I have always thought of the description of the various characteristics of love in First Corinthians 13 as an instruction book for the way that humans ought to behave, and it certainly is that.
But as we were reading it responsively as the call to worship Sunday morning, it struck me that it can be something else.
It’s revelation, in the sense that it tells us about who God is. We say that “God is love” and if that’s the case then why can’t we take this list that describes what love is and say that it also describes God? Basic algebra tells us that if A=B then we can substitute A for B wherever it occurs in an equation. If we apply that to this pericope, we get:
God is patient
God is kind
God is not envious
God is not boastful
God is not arrogant
God is not rude
God does not insist on God’s own way
God is not irritable
God is not resentful
God does not rejoice in wrong doing, but
God rejoices in the truth
God bears all things
God believes all things
God hopes all things
God endures all things
God never ends.
Yep, that'll preach.



