Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Corinthians 16:14
Let all your things be done with charity.
14. Let all your things be done with charily ] i.e. let everything you do (literally everything of yours) be done in love.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Let all your things … – All that you do. This direction is repeated on account of its great importance, and because it is a summing up of all that he had said in this Epistle; see 1Co 13:1-13; 1Co 14:1. Here he says, that charity, or love, was to regulate all that they did. This was a simple rule; and if this was observed, every thing would be done well.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
1Co 16:14
Let all your things be done with charity.
Love more effective than logic
As means towards the attainment of the best ends there is no comparison between these. The latter may convince the understanding and leave the heart unchanged, but the former will win the heart, and with that gained, the understanding will usually soon succumb. The difference between them is similar to that between a mallet and the sun in reducing ice to water. The mallet may break the ice into small particles, but each particle will remain ice still, while the suns heat falling upon the ice will melt it into a fluid, and so impregnate the fluid with its warmth that while that warmth is continued the water cannot assume again its icy condition. So in changing opinions and reforming habits. Arguments will be of little avail without a loving disposition behind them. The opinions, after all cold pure arguments, will remain generally unchanged, or probably assume another false complexion, and the habits, if broken up for a little, will soon resume their wonted round. But if love prevails, the eyes looking it, the face beaming it, the words expressing it, the whole demeanour demonstrating it, the citadel of opinion will melt before the loving assault, and the heart will become ablaze with the sacred glow. Love and logic should at least go hand in hand in seeking the regeneration of the world.
Love as a motive
Ask yourselves what is the leading motive which actuates you while you are at work. I do not ask what your leading motive is for working, that is a different thing; you may have families to support, parents to help, brides to win; you may have all these, or other such sacred and pre-eminent motives to press the mornings labour and prompt the twilight thought. But when you are fairly at the work, what is the motive which tells upon every touch of it? If it is the love of that which your work represents–if, being a landscape painter, it is love of hills and trees that move you–if, being a figure painter, it is love of human beauty and human soul that moves you–if, being a flower or an animal painter, it is love, and wonder, and delight in petal and in limb that move you, then the spirit is upon you, and the earth is yours, and the fulness thereof. But if, on the other hand, it is petty self-complacency in your own skill, trust in precepts and laws, hope for academical or popular approbation, or avarice of wealth, it is quite possible that by sturdy industry, or even by fortunate chance, you may win the applause, the position, the fortune that you desire, but one touch of true art you will never lay on canvas or on stone as long as you live. (J. Ruskin.)
A universal rule
I. The spirit of it is love.
II. The applications of it is universal.
III. The motive of it.
1. To promote peace and love.
2. Prevent strife and contention.
3. Subdue enmity and opposition. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
The universal rule
I. To what applied. To all our–
1. Thoughts.
2. Feelings.
3. Actions.
4. Devotions.
5. Church activities.
II. For whom contemplated, All our–
1. Family.
2. Relations.
3. Friends.
4. Neighbours.
5. Countrymen.
6. Race.
III. With what result. The promotion of all.
1. Righteousness.
2. Culture.
3. Holiness.
4. Happiness. (J. W. Burn.)
The key which sets the world to music
Mans life consists of many things done. Activity is at once the law and the necessity of his nature. He only really lives as he acts, inactivity is death. But whilst the acts of men are numerous and varied, the animating and controlling spirit should be one, viz., love. It is thus in heaven, through all hierarchies. It should be thus on earth, and must be if earth is to have a millennium. This one spirit will–
I. Make us happy in all our activities. The labour of love is the music of life. All labour, however menial, if wrought under the inspiration of love, must yield happiness.
II. Make us useful in all our activities. Every work performed by love is beneficent, it has a brightness in it to enlighten, a balm in it to soothe, a music in it to charm, an aroma in it to please.
III. Give unity to all our activities. As the circulating sap binds the root, the trunk, and the branches, the leafage, blossoms, and fruit, into one organic unity, so love will give a harmony and completeness to all the numerous and varied acts of life. Why are men everywhere so unhappy in their labours, and their labours so socially pernicious, so disharmonious and divided? Because they are not animated and governed by this one spirit–love. The human labours of the world that spring from greed, ambition, vanity, blind impulse, envy, and resentment, keep individuals, communities, and nations in constant conflict and confusion. (D. Thomas, D.D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 14. Let all your things be done with charity.] Let love to God, to man, and to one another, be the motive of all your conduct.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Charity (as hath been before discoursed) is a term comprehensive both of love to God, and to our neighbour; the failure of this in their divisions and contentions, and satisfying their own judgments and humours, without regard to the consciences of others, and having no regard to the profit of others, is that which the apostle, in this Epistle, had once and again blamed in the members of this church; in the conclusion of his Epistle, he therefore again recommends to them the getting and exercising of this habit.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
Let all your things be done with charity. Signifying, that the whole of their obedience to Christ, their observation of, and subjection to all his ordinances and commands, should spring from, and be done in love to him; and that the whole of their conduct and behaviour towards one another ought to be with charity, which bears all things, and covers a multitude of sins; and that all their church affairs, their business at church meetings, should be transacted, not with strife and vain glory, but in peace, and with mutual affection, with a concern for the good of each other, and of the whole body, and for the glory of God; for without charity or love, and the exercise of this grace, it signifies little what men either have or do; and such an exhortation was the more necessary to this church, since it was so full of factions, contentions, and divisions.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
1) “Let all your things” (panta humon) “Let all things of you, your behavior, attitude, and conduct.” The entire church is called to carry on its work in love, with regards, respect for their influence over each other and the lost. 1Co 8:1 to 1Co 9:27.
