, and that all the evils of this life will issue ultimately in the triumph of good.
endureth all things ] Sustains to the end, with unshaken confidence in the goodness of God, all the persecutions and afflictions of this life.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Beareth all things – Compare the note at 1Co 9:12. Doddridge renders this, covers all things. The word used here ( stegei) properly means to cover (from stege, a covering, roof; Mat 8:8; Luk 7:6); and then to hide, conceal, not to make known. If this be the sense here, then it means that love is disposed to hide or conceal the faults and imperfections of others; not to promulgate or blazon them abroad, or to give any undue publicity to them. Benevolence to the individual or to the public would require that these faults and errors should be concealed. If this is the sense, then it accords nearly with what is said in the previous verse. The word may also mean, to forbear, bear with, endure. Thus, it is used in 1Th 3:1, 1Th 3:5. And so our translators understand it here, as meaning that love is patient, long-suffering, not soon angry not disposed to revenge. And if this is the sense, it accords with the expression in 1Co 13:4, love suffers long. The more usual classic meaning is the former; the usage in the New Testament seems to demand the latter. Rosenmuller renders it, bears all things; Bloomfield prefers the other interpretation. Locke and Macknight render it cover. The real sense of the passage is not materially varied, whichever interpretation is adopted. It means, that in regard to the errors and faults of others, there is a disposition not to notice or to revenge them. There is a willingness to conceal, or to bear with them patiently.
All things – This is evidently to be taken in a popular sense, and to he interpreted in accordance with the connection. All universal expressions of this kind demand to be thus limited. The meaning must be, as far as it can consistently or lawfully be done. There are offences which it is not proper or right for a man to conceal, or to suffer to pass unnoticed. Such are those where the laws of the land are violated, and a man is called on to testify, etc. But the phrase here refers to private matters; and indicates a disposition not to make public or to avenge the faults committed by others.
Believeth all things – The whole scope of the connection and the argument here requires us to understand this of the conduct of others. It cannot mean, that the man who is under the influence of love is a man of universal credulity; that he makes no discrimination in regard to things to be believed; and is as prone to believe a falsehood as the truth; or that he is at no pains to inquire what is true and what is false, what is right and what is wrong. But it must mean, that in regard to the conduct of others, there is a disposition to put the best construction on it; to believe that they may be actuated by good motives, and that they intend no injury; and that there is a willingness to suppose, as far as can be, that what is done is done consistently with friendship, good feeling, and virtue. Love produces this, because it rejoices in the happiness and virtue of others, and will not believe the contrary except on irrefragable evidence.
Hopeth all things – Hopes that all will turn out well. This must also refer to the conduct of others; and it means, that however dark may be appearances; how much soever there may be to produce the fear that others are actuated by improper motives or are bad people, yet that there is a hope that matters may be explained and made clear; that the difficulties may he made to vanish; and that the conduct of others may be made to appear to be fair and pure. Love will hold on to this hope until all possibility of such a result has vanished and it is compelled to believe that the conduct is not susceptible of a fair explanation. This hope will extend to all things – to words and actions, and plans; to public and to private contact; to what is said and done in our own presence, and to what is said and done in our absence. Love will do this, because it delights in the virtue and happiness of others, and will not credit anything to the contrary unless compelled to do so.
Endureth all things – Bears up under, sustains, and does not complain. Bears up under all persecutions at the hand of man; all efforts to injure the person, property, or reputation; and hears all that may be laid upon us in the providence and by the direct agency of God; compare Job 13:15. The connection requires us to understand it principally of our treatment at the hands of our fellow-men.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
1Co 13:7
Beareth believeth hopeth endureth all things.
Loves labours
Notice–
I. The multitude of loves difficulties.
1. The difficulties of love are many, for the apostle sets forth the opposing armies as four times all things. You will have to contend with all things–
(1) Within yourself. Nothing in your original nature will help you. God has put within you a new life, but the old life seeks to smother it.
(2) In the persons whom you are called upon to love. The best of the saints will try your patience; and as for the ungodly, everything in them will oppose the drawings of your love.
(3) In the world, for the world lieth in the wicked one, and all its forces run against love.
(4) In hell. The prince of the power of the air leads the van, and the host of fallen spirits eagerly follow him. Speak of crusades against the Paynim, what a crusade is this against hate and evil! Yet we shrink not from the fray.
2. Though love has many difficulties, it overcomes them all, and that four times.
(1) By patience, which beareth all things. Let the injury be inflicted, we will forgive it.
(2) By faith: we trust in Christ, and look for Divine succour, and so we believe all things.
(3) By hope: we rest in expectation that gentleness will win, and that long-suffering will wear out malice.
(4) By perseverance: we abide faithful to our resolve to love, we will not be irritated into unkindness. Baffled often, love endureth all things.
3. Love conquers on all four sides. Love makes a hollow square.
(1) Does God seem to smite love with afflictions? She beareth all things.
(2) Do her fellow Christians treat her ill? She believes everything that is good about them, and nothing that is injurious.
(3) Do the wicked rise against her? She hopes that yet they may be brought to a better mind.
(4) Do all her spiritual foes attack her with temptations and insinuations? She turneth patience against them, and by Gods grace endureth all things.
4. Love conquers in all stages of her life.
(1) She begins in conversion, and the powers of evil are at once aroused to seek her destruction. Then she beareth all things.
(2) She gathers strength, and believing all things, confesses her faith, and her fellow Christians are confirmed.
(3) Advancing a little farther, though often disappointed, she hopes all things.
(4) And when infirmities and old age come, and she can do little else but sit still, she still perseveres, and accepts even death without complaining, for love endureth all things.
II. The triumph of loves labour. Her labours are fourfold.
1. In bearing all things. Bear might be translated cover. The two ideas may be blended, however. Love bears all things in silence, concealing injuries as much as possible even from herself.
(1) Think of this word covers.
(a) In reference to the brethren. It is not honourable to men or women to be common informers. Love stands in the presence of a fault, with a finger on her lip. She imitates the pearl oyster. A. hurtful particle intrudes itself and, unable to eject the evil, it covers it with a precious substance extracted out of its own life, by which it turns the intruder into a pearl. I would desire to keep ready for my fellow Christians a bath of silver, in which I could electroplate all their mistakes into occasions for love. As the dripping well covers with its own deposit all that is placed within its drip, so would love cover all within its range with love, thus turning even curses into blessings.
(b) As to bearing all, apply the text mainly to trials in dealing with the unconverted. Ignore any repulsiveness that there may be in them. Bear with their ignorance of the gospel, their hardness of heart, and their jests. Would you see the perfection of the charity that beareth all things? Behold your Divine Lord. Oh, what He has covered!
2. In believing all things. In reference–
(1) To our fellow Christians. True love believes good of others as long as it can, and when it is forced to fear that wrong has been done, gives the accused the benefit of many a doubt. When the thing is too clear, love says, Yes, but the friend must have been under very strong temptation, or else that the good man must have been mistaken. Loves blind eye is to the fault, and her bright is for the excellence. It is said that once, in the streets of Jerusalem, there lay a dead dog, and every one reviled it. One spoke of its currish breed, another of its lean and ugly form, etc.; but one passed by who said, What white teeth it has! Men said, as He went on His way, That is Jesus of Nazareth. Surely it is ever our Lords way to see good points wherever He can.
(2) To the unconverted. She does not believe that they are converted, but she believes that their conversion is possible, and expects that the word she speaks will be Gods instrument of salvation. Do you want a model of this? Look to your Divine Master once again. He had no faith in mans goodness, for He knew what was in man; but He had great faith in what could be done in men and for them, and for the joy that was set before Him in this He endured the Cross, despising the shame.
3. In hoping all things. Love never despairs.
(1) Hope all things about your brethren, and if you should be forced to see sad signs in them, yet, remember that some of the brightest believers have had their faults. Remember yourself, lest you also be tempted.
(2) As to the unconverted, you will never do anything with them unless you hope great things about them. When the good Samaritan found the poor man half dead, if he had not hoped about him he would never have poured in the oil and the wine, but would have left him there to die. Would you see a model of this? Our blessed Lord despaired of none, but went after those whom others would have given up.
4. In enduring all things. This is perhaps the hardest work of all, for many people can be affectionate and patient for a time, but the task is to hold on year after year. In reference–
(1) To our fellow Christians, love holds out under all rebuffs. If your brethren are angry without a cause, be sorry for them, but do not let them conquer you by driving you into a bad temper.
