2 Thess 1:3, Love That Never Tires and Never Loses Faith

Class Outline:

Thursday June 22, 2023

 

1CO 13:4-6

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;

 

All things:

 

1CO 13:7

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

 

We are familiar with three out of the four verbs. Believes (pisteuo), hopes (elpizo), endures (hupomone). The first verb, stego (bears), we have to become familiar with.

 

Panta (“all things”) is put before each verb which would slightly emphasize it.

 

Panta takes out limits. It thus excludes the limits of agape rather than defining an all-inclusive content.

 

This last part of Paul’s agape-hymn in not telling us what agape can do but saying that there is nothing it can’t do. It is God’s love after all.

 

The Revised English Bible seems to be one of the only translations that appreciates this:

 

1CO 13:7

There is nothing love cannot face; there is no limit to its faith, its hope, its endurance. [REB]

 

The traditional translation appears to support Marx's notion of Christianity as the opium of the people, or Nietzsche’s concept of Christianity as “servile mediocrity.”

 

Nietzsche says Paul’s theology as full of superstition and cunning. He thought that Paul threw away all morality and sided with everything weak, low, and botched. Nietzsche reads Paul as saying, believe that everything will be fine and it will all work out, while you do nothing and live weakly. He thought that Paul was against having a strong life. Marx thought it meant something similar. Do nothing, remain low and poor and everything will be wonderful. Freud wrote about this passage as inner conflicts resolved by wishful thinking, which “believes all things” in order to “endure all things.” They all only prove the truth that the unbeliever cannot understand the word of God - to him it is foolishness.

 

Contrast to Dods, “Paul’s eulogium (1CO 13:4-7) is the more effective because it exhibits in detail the various ramifications of this exuberant and fruitful grace, how it runs out into all our intercourse with our fellow-men and carries with it a healing and sweetening virtue. It imbues the entire character, and contains in itself the motive of all Christian conduct. It is “the fulfilling of the Law.” Its claims are paramount because it embraces all other virtues. If a man has love, there is no grace impossible to him or into which love will not on occasion develop. Love becomes courage of the most absolute hind where danger threatens its object. It begets a wisdom and a skill which put to shame the technical training and experience. It brings forth self-restraint and temperance as its natural fruit; it is patient, forgiving, modest, humble, sympathizing.  It is quite true that

        “As every lovely hue is light,

        So every grace is love.”

Thomas Kempis dwells with evident relish on the varied capacity of this all-comprehending grace. “Love,” he says, “feels no burden, regards no labors, would willingly do more than it is able, pleads not impossibilities, because it feels sure that it can and may do all things. Love is swift, sincere, pious, pleasant, and delightful; strong, patient, faithful, prudent, longsuffering, manly, and never seeking itself: it is circumspect, humble, and upright; sober, chaste, steadfast, quiet, and guarded in all its senses.” [Marcus Dods, The Expositor’s Bible; 1 Corinthians]

 

Does that sound like we do nothing and live in wishful thinking?

 

[Nygren] “Agape has for Paul a value and significance of its own, entirely independent of its object; it is not necessary to ask every time the word occurs, to whom the love is directed. Agape is primarily God’s own love, which is by nature self-giving, overflowing. This love of God is now “shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit which was given unto us” (ROM 5:5), and the life of God has thereby taken possession of man’s innermost being. The Christian hence forth lives “in Christ”, and Christ lives and works in him; he is “constrained by the agape of Christ”, or “led by the Spirit”, and the stream of love that has been poured out in his heart flows forth to his neighbor. This love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1CO 13:7); its nature is such that it cannot be dammed up, but makes its way out to its neighbor; for love seeks not its own” (vs. 5). In all its various manifestations it is one and the same agape, no merely human love, but an outflow from God’s own life. This divine agape is the love that is the theme of Paul’s agape-hymn; this is the agape that “never fails,” and the agape that abides when Gnosis, like everything else that is “in part” , shall be done away (vv. 8-13).” [Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros]

 

Love is an outflow of God’s own life, which life you now are.

How does God support? His outlook for good?  

 

We must remove all things that hinder it - fears, lusts, addictions, angers, worries, jealousies, bitternesses, sinful passions, ignorance, want, and doubt.

 

“Bears” - stego = to protect or preserve by covering.

[pic of roof supports. Derived from the word for roof. Refers to the supports]

 

Covering or enclosing in such a way as to keep something undesirable from coming in as water into a ship.

 

Besides here, it is only used in two other places in the NT. Paul writes in 1CO 9:12, “We endure all things so that we will cause no hindrance to the gospel of Christ.”  

 

Perhaps we can draw a distinction with hupomone, whereas humpomone means to put up with everything for a limitless duration; stego would be to support a limitless load.

 

“Holds out under them without ceasing to love, all burdens, privation, trouble, hardship, toil occasioned by others.” (Meyer).

 

Example: Paul’s love for the Corinthians, despite all that they did to him and to the truth.

 

2CO 2:3-4

This is the very thing I wrote you, so that when I came, I would not have sorrow from those who ought to make me rejoice; having confidence in you all that my joy would be the joy of you all. 4 For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears; not so that you would be made sorrowful, but that you might know the love which I have especially for you.

 

One way to avoid that confusion is to use the logic of negation.

 

Love never tires of support, never loses faith, never exhausts hope, and never gives up.

 

Support.

Never tires of supporting them - agape is the strength to bear up the structure that covers them. This is broad in meaning, but so is Paul’s usage. It is up to us to discover what needs to be covered or born.

 

Faith

Never loses faith that someone may turn to God and their life turns around.