2) “Be done with charity.” (en agape ginestho) “Let (them) be in love, outwardly manifested, or in charity.” This final desire of Paul for the Corinth church is so much like the new commandment our Lord gave His church in His latter hours on earth before His betrayal, Joh 13:34-35.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
14. Let all your things be done in love Again he repeats what is the rule in all those transactions, in which we have dealings with one another. He wishes, then, that love shall be the directress; because the Corinthians erred chiefly in this respect — that every one looked to himself without caring for others.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
14 Let all your things be done with charity.
Ver. 14. Let all your things, &c. ] Love is the saint’s livery, Joh 13:35 . Heathens acknowledged that no people in the world did love one another so as Christians did. In the primitive times, Animo animaque inter se miscebantur, as Tertullian speaketh. But now, alas, it is far otherwise love began to grow cold among these Corinthians. Hence this sweet and savoury counsel. Charity in Christ’s days was much decayed; in Basil’s time, dried up. Latimer saw much a lack of it, that he thought the last day would have been just then. It were to be wished that this apostolical precept were well practised; and that we were all (in a sober sense) of the family of love.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
with = in. App-104.
charity = love. Greek. agape. App-135. Compare 1Co 14:1. 1Pe 4:8.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
1Co 16:14. , in love) 1Co 8:1, 1Co 13:1.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
1Co 16:14
1Co 16:14
Let all that ye do be done in love.-All their affairs were to be conducted in a spirit of love to God and man.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
1Co 8:1, 1Co 12:31, 1Co 13:1-13, 1Co 14:1, Joh 13:34, Joh 13:35, Joh 15:17, Rom 13:8-10, Rom 14:15, Gal 5:13, Gal 5:14, Gal 5:22, Eph 4:1-3, Phi 2:1-3, 1Th 3:6, 1Th 3:12, 1Th 4:9, 1Th 4:10, 2Th 1:3, 1Ti 1:5, Heb 13:4, 1Pe 4:8, 2Pe 1:7, 1Jo 4:7, 1Jo 4:8
Reciprocal: 1Co 13:13 – the greatest 1Co 16:24 – love Eph 5:2 – walk Phi 1:27 – that ye
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
1Co 16:14. Charity is from one of the Greek words that are usually translated “love.” For a complete explanation of the word, see the notes on Mat 5:43 in volume 1 of the New Testament Commentary.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
1Co 16:14. Let all that ye do be done in love. While the four preceding things express the sterner features of Christian duty, this pours suavity into them, and, being itself the bond of perfectness, encircles and beautifies the whole character.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Our apostle having in the beginning of this epistle reproved the Corinthians for their uncharitable schisms and unchristian divisions; he concludes his epistle with this excellent rule of advice, To do all things in love, one for and one towards another. Where a true principle of Christian charity prevails amongst the members of a church, it will cast out selfishness, pride, envy, division; and keep them from rash censuring, despising, and abusing one another, and also from separating from the communion of each other.
The sum of all the commandments, both towards God and towards our neighbour, is love; it is not praying, hearing, or receiving at the Lord’s table, which is the fulfilling of the commandment, but when these duties are done in love; and we may do many things commanded towards men, yet if we do them not in love to men, we do nothing as the Lord commanded; therefore let all things be done with charity.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Let all that ye do be done in love. [In these brief, nervous phrases, Paul sums up the burden of his entire Epistle. The Corinthians were to be wakeful and not asleep (1Co 11:30; 1Co 15:33). They were to be steadfast, manly and strong (1Co 15:2; 1Co 15:58); they were to do all things in love (chs. 7, 8, 10, 11, 12 and 14), not show their lack of love in bringing lawsuits, wrangling about marriage, eating things sacrificed to idols, behaving selfishly at the Lord’s Supper, and vaunting themselves on account of their gifts.]
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
14. Let all your affairs be transacted in Divine love. This is certainly a grand and blessed admonition. See how prominently courage stands in this exhortation. A soldier without courage is a coward and not worth his rations. Hence the Christian soldier without the courage of perfect love is a deplorable failure.