(2) To the unconverted. Our Lord said, I will make you fishers of men. If you go out fishing for souls you will have to endure all things, for some whom you have been seeking for a long time will grow worse instead of better.
III. The sources of loves energy. Loves art is learned at no other school but at the feet of Jesus, where the Spirit of love doth rest on those who learn of Him. Love wins these victories, for–
1. It is her nature. The nature of love is self-sacrifice.
2. She has four companions. Tenderness that beareth all things; faith that believeth all things; hope and patience which endureth all things.
3. She sucks her life from Christ. Love can bear, believe, hope, and endure because Christ has borne, believed, and hoped, and endured for her. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The wide scope of love
Grief is near-sighted, and holds its trouble close up, but love is long-sighted, and takes the events of life, and looks at them in all points of view, and sees how they look against the east, and how against the west, how toward the north, and how toward the south, how above and how below, how against one background, and how against another. Love looks upon a thing all around, in its germs and in its fruits, in its presence and in its coming. It sympathises not with the limitation of grief, but with the largeness of that love of humanity which is in every event. (H. W. Beecher.)
The magnanimity of love
I. Beareth (covereth) all things–with a mantle of charity–as far as circumstances will admit.
II. Believeth all things.
1. To the advantage of its neighbour.
2. Until convinced by the clearest evidence.
III. Hopeth all things.
1. Good of others.
2. Or that can possibly alleviate the wrong.
3. Or contribute to its amendment.
IV. Endureth all things when there is no relief.
1. Without a murmur.
2. Without resentment.
3. Without reproach. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
Charity beareth all things
The real meaning of the word is concealeth. It does the very thing which it is always asking God to do, hides its face from, and shuts its eyes to, the sins of others. It is charity which applies to itself what it asks of God in the Miserere, and in the De profundis. It turns away its face from the sins of others, and in that deep of Gods love it buries and conceals them.
1. It is terrible to think what a keen eye we have for each others faults. It is sad to think how clever we are at ferreting them out, either for our own or for our neighbours amusement. Even the dead are sometimes not suffered to rest unmolested in their graves. True it is that they are out of the reach of the tongue of slander or uncharitableness, but the sin is not the less great for all that.
2. Now charity, so far from injuring the reputation of any person by exposing their faults, not only conceals them, but protects these very persons, and interposes a shield, as it were, between them and the attack of their enemies. The very meaning of the word protect is to hide or conceal, by interposing some object between one who would seek to injure another. No doubt, from time to time, cases will arise where faults have to be brought to light and plainly told. But we must make quite sure that it is our business to find them out, and when we do speak, to be careful that we are not gratifying any prejudice of our own.
3. But to bear all things, in the sense of concealing the faults of others, is indeed to have a Christ-like spirit. It is to resemble Him very closely. It is to walk very closely in His loving footsteps. When need arose our gentle Lord was stern and strong in His reproofs. But how often He passes over faults! How ready He is to make excuses for or to conceal or hide them! Let two instances alone suffice: first, in the case of the woman taken in the deadliest of deadly sins. Then, again, on the Cross. (J. B. Wilkinson, M.A.)
Charity willing to undergo all sufferings in the way of duty
I. Explain the doctrine. It implies that those that have Christian love–
1. Are willing not only to do, but also to suffer, for Christ (Luk 14:27).
2. Have the spirit to undergo all the sufferings to which their duty to Christ may expose them. They are willing to undergo all sufferings
(1) Of all kinds.
(a) Reproach and contempt (2Co 12:10).
(b) Hatred and ill-will (Mat 10:22).
(c) Losses in their outward possessions (Php 3:8); in their ease and comfort (2Co 6:4-5).
(d) Persecution (Heb 11:35-36):
(e) Death itself (Mat 10:39).
(2) Of all degrees, like pure gold, that will bear the trial of the hottest furnace.
II. Some reason or proof of the doctrine.
1. If we have not such a spirit, it is an evidence that we have never given ourselves unreservedly to Christ. It is necessary to our being Christians that we should give ourselves to Him, wholly, only, and for ever.
2. They that are truly Christians, so fear God, that His displeasure is far more terrible than all earthly afflictions and sufferings.
3. They that are truly Christians, have that faith whereby they see that which is more than sufficient to make up for the greatest sufferings (2Co 4:17; Heb 11:24-26).
4. If we are not willing to close with religion, notwithstanding all the difficulties attending it, we shall be overwhelmed with shame at last (Luk 14:28-33).
5. Without this spirit which the text implies, we cannot be said to forsake all for Christ. If there be any one kind or degree of temporal suffering that we have not a spirit to undergo for Christ, then there is something that we do not forsake for Him (Luk 14:26, etc.).
6. Without this spirit we cannot be said to deny ourselves in the sense in which the Scriptures require us to do it (Mat 16:24-25).
7. It is the character of all the true followers of Christ that they follow Him in all things.
8. It is the character of true Christians that they overcome the world (1Jn 5:4).
9. The sufferings in the way of duty are often, in the Bible, called temptations or trials, because by them God tries the sincerity of our characters as Christians (1Pe 1:6-7; 1Pe 4:12-13).
Conclusion:
1. How happy those persons are represented in the Scriptures to be who have a spirit to suffer, and do actually suffer, for Christ (Mat 5:10-12).
2. What glorious rewards God has promised hereafter to bestow on those that do willingly suffer for Christ (Mat 19:29; 2Ti 2:11-12).
3. How the Scriptures abound with blessed examples of those that have suffered for Christs sake! (Jon. Edwards.)
Charity believeth all things
Go tell a mother of the faults of her absent son. You must adduce the clearest evidence before she will yield her reluctant credence: and even then it is not yielded without many misgivings and conjectural qualifications in favour of her child. She demands whether you yourself witnessed the things of which you speak, or whether your informant were a truthful and unprejudiced person, or whether the report may not have originated in some unfriendly motive, or whether there be not some circumstance in connection with the facts that would give them a different aspect, or whether after all it were not some other child instead of her own. Rather than credit the report of her darlings culpability, she would believe a dozen persons in error, or even guilty of malicious falsehood. But, on the other hand tell her of the good and noble conduct of her boy; unexceptional deportment, his studious habits and proficiency in learning; and instantly you see the glad conviction beaming in her eye, and mantling all her features with sunny joy; and perhaps she adduces many confirmations of your encomium, and tells you the finest things concerning her son, and expatiates enthusiastically upon his rare and noble qualities. What is it but love that renders her so incredulous to what is said against him, and so ready to receive without abatement or qualification all that is uttered in his praise? And Christian love, operating in another sphere, differs nothing in this respect from natural maternal affection, powerfully inclining the heart to faith in the moral excellence of its object. The apostle tells us that faith worketh by love ; is it not equally true that love worketh by faith?(J. Cross, D.D.)
Charity believeth all things
If we really love a person we implicitly trust him. So, and in a far higher degree, if we really love God we cannot but believe in Him. True it is that the actions of our friends often perplex us, and even distress, but for all that we do not lose our love for them, and if our love be a rightly founded love, we do not lose our confidence in them. So must it be with God and us, our love and trust in Him must be so implicit and so unquestioning, that we must be ready with Job to say, Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. It is just the want of this child-like trustful faith which makes us suspicious about our fellow-men, and which, at the same time, makes us cold and incredulous, or unbelieving in our religion. On the one hand we are always afraid of being imposed upon or unduly influenced, on the other we are afraid of believing too much, and so we are apt to be reserved, to hold back coldly, not only from our fellow-men, but from God. Limits, and rightly there must be somewhere, but to believe too much is always safer than to believe too little: and probably to be imposed upon many times is safer and more charitable than to hold back once when we ought to go forward. (J. B. Wilkinson, M.A.)
The faith of love
I. Operates in manifold directions.
1. There is a sense in which it finds exercise towards God. The heart that loves God is not tormented with the mysteries of His Providence. The lips of love say, Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? In the midst of inscrutable events in individual or national life, the filial child of God believeth all things about His wisdom and love.
2. It finds frequent exercise in relation to the imperfections of friendship. Often in social life there is need for the best construction to be put upon some word or some action. Love so believes in the beloved that it eagerly puts that construction.
3. It finds exercise in relation to mankind generally. With the true enthusiasm of humanity, its views of men, its interpretations of men are inspired by a faith it is very unwilling to forego. And thus, as long and as far as possible, it believeth all things.
II. Is an unspeakable gain to men. For who cannot see that to have–
1. Unbroken repose in Gods government.
2. Ungrudging trust in friendship, and–
3. Unfaltering belief in humanity, exerts the highest influences on–
(1) Piety.
(2) Philanthropy? (U. R. Thomas.)
All the graces of Christianity connected
I. The manner in which they are connected.
1. They always go together. Where there is one, there are all, and where one is wanting, all are wanting.
2. They depend upon one another. One cannot be without the others. To deny one would in effect be to deny another, and so all.
3. They are, in some respects, implied one in another. Thus, e.g., humility is implied in faith, etc.
II. Some reasons of their being thus connected and dependent.
1. They are all from the same source (1Co 12:4; 1Co 12:6).
2. They are all communicated in the same work of the Spirit, namely, conversion. There is not one conversion of the soul to faith, and another conversion to love, etc.
3. That they all have the same root and foundation, namely, the knowledge of Gods excellence (Psa 9:10; 1Jn 3:6; 1Jn 4:7).
4. That they all have the same rule, namely, the law of God (Jam 2:10-11).
5. They have the same end, viz., God.
6. They are alike related to one and the same grace, namely, charity, or Divine love, as the sum of them all.
Conclusion:
1. The subject may aid us to understand in what sense old things are said to be done away, and all things become new, in conversion (2Co 5:17). A true convert, the moment he is converted, is possessed not of one or two, but of all holy principles, and all gracious dispositions.
2. Hence, also, they that hope they have grace in their hearts may try one grace by another; for all graces go together. If persons think they have faith, they should inquire whether their faith was accompanied with repentance, etc. And so persons should examine their love by their faith. (Jon. Edwards.)
Charity hopeth all things
I. The limitation. We must tie our hope to Gods promise, and limit one duty by another, our hope by our prayers. What God commands me to pray for, what He hath promised to give, may raise my hope, Some things there are which are not to be numbered amongst this all. Some things are as good as nothing; and my estate may be bettered in being without them. Some things are worse than nothing; and my estate will be far worse if I have them. Some things are indifferent, neither good nor evil; and a bare if may make it either good or evil to hope for them. Some things are evil in their own nature, and a great sin it is to hope for these. Some things appear evil to us, viz., affliction, poverty, disgrace: and these I am so far from hoping for, as that I may pray against them.
II. The extension.
1. All good things. For, to wait for the twilight with the adulterer; to catch at all opportunities which may be as steps to bring to the pinnacle of honour; to have our eyes still watching upon the prey, is not hope, but lust, or ambition, or covetousness.
2. Future, absent goods; goods at a distance. For when the object is present, hope is no more. Charity is patient (verse 4), draws in its breath, as it were, and stayeth, and defers, and prolongs itself (Rom 8:25).
3. Matters of difficulty. For hope loves to struggle with its object, and sometimes is increased by opposition, and made bolder by being frighted. But if the object be at hand and cheap, my hope is lazy and asleep; hope above hope, hope against hope (Rom 4:18), that, is hope indeed. The way of hope is hard and rugged. She passeth by the pomp of the world, and she treadeth dangerous paths. If a serpent be in the way, she feareth not; if a flower, some pleasing object, she gazeth not; but presses on forward, over riches and poverty, over honour and disgrace, over all relations and dependencies, and striveth forward to her object.
4. Good things, though hard to obtain, yet possible. For charity is not foolish and indiscreet: it ploughs not, the air, nor sows upon the rocks. What is easy and at hand cannot raise a hope and what is impossible overwhelms and swallows it. What is ready to fall into my bosom, I need not hope for: and what I cannot have doth scarce produce a wish, much less beget a hope. (A. Farindon, D.D.)
Charity hopeth all things
Suppose the matter is investigated. What will charity do now? She hopeth all things. May not some palliation be found which will relieve the case of its darker features? First appearances are often deceptive, circumstantial evidence is frequently fallacious, and even direct testimony cannot always be relied upon; and charity hopes that, though many things now look suspicious, some future discovery or explanation will make the innocence of the accused perfectly clear to all. People often form an unfavourable opinion of others from some error of their own, or from an ex-parte statement by a third person; and charity hopes that, when the other side comes to be heard, the opposing testimony may be sufficient to obliterate the false or passing impression already thus produced. Some speakers are always using superlatives; and charity hopes that the affair, having passed from tongue to tongue, a little embellished or exaggerated by every repetition, will be found less flagrant than at first represented. The world is largely given to lying, and defamation is one of the most prevalent vices of society, and envious tongues can never rest till they have blasted some overshadowing reputation or checked the career of some ambitious rival; and charity hopes that the allegation may turn out in the end to be altogether groundless, the despicable work of one of those depraved souls who are always trying to put out anothers light that their own may shine the brighter. Wrong-doing sometimes originates in ignorance or infirmity, in misinformation or misjudgment, where there is no evil motive, where the intention is even friendly and benevolent; and charity hopes that, while the deed itself wears a questionable aspect, it may yet be made to appear that the error was more in the head than in the heart, that it was rather an involuntary mistake than an intentional wrong, and that better information in the future will prevent its repetition. The sinner is not always incorrigible, the worst offenders have occasionally been reformed, and no one ought to be delivered over to Satan for the first or second delinquency; and charity hopes that, if the accused is really guilty, and guilty to the full extent of the finding, he is not yet quite past all power of recovery, but may by proper means be brought to repentance and plucked as a brand from the burning. In short, amidst all that is unfavourable and discouraging, charity hopes on, hopes ever; unwilling to abandon her efforts in behalf of the beloved delinquent, still pursuing him with prayers and tears and tender remonstrances. Who has not seen the Christian mother patiently bearing With the irregularities of a wild and wayward son, hoping to reclaim him from his wicked ways, even when all others have given him up in despair? Who has not seen the meek and long-suffering wife, after years of cruel annoyance and guilty provocation, planning, toiling, watching, night and day, in hope of recovering a debauched and abandoned husband out of the snare of evil habit and vicious companionship, and raising him up from his moral degradation to the dignity of a virtuous and sober life? (J. Cross, D.D.)
Charity hopes for others
As we build up ourselves, so must we edify others also, in our most holy faith; and as we hope for all things for ourselves, so must we reserve a hope for those also who are tied in the same link and bond of love. When we see a house tottering, we must not make our censure a wind to blow it down; but hope that even a broken beam, a loose rafter, nay, the very rubbish itself, may in time be made a sound part of the building. When I see my brother fall, I must lend him my hand to help him up. If my hand will not help him, I must lend him my pity and compassion and prayer. And when all the rest fail, I must give him my hope. Charity hath an eye abroad as well as at home; nor doth she nurse up hope for herself alone, but makes it as catholic as the Church, nay, as the world. Saith Cicero, Hope lasteth as long as life lasteth, nor can it expire but with the soul. And bow desperately soever we see our brother plunged in sin, yet we must hope well that his sickness is not unto death. And indeed why should we not hope well of every man, suppose he were a Judas, and by our Christian industry strive to recover his drooping soul, and to revive the flame of charity in his breast, which may warm him into a temperate hope? How know we but that the word of God through our ministry may of this stone raise up a child unto Abraham? Let our weak brother be lame hand and foot, sick in head and heart; yet as long as there is life in him, our charity must visit him, and our hope make us active to his recovery; otherwise, like unskilful physicians, we shall suffer him to die under our hands, and then pretend his disease was incurable. The priest and the Levite, who saw the man wounded on the way, and passed by on the other side, are not proposed as patterns of our imitation, but the Samaritan (Luk 10:30-35). How sinful soever a man be, yet if he come behind, and but touch the hem of Christs garment, the grace of God may cure him. Nay, were he dead in sin, who knows what God may do? (A. Farindon, D.D.)
The hopefulness of love
This quality of love follows as a consequence from the last-named element, viz., faith. While this hopefulfulness is again a source of the next quality–endurance. The hopefulness of love.
I. Is attested by
1. Its nature. For love will not let go any ground for expecting the best things concerning the admired, or for anticipating the best things concerning even the pitied. Unwilling to forebode ill, it is sanguine ever of good.
2. Its history. Love is always known to be declining when it is unhopeful. The infinite love is the God of hope.
II. Gives life and beauty to love. Whilst love is a source of hope, hope again feeds the lamp of love. It suggests the better explanation of what seems mysterious in human or in Divine procedure, and thus it endows love with an eye that never grows dim. (U. R. Thomas.)
Charity endureth all things
Like the storks of Delft that when the city was burning, having vainly tried, to carry off their callow young, resolutely remained and perished in the effort to protect them, charity first exhausts all her energies in the service of miserable man, and then sacrifices herself for those she could not save. Rather, like the Roman soldier who kept his place at the Herculanean Gate of Pompeii till the fiery storm entombed him where he stood, she maintains her position to the last, and will be found erect in full armour at her post when the worlds catastrophe shall fall. As J. A. James says, Her energies increase with the difficulty that requires them, says the writer just quoted; and, like a well-constructed arch, she becomes firmer by what she has to sustain. Charity is not a spark falling into the ocean, nor a snowflake descending into the voice, no; but a mass of gold cast into the furnace, and surviving the flame by which it is purified. Unchanged and unchangeable as her Lord, charity is superior to all adversity, to all hostility, to all the powers of earth and hell. Censures, slanders, curses, threatenings, cannot daunt her heroic spirit; nor losses, exiles, prisons, scourges, crosses, wear out her energies. She lies calm among the lions, and walks unharmed in flames. She smiles at the inquisitors engine, and triumphs at the martyrs stake. Wearing her fetters more proudly than royal lady ever wore her jewels, and glorying in her wreath of thorns more than oriental princes in their diadems, she lives on through a thousand tribulations, invincible to the last hour of life, exulting in the last agony of death, and serenely falling asleep on the bosom of her Beloved, to awake satisfied with His likeness in the glory of immortality. (J. Cross, D.D.)
The endurance of love
Though not wholly dissimilar from the virtue described in the word beareth, which suggested to us the tolerance of love, the characteristic here asserted is not precisely the same. This indicates the force of love to sustain quietly and to survive all persecutions and distresses inflicted by others. Indeed, our word endure embodies the thought very completely.
I. Love has to endure much This is strange, but it is true. Love is not requited with love, but often with misunderstanding and even with hatred. Error hates truth, selfishness hates love. Christs biography supplies the climax of the proof of this. But all loving bears witness to the same experience. Does not God endure much?
II. Love is able to endure much. The distresses and persecutions that seem to have force enough in them to blast and burn out all they oppose, have been again and again as harmless to love as the fiery furnace to the three Hebrew youths. Fierce fire cannot consume it; many waters cannot quench it. (U. R. Thomas.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 7. (12.) Beareth all things] , This word is also variously interpreted: to endure, bear, sustain, cover, conceal, contain. Bishop Pearce contends that it should be translated covereth all things, and produces several plausible reasons for this translation; the most forcible of which is, that the common translation confounds it with endureth all things, in the same verse. We well know that it is a grand and distinguishing property of love to cover and conceal the fault of another; and it is certainly better to consider the passage in this light than in that which our common version holds out; and this perfectly agrees with what St. Peter says of charity, 1Pe 4:8: It shall cover the multitude of sins; but there is not sufficient evidence that the original will fully bear this sense; and perhaps it would be better to take it in the sense of contain, keep in, as a vessel does liquor; thus Plato compared the souls of foolish men to a sieve, and not able, , to contain any thing through unfaithfulness and forgetfulness. See Parkhurst and Wetstein. Some of the versions have , loveth, or is warmly affectioned to all things or persons. But the true import must be found either in cover or contain. Love conceals every thing that should be concealed; betrays no secret; retains the grace given; and goes on to continual increase. A person under the influence of this love never makes the sins, follies, faults, or imperfections of any man, the subject either of censure or conversation. He covers them as far as he can; and if alone privy to them, he retains the knowledge of them in his own bosom as far as he ought.
(13.) Believeth all things] . Is ever ready to believe the best of every person, and will credit no evil of any but on the most positive evidence; gladly receives whatever may tend to the advantage of any person whose character may have suffered from obloquy and detraction; or even justly, because of his misconduct.
(14.) Hopeth all things.] . When there is no place left for believing good of a person, then love comes in with its hope, where it could not work by its faith; and begins immediately to make allowances and excuses, as far as a good conscience can permit; and farther, anticipates the repentance of the transgressor, and his restoration to the good opinion of society and his place in the Church of God, from which he had fallen.
(15.) Endureth all things.] . Bears up under all persecutions and mal-treatment from open enemies and professed friends; bears adversities with an even mind, as it submits with perfect resignation to every dispensation of the providence of God; and never says of any trial, affliction, or insult, this cannot be endured.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The charitable man beareth all injuries with patience; he
believeth all things that are good of his brother, so far is he from being credulous to his prejudice;
endureth all things that a good man ought to endure, that is, any evils done to himself. In the same sense Solomon saith, Pro 10:12; Love covereth all sins.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
7. Beareth all thingswithoutspeaking of what it has to bear. The same Greek verb as in 1Co9:12. It endures without divulging to the world personaldistress. Literally said of holding fast like a watertightvessel; so the charitable man contains himself in silence fromgiving vent to what selfishness would prompt under personal hardship.
believeth allthingsunsuspiciously believes all that is not palpably false,all that it can with a good conscience believe to the credit ofanother. Compare Jas 3:17,”easy to be entreated”; Greek, “easilypersuaded.”
hopethwhat is good ofanother, even when others have ceased to hope.
endurethpersecutionsin a patient and loving spirit.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Beareth all things,…. The burdens of fellow Christians, and so fulfils the law of Christ, which is the law of love; the infirmities of weak believers, and the reproaches and persecutions of the world: or “covers all things”, as it may be rendered, even a multitude of sins, as charity is said to do, 1Pe 4:8 not by conniving at them, or suffering them to be upon a brother; but having privately and faithfully reproved for them, and the offender being brought to a sense and acknowledgment of them, he freely forgives them as trespasses against him, covers them with the mantle of love, and industriously hides and conceals them from others;
believeth all things; that are to be believed, all that God says in his word, all his truths, and all his promises; and even sometimes in hope against hope, as Abraham did, relying upon the power, faithfulness, and other perfections of God; though such a man will not believe every spirit, every preacher and teacher, nor any but such as agree with the Scriptures of truth, the standard of faith and practice; nor will he believe every word of man, which is the character of a weak and foolish man; indeed, a man of charity or love is willing to believe all the good things reported of men; he is very credulous of such things, and is unwilling to believe ill reports of persons, or any ill of men; unless it is open and glaring, and is well supported, and there is full evidence of it; he is very incredulous in this respect:
hopes all things; that are to be hoped for; hopes for the accomplishment of all the promises of God; hopes for the enjoyment of him in his house and ordinances; hopes for things that are not seen, that are future, difficult, though possible to be enjoyed: hopes for heaven and eternal happiness, for more grace here and glory hereafter; hopes the best of all men, of all professors of religion, even of wicked men, that they may be better and brought to repentance, and of fallen professors, who declare their repentance, and make their acknowledgments; he hopes well of them, that they are sincere, and all is right and will appear so:
endureth all things; that are disagreeable to the flesh; all afflictions, tribulations, temptations, persecutions, and death itself, for the elect’s sake, for the sake of the Gospel, and especially for the sake of Christ Jesus.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Beareth all things ( ). is old verb from , roof, already in 1Cor 9:12; 1Thess 3:1; 1Thess 3:5 which see. Love covers, protects, forbears (suffert, Vulgate). See 1Pe 4:8 “because love covers a multitude of sins” ( ), throws a veil over.
Believeth all things ( ). Not gullible, but has faith in men.
Hopeth all things ( ). Sees the bright side of things. Does not despair. ( ). Perseveres. Carries on like a stout-hearted soldier. If one knows Sir Joshua Reynolds’s beautiful painting of the Seven Virtues (the four cardinal virtues of the Stoics–temperance, prudence, fortitude, justice–and the three Christian graces–faith, hope, love), he will find them all exemplified here as marks of love (the queen of them all).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Beareth [] . See on suffer, ch. 9 12. It keeps out resentment as the ship keeps out the water, or the roof the rain.
Endureth [] . An advance on beareth : patient acquiescence, holding its ground when it can no longer believe nor hope.
“All my days are spent and gone; And ye no more shall lead your wretched life, Caring for me. hard was it, that I know, My children ! Yet one word is strong to loose, Although alone, the burden of these toils, For love in larger store ye could not have From any than from him who standeth here.” SOPHOCLES, “Oedipus at Colonus,” 613 – 618.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Beareth all things,” (panta stegei) “Love covers all (kinds) of things. True love covers or bears up under all things in the sense of “all kinds of things,” Pro 10:12. The nature of true love is one of forbearance, longsuffering, and patience with wrongs of others, Eph 3:19; Gal 6:1-2.
2) “Believeth all things,” (panta pisteuei) “Believes all things.” The belief of all (Gk. neuter) “kinds of things” simply reveals that, whatever the nature of thing declared by revealed truth, may be accepted, and love helps one to bear up under it, Rom 8:28.
3) “Hopeth all things (panta elpizei) “Hopes all things.” Love for matters revealed in the Word of truth, motivates, sustains, and supports future hope of help, triumph, and victory in life and in death for every child of God, Heb 6:17-19; 1Co 12:12; 1Pe 3:15.
4) “Endureth all things; (panta hupomenei) “Endures all (kinds of) things.” Psa 52:1; Psa 100:5. The person who through love endures all kinds of temptations, matures in love, after the attribute of God, Jas 1:12; Jas 5:11.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
7. Beareth all things, etc. By all these statements he intimates, that love is neither impatient nor spiteful. For to bear and endure all things is the part of forbearance to believe and hope all things is the part of candor and kindness. As we are naturally too much devoted to self, this vice renders us morose and peevish. The effect is, that every one wishes that others should carry him upon their shoulders, but refuses for his part to assist others. The remedy for this disease is love, which makes us subject to our brethren, and teaches us to apply our shoulders to their burdens. (Gal 6:2.) Farther, as we are naturally spiteful, we are, consequently, suspicious too, and take almost everything amiss. Love, on the other hand, calls us back to kindness, so that we think favorably and candidly of our neighbors.
When he says all things, you must understand him as referring to the things that ought to be endured, and in such a manner as is befitting. For we are not to bear with vices, so as to give our sanction to them by flattery, or, by winking at them, encourage them through our supineness. Farther, this endurance does not exclude corrections and just punishments. The case is the same as to kindness in judging of things.
Love believeth all things — not that the Christian knowingly and willingly allows himself to be imposed upon — not that he divests himself of prudence and judgment, that he may be the more easily taken advantage of — not that he unlearns the way of distinguishing black from white. What then? He requires here, as I have already said, simplicity and kindness in judging of things; and he declares that these (792) are the invariable accompaniments of love. The consequence will be, that a Christian man will reckon it better to be imposed upon by his own kindness and easy temper, than to wrong his brother by an unfriendly suspicion.
(792) “ Ceux deux vertus;” — “These two virtues.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(7) Beareth all things.The full thought of the original here is that love silently endures whatever it has to suffer.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
7. In rendering the clauses of this verse we must, with the apostle, keep the loved object in view; as, for instance, his dear Corinthian Church. The verses picture to the life, for example, the persistent love of a mother for an erring son the most beautiful of all human loves. The all things four times said are, of course, to be limited by the law of truth and justice just given, and made appropriate to the verb which each follows in the clause.
Beareth all things Rather covereth all things. Such is the strict meaning of the Greek word. To render it beareth gives the same sense as endureth in the last clause. The word covereth implies the idea expressed by Pope in his Universal Prayer:
“Teach me to feel another’s woe,
To
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.”
So does a mother seek to cover the faults of her child; so would Paul rather cover than expose the errors of his Corinthians.
Believeth all things Favourable to the beloved object. Such is the temper of deep love, limited in action by the laws of truth.
Hopeth all things All future good for its object.
Endureth all things How often is it said of a mother in regard to a son, “She bears every thing from him.” Paul bore countless things from the Corinthians, and sought to correct their faults for their own sake.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
1Co 13:7. Beareth all things, &c. The twelfth character of love is, that , it coveteth all things, as the word should undoubtedly be translated; for otherwise this character would be the very same with the last in this verse, , endureth all things. See 1Pe 4:8.Because the merciful man rejoiceth not in iniquity, neither does he willingly make mention of it. Whatever evil he sees, hears, or knows, he nevertheless conceals, so far as he can, without making himself partaker of other men’s sins. Wherever, or with whomsoever he is, if he see any thing which he approves not, it goes not out of his lips unless to the person concerned, except where the interests of the church of Christ essentially require it,if haply he may gain his brother. So far is he from making the faults or failings of others the matter of his censure or conversation, that of the absent he will say nothing at all, if he can say nothing good. A tale-bearer, a backbiter, a whisperer, an evil-speaker, is to him like a murderer. He would just as soon take away his neighbour’s life as thus murder his reputation: just as soon would he think of diverting himself with setting fire to his neighbour’s house, as of thus scattering abroad arrows, fire-brands, and death, and saying, Am I not in sport? He makes only one exception. Sometimes he is convinced, that it is for the glory of God, or, which comes to the same, the good of his neighbour, that an evil should not be covered. In this case, for the benefit of the innocent, he is constrained to declare the guilty; but he always in this instance acts with the greatest care and caution, lest he should transgress the law of love by speaking too much, more than he would have done by not speaking at all. 13thly, Love believeth all things. It is always willing to think the best; to put the most favourable constructionon every thing: it is ever ready to believe whatever may tend to the advantage of any one’s character: it is easily convinced of what it earnestly desires,the innocence or integrity of any man; or at least of the sincerity of his repentance, if he has once erred from the way. It is glad to excuse whatever is amiss; to condemn the offender as little as possible; and to make all the allowance for human weakness which can be done, without betraying the truth of God: and when it can no longer believe, then, 14thly, love hopeth all things. Is any evil related of any man? Love hopes that the relation is not true; that the thing related was never done. Is it certain that it was?But perhaps it was not done with such circumstances as are related; so that, allowing the fact, there is room to hope it was not so bad as it is represented. Was the action, apparently, undeniably evil?-Love hopes the intention was not so. Is it clear the design was evil too?Yet it might not spring from the settled temper of the heart, but from a start of passion, or from some vehement temptation, which hurried the man beyond himself; and even when it cannot be doubted that all the actions, designs, and tempers, are equally evil; still love hopes that God will at last make bare his arm, and get himself the victory; and that there shall be joy in Heaven over this one sinner that repenteth. Mean time, 15thly, it endureth all things; whatever the injustice, the malice, the cruelty of men can inflict, love is able to endure. It calls nothingintolerable; and never says of any thing, “This is not to be borne.” A true believer can not only do, but suffer all things, through Christ that strengtheneth him.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
1Co 13:7 . ] popular hyperbole. Grotius aptly says: “Fert, quae ferri ullo modo possunt.”
] as in 1Co 9:12 : all things she bears , holds out under them ( suffert , Vulgate), without ceasing to love, all burdens, privation, trouble, hardship, toil occasioned to her by others. Other interpreters (Hammond, Estius, Mosheim, Bengel, al [2076] ; Rckert hesitatingly) understand: she covers all up , i.e. excuses all wrong. Likewise correct from a linguistic point of view, according to classical usage; but why depart from 1Co 9:12 ?
-g0- -g0- .] Opposite of a distrustful spirit; bona fides towards one’s neighbour in all points.
] opposite of that temperament, which expects no more good at all from one’s neighbour for the future ; good confidence as to the future attainment of her ends.
] all things she stands out against all sufferings, persecutions, provocations, etc., inflicted on her. This is the established conception of in the N. T. (Mat 10:22 , al [2077] ; Rom 12:12 ; 2Co 1:6 , al [2078] ), according to which the endurance is conceived of as a holding of one’s ground , the opposite of (Plato, Tim. p. 49 E, Theact. p. 177 B). Comp 2Ti 2:10 .
Note further how the expressions rise as they follow each other in this verse, which is beautiful in its simplicity: if love encounter from others what may seem too hard to be endured, all things she bears ; if she meet what may cause distrust, all things she trusts ; if she meet what may destroy hope in one’s neighbour, all things she hopes ; if she encounter what may lead to giving way, against all she holds out .
[2076] l. and others; and other passages; and other editions.
[2077] l. and others; and other passages; and other editions.
[2078] l. and others; and other passages; and other editions.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
1Co 13:7-13
7. Charity heareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
8. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
9. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
10. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
11. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
12. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
13. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
Two Childhoods
The concrete form of the doctrine of this chapter is to be found in the incident of the young man who came to Jesus Christ and asked how he might inherit eternal life. The young man was attractive in appearance, persuasive in voice, comely altogether, so much so that Jesus loved him, as you might love a flower. The young man was filled with the spirit of reverence and homage; kneeling before the Master, he asked, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” What hast thou done? “Everything.” Name what thou hast done. “I have kept all the commandments from my youth up.” Then said Jesus, “One thing thou lackest.” But why turn the young man away because of the lack of one thing? why not take the eleven things which he does possess, and not raise into such exaggerated importance the twelfth element which is missing? This is the way of God. He must have life, and there is no life but in love; he says the meanest little child that crawls in the lowest dust is infinitely greater than the finest marble that does everything but speak. “One thing thou lackest” lacking that, thou hast nothing. Thy respectability must be made into a virtue, thy virtue must be lifted into piety, and thy piety must be heightened into sacrifice. “One thing thou lackest” fair, well-trained, well-informed, educated with amazing solicitude and care, yet one thing thou lackest Jesus Christ and Paul are therefore at one in insisting upon some vital element, one predominating and all-ruling presence in the life.
Let us resume our criticism at “heareth all things, endureth all things” ( 1Co 13:7 ). Is that not the same thing? When we bear do we not endure? when we endure do we not bear? No: in English it may be the same thing, but the English loses the finer meaning of the writer. To endure all things is simple enough as to its etymology and practical meaning patiently to receive, suffer, and abide through processes that are very trying to body, mind, spirit, temper, and everything that constitutes sensitive manhood. But “heareth all things” is another word altogether. There is no one equivalent word in the English tongue. Literally, it would be, we are told, best represented by some such form as this: “outroofeth all things.” What does the roof do? it prevents the storm from getting at the persons who are inside the building. That is the meaning of “heareth all things”: it is the roof that catches the storm, and keeps the inmates dry and warm. Man should be to man a protecting roof: that is pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father, not your metaphysical refining and creed-elaborating and orthodox snivelling debate amongst one another; not your resolution-mongering and your creed-breeding, but loving one another so as to catch the storm yourself and keep it from some other life. That is the miracle of the Cross. It may also be represented by the figure of assuming some impervious garment so that the tempest shall not break through and do injury to the quivering and chilled flesh. There is the mariner on board his ship, blithe and gay and hearty, singing his fresh-air song all the time, or whistling to himself in unexpressed and unrivalled merriment. See how the cloud gathers in the sky, hear how the wind changes its tone, feel how some great drops are already falling upon the clean deck: what does the mariner do? He assumes his great impervious tarpaulin garment, and then he is safe from the raining heavens; the clouds fall upon him, and the streams roll off him, and he is able to do his work with comparative comfort. Charity is that protecting garment. Have we the robe of life in our wardrobe? have we this garment of protection? It would protect ourselves, and it would protect others: here is the double function, the double service, of royal love. When we hear anything against a brother, what should we do? Put on the tarpaulin as the mariner does, and let it all run off. Instead of that, what are we prone to do? To invite the storm, to say to the descending streams, We have been waiting for you; come, here we are in a truly receptive mood. Can there be piety where there is such a spirit? No! But the man who throws off his coat and takes in all the storm knows the Larger and Shorter Catechism! I do not care what he knows he is the devil. Why is he so? Because he loves to hear malicious reports, slanderous statements, he loves to hear something against a brother man. Though therefore he have the Larger and the Shorter Catechism, and the Westminster Confession of Faith, and the Nine-and-thirty Articles, all at his finger-ends, he is an offence in the sanctuary of Christ.
This chapter would considerably deplete every Church roll, would it not? It would burn it; there would be no Church roll if this chapter were the foundation of the Church. There are those curiously constituted persons who say when they hear the kind of report we refer to, “You know, we could not help hearing these things.” I say, No, but you could help repeating them. That is where your responsibility comes in. If you are base enough to make yourself the common sewer of the Church, if men know that they may run the rubbish of society through the conduit of your ignorance, they will avail themselves of that miserable opportunity. There are some men to whom we could not go with a slanderous report they would burn us! There are others to whom we could go and sit all day, and stuff their vulgar ears with calumnies about their brethren. This is the distinction between “heareth all things” and “endureth all things”: in the one case charity outroofeth all storm and tempest and cold, and in the other charity receives all stings and blows and insults with uncomplaining resignation.
“Thinketh no evil.” Here we want a little change in the expression to realise the true meaning of the apostolic thought. “Thinketh no evil” should read, Does not dwell upon evil: does not brood upon it: does not roll it under the tongue as a sweet morsel: does not give it large hospitality in the mind or heart, as who should say, Come in, tell us all your tale, let us talk the whole matter over, and when you have told me the facts of the case, I will ruminate, I will brood, I will put two and two together, and out of the shadows you leave behind I will build a prison for those I hate. “Charity thinketh no evil.” If an evil suggestion be made to it charity instantly leaves the subject, declining to brood upon it, and to bring out of bad eggs a bad progeny.
The Apostle cannot content himself with positively describing love. He is in one of his finest moods in this chapter; he will not be poet only, he will be iconoclast: and when Paul does smite the images they are so shattered that they never can be put again upon their pedestals. Paul will not allow tongue or prophecy, or even faith or almsgiving, to have any place in this temple, it can hold but one angel form, and its sweet eternal name is Love. How does Paul value prophecies, tongues, and knowledge? He values them at nothing. If it be a question of comparative values, love takes in all the work and leaves no item of value to anything else. What is “knowledge”? often it is destruction. Are there not many men of large knowledge? Undoubtedly that is so, but if the knowledge has not ripened into wisdom, it is but so much ornament or so much encumbrance. You do not know a language when you know its vocabulary. If you were a dictionary of the German language you might not know how to read German. It is curious that a man should know every word he reads, and yet know nothing about the tongue in which he reads nothing about it as to its music, its inner meaning, its refined delicacy of expression; the man shall be but a living lexicon. So with this higher tongue of the Christian life. We may know doctrinal forms and doctrinal expressions, and we may be even cleverer, as many doctors of the Church have been, in prostituting single texts into vicious meanings, yet we may know nothing of the spiritual genius and holy intent of Christ’s law and Christ’s kingdom.
Paul continues to say, “We know in part.” Who says so? Paul! Paul the Apostle? Yes. He saw a little of the meaning, and it transfigured him into beauty and strength, but he was the first to insist that what he saw was so small as to fill him with impatience to see and know more. Paul had no little book that held in it everything. Paul never numbered his articles of faith. Think of a man keeping a theological store, with separate pigeon-holes and cunningly-shaped drawers for Predestination Election Prevenient Grace Supralapsarian Heresies of the Fourth Century and being able at a moment’s notice to take them out and supply them! Paul could not be shaped into that hideousness; Paul lived, he was tempestuous, sometimes furious, sometimes quiet as a sleeping child: but preeminently Paul lived, and lived in love.
“We prophesy,” the Apostle continues, “in part.” Who said so? Paul! The same Paul? Yes; the same heroic Apostle preached, or prophesied, only “in part.” I love to hear a man who knows only “in part” and says so, who preaches only “in part,” and gives me to feel that as soon as he gets to know anything more he will tell me. I have confidence in that man; he will allow me to become his little comrade; the moment he sees another streak of light on the horizon he will call me up and exclaim, There it is: see how it grows, broadens, brightens; there is an eternal summer in that one white gleam. Life would be intolerable if we did anything else than know in part and preach in part. It is the coming light that draws us forward by its magic constraint; it is always that which is “perfect” that draws us onward. It may come at any moment; the Lord will suddenly come to his temple. The Lord has not given us notice as to how he will come or when. There are prophecy-mongers, who ought to be hooted out of society, who have fixed the date of the Lord’s coming. Such men ought to be scourged out of the temple: let them set up their stalls on Salisbury Plain and offer their folly to the winds for sale, but let them not intrude upon the temple of God. When the Lord will come no man knoweth, not even the Son that is in the bosom of the Father; and when his revelations will come in broadening and brightening heavens, we cannot tell: what I say unto one, I say unto all, Watch: and when you see any new star, call us up, if it be at midnight, lest we miss this access of glory. Paul would thus by the very partialness of his knowledge and preaching make us fellow-students with him; he would be so great a man as to say, Well, you know something I do not know. We have had a small example of that kind amongst ourselves. Where was there ever a grander, finer, tenderer soul than Edward Irving? Any man could come and detain him for hours if he said he had a revelation from the Lord. That most eloquent of tongues would lie silent, and that most capacious of minds would open itself with grateful and eager expectancy, because a man had come with a supposed message from the Lord. That is humility, that is apostolic modesty, that is waiting until the Lord come.
Was Paul ever like one of ourselves? Does he overshadow us by his greatness? Does he repel us by the very majesty which he would disown? On the contrary, he was a man of like passions with ourselves, and he passed through a similar experience to our own: “When I was a child” Paul a child? “I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child” “Except ye become as little children, ye cannot see the kingdom of God.” There are two childhoods: the natural, and the spiritual; we have passed through the one, have we attained the other? Observe, at a certain point in life it is almost a miracle to know the alphabet; but we have forgotten that circumstance. Our attention has been called to the fact that some little person actually knows his letters, and if we did not marvel sufficiently we went down in the maternal imagination and judgment: but if we threw up our hands and said, Impossible I then we were thought to be estimable persons. There is a time when in the case of that very child it would be a shame to him if he knew only his letters. How the miracle changes! When he was in years but a child it was wonderful that he could relate his alphabet without one stumble, but now that ten years have elapsed, and he can only perform the same feat, the very mother that praised him cries, “Shame on you not to be able to do more!” Why should we live upon our alphabetic attainments? Yet this is precisely what men do in the Church. You meet them in the very first days of their Christian experience, and they recite the A B C of the Testament to you, and you are pleased, and you congratulate them, and thank God for their attainments: you meet them in ten years, and they are still talking the same alphabetic speech. Where is progress, where is growth, where is development, where the music that falls harmonically into the fitness of things? Paul says, “when I became a man.” Paul would have us forget the things that are behind; the Apostle would not have us learn again our first principles and our elements, and be talking ever more about our alphabetic acquirements; he would advance, proceed, make way in the world; this is the law of evolution. The whole thing we have to grow up to is love. It is possible to have love without having intellectual faith or hope. Intellectual Christians are useless Christians that is to say, if they are only intellectual. It is a sad thing for a man to be an intellectual hearer of the Gospel. He will never hear it. The most intellectual man who is in the right spiritual mood will put off his intellect when he enters the church, saying, The place whereon I stand is holy ground; in this sacred enclosure I must be a little child, a worshipper, a man of a contrite and a broken heart; all my literary apparatus I must leave outside, whilst I go to tell God that I have erred and strayed from his way like a lost sheep, and whilst I stand with bent eyes, and say inaudibly to every ear but God’s, God be merciful to me a sinner! There is no great intellectual conquest to be made in this drawing near to God. The Church is not an academy, the Church of the living God is not made up of philosophers, and clever persons, and men of highly-trained minds: the question is whether they can be allowed to come in at all or not. The Church is made up of the contrite, the humble, those who do not make their humility a reason against progress; but those who make their humility a stimulus in the direction of all the higher attainments.
How stands the Church to-day in these matters? On the authority of the Apostle Paul, we proclaim love to be the one thing needful. Not love with an easy definition. There is nothing so difficult to define, as we have often seen, as such little words as love, life, peace, truth. This is Paul’s dictionary, occupying thirteen verses, or a whole chapter, to itself. Is it possible that we can begin at one of these points without taking in the whole of them? It would be encouraging to some of us if that could be made out to be so. “Charity suffereth long, and is kind”: can I enter there? “Charity envieth not”: can I take hold at that point? “Charity vaunteth not itself”: can I find an inch of standing ground there? “Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, outroofeth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things,” oh, is there no little door by which I can enter in somewhere? The rest might come, the rest, the rest might come!
Prayer
Father of our spirits, do thou come to us in Jesus Christ thy Son, then we can bear thy glory. No man can see the light in which thou livest and yet himself live; but the humblest, most broken-hearted, can look upon Jesus Christ, and become immortal. We would always see thy Son; we would begin the day with him; at noontide we would be found close beside him; at twilight we would be within hearing of his voice; all night we would sleep in his arms. Help us to love him, more and more, as day is added to day in our little life; may we, by the power of the Holy Ghost; see him more clearly, receive him more fully, obey him more willingly, and live for him without distraction or hesitation. He loved us all; he loved old age and childhood; he had a word of kindness for those to whom none but himself ever spoke; he left others behind when they were tired, that he might go forward and save the lost. Jesus goes alone; we cannot keep pace with him; he seeks and saves the lost ones. We need this blessed Son of God in our life; without him we are lost, confused, in darkness and trouble; we are bewildered by questions to which there are no answers, and the future is a tremendous cloud: but with Jesus Christ we can do all things, yea, we glory exceedingly in tribulation also; the deeper and blacker the water, the surer his grasp of our life: we bless thee that we know him in the wilderness, in the river, in the furnace, in the difficult place, more perfectly than we can know him in morning sunshine, or in summer calm. Jesus Christ knew all hearts, understood all necessities, touched all pain so as to heal it, and by his very benignity and complacency looked men into newness of strength and hope. He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; his the name that is above every name, and his the all-absorbing, all-eclipsing glory: the praise be his for our salvation, for our hope, for a broader, better life, for every expectation that scorns the limitation and the judgment of time. The Lord send into our hearts great gladness; the Lord enable us to glory beyond the Cross, and according to the necessity of the Cross, as the gateway opening upon the glory. At the Cross we say our prayers, we sing our song, and end our cry with the heart’s amen. Amen.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Ver. 7. Beareth all things ] , tegit. Covereth faults with her large mantle, dissembleth injuries, swalloweth down whole many pills that would prove very bitter in the chewing. The Greek word is metaphora a tignis, say some, and signifies, that charity “beareth all things,” as the cross main beam in a house supporteth the whole building. (Pareus a Lapide.)
Believeth all things ] Is candid and ingenuous, yet not blind and blockish. No man may ravish me out of my wits, saith one; to conclude as Walter Mapes did of his Church of Rome, after he had related the gross simony a of the pope, Sit tamen Domina materque nostra Roma baculus in aqua fractus, et absit credere quae vidimus. If a Papist see one of their priests kissing a woman, he is by their canon law bid to believe that the priest is giving her counsel only. Their rule to their novices is, Tu et Asinus unum estote. You and an ass shall be one.
Endureth all things ] Love, as it is a passion, so it is tried rather by passions than actions.
a The act or practice of buying or selling ecclesiastical preferments, benefices, or emoluments; traffic in sacred things. D
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
7. ] , i.e. all things which can be borne with a good conscience . So Bengel, of all four : ‘videlicet, qu tegenda vel credenda, qu speranda et sufferenda sunt.’
] bears : see note, ch. 1Co 9:12 . Hammond, Estius, Bengel (above), ‘ covers :’ but the variation in sense from ch. 9 is needless.
.] viz. without suspicion of another.
.] viz., even against hope hoping what is good of another, even when others have ceased to do so.
.] viz. persecutions and distresses inflicted by others, rather than shew an unloving spirit to them.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Beareth. Greek. stego. See 1Co 9:12. Here it means “is forbearing in all provocations”.
believeth. App-150.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
7.] ,-i.e. all things which can be borne with a good conscience. So Bengel, of all four: videlicet, qu tegenda vel credenda, qu speranda et sufferenda sunt.
] bears: see note, ch. 1Co 9:12. Hammond, Estius, Bengel (above),-covers: but the variation in sense from ch. 9 is needless.
.] viz. without suspicion of another.
.] viz., even against hope-hoping what is good of another, even when others have ceased to do so.
.] viz. persecutions and distresses inflicted by others, rather than shew an unloving spirit to them.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
1Co 13:7. , all things) all things occurs four times, viz., those things, which are to be covered, or believed; and which are to be hoped for, and endured. These four steps beautifully follow one another.-, covers) conceals[119] in relation to itself and in relation to others , we cover, ch. 1Co 9:12, note.-, believes) as he covers the evil deeds of his neighbour, which are apparent, so he believes the good, which is not apparent.-, hopes) See the ground of hope [viz., God is able to make him stand; therefore, he shall be holden up], Rom 14:4; ; he likewise hope good for the future, and endures evils.-, endures) until hope at some time springs up, 2Ti 2:25. Thus the praises of love describe as it were a kind of circle, in which the last and first mutually correspond to each other; it is long-suffering, it is kind; it hopeth all things, it endureth all things; and, that which is of far greater importance, it never faileth, pleasantly follows this fourth step.
[119] Bears, without speaking of what it has to bear.-ED.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
1Co 13:7
1Co 13:7
beareth all things,-Love covereth a multitude of sins. (1Pe 4:8). It does not lay bare and expose to public gaze the infirmities and wrongs of the erring and those led into sin. It covers them up and tries to deliver from them.
believeth all things,-It believes all the good which it can of any one as long as it is possible to do so without betraying the truth of God.
hopeth all things,-Works for all, even the worst, hoping they will repent.
endureth all things.-It suffers, endures, bears all evils, and is not driven from the true course by the wrongs and injuries of the wicked. These qualities seem to be successive steps in the treatment of the erring. They manifest true Christian fortitude.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Beareth: 1Co 13:4, Num 11:12-14, Deu 1:9, Pro 10:12, Son 8:6, Son 8:7, Rom 15:1, Gal 6:2, Heb 13:13, 1Pe 2:24, 1Pe 4:8
believeth: Psa 119:66
hopeth: Luk 7:37-39, Luk 7:44-46, Luk 19:4-10, Rom 8:24
endureth: 1Co 9:18-22, Gen 29:20, Job 13:15, Mat 10:22, 2Co 11:8-12, 2Th 1:4, 2Ti 2:3-10, 2Ti 2:24, 2Ti 3:11, 2Ti 4:5, Jam 1:12
Reciprocal: Num 16:22 – one man sin Deu 22:27 – cried 1Sa 1:13 – she had 2Sa 10:3 – not Pro 24:17 – General Gal 5:22 – faith Eph 4:2 – forbearing Phi 1:7 – it is Heb 10:36 – ye have Heb 11:27 – endured Rev 2:3 – hast borne
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
1Co 13:7. Beareth means to cover or hide the faults of others as far as possible without encouraging sin. Believ- eth and hopeth must be understood in the light of other passages. Heb 11:1 tells us that hone is based on faith, and Rom 10:17 says that faith comes by hearing the word of God. The present phrase means that a man who has the love of God and the brethren in his heart, will believe all that God declares. Endureth denotes a willingness to remain faithful throughout all trials.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
1Co 13:7. beareth all thingsfrom the wronging party.
believeth all things about him that are at all believable; such as that he has been misled, that he is prejudiced, that he is better than his actions, and may live to repent of it and do better. Accordingly, love hopeth all thingseven against hope; and when even that fails, and all hope of amendment is cruelly disappointed, it still endureth all things without revenging the wrong done. There would seem some tautology in the first clause and the lastbeareth all, endureth all. To avoid this, some would translate the first clause covereth all things, which certainly is the primary sense of the Greek word, and gives a good echo to Pro 10:12Love covereth all sinswhich is quoted in 1Pe 4:8. But our apostle uses this word always in the sense of bearing or forbearing (1Co 9:12; 1Th 3:1; 1Th 3:5). Admitting this, some would refer the two clauses to different kinds of wrongthe first private wrongs, the last public. But all the four clauses plainly refer to the same kind of wrongs. The difference, then, we take to be this, that in the first clause love bears all in the belief or hope of some good in the wronging party existing or to come; in the last, when all faith in him and hope of him has departed, love still persists in enduring.
The last thing in this grand chapterin contrast not only with all gifts, but with all other gracesis the perpetuity of love.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Charity or love has strong shoulders to bear wrongs and injuries with patience, though very hard and grievous to be borne, without returning evil for evil: it will enable us to forbear one another in love, and not cease to be kind, notwithstanding provocations.
Believeth all things; that is, charity inclines a man to believe the best of his neighbour, till the contrary appears; it interprets every thing in the best sense, and makes the fairest construction of every man’s case and condition. Not that a charitable man is a credulous man, and can believe whatever he pleases; but he believeth all things, so far as either reality or probabilty, so far as truth or appearance of truth, will encourage him to do it. A charitable man is very willing to believe that things are meant as they are spoken, and intended as they are done.
Oh, how uncharitable then, and unjust, are they who believe all is ill, when they know nothing ill; and think and speak ill of them, in whom they never saw any thing but what was good!
It is not sufficient that we do not judge our neighbour maliciously, but we must not judge him ignorantly; it is an injurious and unworthy jealousy, when a person’s actions are fair, to suspect his intentions.
Hopeth all things; that is, it is the genius of charity, and the character of love, to hope the best of persons and things, so far as there is any ground of hope; yea, though they carry in them some cause and colour of suspicion: it inclines us still to hope the best concerning men’s intentions and actions; and if our brother be bad at present, not to despair of his amendment, but endeavour his reformation by all proper means.
Endureth all things; that is, it puts up with wrongs and injuries, without desiring, much less endeavouring, to revenge them; it causes us to endure provocation with much patience, and extinguishes all inclinations to revenge. Some will conceal their anger, but seek revenge: their malice is like slow poison, that does not discover violent symptoms, but destroys life insensibly. Others have such fierce passions, that they strike fire out of the least provocations; they inflame their resentments, by considering every circumstance that will exasperate their spirits: but charity beareth all things, endureth all things.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
beareth all things [it endures wrongs without complaint, and bears the adversities, troubles and vexations of life without murmuring (Mat 17:24-27), and often without divulging its needy condition– 1Co 9:12; Phi 4:11-12], believeth all things [It takes the kindest views of men’s actions and circumstances. It sees things in their brightest, not their darkest, colors; and, as far as it consistently can, puts the best construction on conduct– Pro 10:12; 1Pe 4:8; Gen 45:5; Luk 23:34], hopeth all things [though the object loved is confessedly sinful to-day, yet this supreme grace looks with eager, hopeful expectation for its repentance on the morrow– 1Co 3:2-3; Luk 13:6-9; Luk 15:20; Luk 20:9-13], endureth all things. [The word “hupomenoo,” translated “endureth,” is a military term, and means to sustain an assault; hence it has reference to heavier afflictions than those sustained by the “beareth” of verse 7. It refers to gross ill-treatment, violence and persecution, and such grievances as provoke resistance, strife, etc. (2Ti 2:10; 2Ti 2:24; Heb 10:32; Heb 12:2; Mat 5:39; comp. Joh 18:22-23; with Act 23:2-5). The enduring is not simply that dogged persistency which bears up despite adversity, it is an endurance which forgives offense (Luk 17:4). From love as it manifests itself in daily life Paul now rises to speak of love in its essence.]
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
7. It beareth all things, i. e., flickers at nothing, remembering that Jesus bore the cross till He broke down under it, then the strong Cyrenean relieved him. So we have nothing to do but bear everything God permits to come on us; then we are certain to get help when we break down. Believeth all things; i. e., the true love of God which makes you a Christian, and without which you are a reprobate, does not simply believe the part of the Bible that suits you, leaving out the doctrine of Hell, but believes everything you read in the Bible whether you under stand it or not, remembering you are not saved by knowledge, but by faith. You are not responsible for not understanding everything in the Bible, but you are for not believing it. He that believeth not shall be damned. Hopeth all things. If you have the true love of God in your heart, you give up nobody to the devil. You know you have an Omnipotent Savior who can save the vilest of the vile. Consequently you hope on, hope ever, despond none, despair never. Endureth all things. Divine love endureth all things for Christs sake. Keep your eye on the great Exemplar, who for us endured all things, and the mighty host of martyrs who followed on in His track, sealing their faith with their blood. This verse settles the question as to perfect love in this chapter, as here we have four superlative complements in these four clauses, thus confirming, beyond the possibility of cavil, the perfection of the Divine love here described. This Divine agapee is first, love in regeneration and perfect love in sanctification, the four superlative complements in the seventh verse illustrating the fact of its use in the superlative degree throughout the chapter.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
Verse 7
Believeth all things; is trustful; putting always the best construction upon the motives and conduct of others.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
Love covers unworthy things rather than bringing them to the light and magnifying them (cf. 1Pe 4:8). It puts up with everything. It is always eager to believe the best and to "put the most favorable construction on ambiguous actions." [Note: Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians, p. 127.]
"This does not mean . . . that a Christian is to allow himself to be fooled by every rogue, or to pretend that he believes that white is black. But in doubtful cases he will prefer being too generous in his conclusions to suspecting another unjustly." [Note: Robertson and Plummer, p. 295.]
Love is hopeful that those who have failed will not fail again rather than concluding that failure is inevitable (cf. Mat 18:22). It does not allow itself to become overwhelmed but perseveres steadfastly through difficult trials.