Dear Friend,
This is a meditation on love. Not the gooey, sappy kind of love. But the gritty, real life kind. The man-this-is-hard kind of love.
1 Corinthians 13 is a description of self-sacrificial love. It’s love for the other person’s benefit, not our own.
This particular one has been highlighted for me this year:
"Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth." 1 Corinthians 13:6 NIV
In this particular verse, two ways of living are being contrasted: 1.) delighting in evil and 2.) rejoicing in truth. Just like in the couplets of Proverbs, we’re meant to see how these two paths diverge from each other.
Strictly speaking, delighting and rejoicing could be considered synonyms. They refer to enjoying something with pleasure.
So if those parts are roughly equivalent, what’s being juxtaposed here?
Evil and Truth
Funny, I never really thought of these two as opposites. I considered good to be an antonym of evil and lie to be an antonym of truth.
So, if we were to chart these thoughts, it might look something like this:
Not Loving | ≠ | Loving |
Delight | = | Rejoice |
Evil | ≠ | Truth |
Untruth (Lie) | ≠ | Good |
What does Love do?
Love doesn't participate in evil.
Of course, there is sometimes momentary “pleasure” in doing wrong. Getting the quick, easy pay off. Cutting corners. Putting others down.
But if the Holy Spirit lives inside you, there will be a nagging sense that you should get out of there. Knock it off. You’re not supposed to be here, doing this.
Even if you have not invited Jesus to lead your life and thereby have received the Holy Spirit, your conscience is still probably talking to you: This is probably not a good idea…
And if you’ve stopped listening to your conscience through many years of habit, you may be fooling yourself that you’re having a great time. In this case, circumstances—life itself—will send you some consequences to remind you that following the path of evil is “fun” for a little while but will eventually come back to bite you.
If I cheat on a test or cheat my employer, I might have the momentary pleasure of a good test grade or some financial gain. But eventually, that cheating will catch up with me and the “fun” will be over.
Or if I cheer when someone I don’t like “gets what’s coming to ‘em,” aren’t I delighting in evil?
Or if I throw a fit to get my way, or hold a grudge, or argue disrespectfully, aren’t I delighting a little bit in evil?
If I go along with friends who want to do something questionable—and I join them, despite my misgivings—aren’t I trading a momentary “delight” of belonging just to participate in something evil?
Now we have to add in the mix what the scripture says here:
“LOVE does not delight in evil.”
To quote Tina Turner, “What’s love got to do with it?”
It's not loving for me to join (a) friend(s) in doing evil.
It’s not loving for me to cheat in class or at work.
It’s not loving for me to remember wrongs or to delight when others get their just deserts.
Perhaps we need to ask ourselves not just “Is it wrong?” (i.e. evil) but also “Is it loving?”
Evil in my heart will not show up as love in the world. Evil will show up, just not as love.
Now, let’s tackle the “truth” side of this equation.
“Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.”
Untruth is evil.
Truth is love.
What is truth?
Jesus told us, “I am the truth” (John 14:6). If we want to know what truth and love look like, we have to look to Jesus. "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us" 1 John 3:16.
John (one of Jesus’ best friends) tells us Jesus is the Word of God. He’s the totality of God’s message to humanity.
We can also look to the whole of scripture: the Old Testament and the New Testament. It contains the full truth, and all of it points to Jesus.
ALL of God's commands are truth.
What He says about himself, us, the nature of the universe are all truth.
Therefore, anything that is contrary to these truths could be considered evil. They are lies and are therefore evil.
Sometimes the truth hurts. Like when a friend comes to say, “Hey, I think you need to address this area of addiction I see in your life.” They don’t tell you that to harm you, but to help you.
If we read in scripture “use honest scales” (Leviticus 19:36)—in other words, don’t cheat—reading that might hurt if I’ve been cheating on all my exams. It will hurt for me to have to change that behavior and to fess up to that, but the one who told me that (the Holy Spirit via the God-breathed scriptures) wrote it for my benefit.
What’s the lie here? “My cheating doesn’t matter. It’s not a big deal. It’s not hurting anyone anyway.”
Oh, really?
Let’s let Tina’s question percolate over this one a little bit: “What’s love got to do with it?”
“LOVE… rejoices with the truth.”
God loved me enough to tell me to knock it off.
And that truth (that I’m sinning when I cheat on exams) also shows me my actions haven’t been loving. I’m not loving myself if I’m cheating. I’m also not showing love to my instructor or my classmates, who actually studied. I’m also not showing love to the future people I will encounter in my career who will depend on the knowledge I gained from these tests. God forbid I’m a surgeon who cheated my way through medical school and now have people’s lives in my hands. Not very loving.
Actually, God is extremely loving in telling me to “use honest scales.” It might cost me something now, but the truth of that is very loving.
Let’s take another example. Some leaders have believed they have the right to lord it over their followers, "taking what's due them," being rude and demanding, and so on. This is a lie and therefore evil. Believing this lie hurts others.
What’s the truth in this area? Jesus gave clear instructions and demonstrated how to be a leader. Leaders should serve their followers. “The first will be last, the last will be first” (Matthew 20:16). Jesus washed the feet of his disciples and told them to “do likewise.”
How can we lovingly apply this truth to our lives? Don't delight in being demanding or making others serve us. This would be delighting in evil because it’s contrary to the commands and truth Jesus gave us.
Rather, the truth says we are to be humble like Jesus and serve others (see Philippians 2:1-15).
This truth of a call to be a servant leader also costs us something: a hit to our pride, our pocket, our energy. But it ultimately produces more joy. We get to rejoice in this truth because it brings joy to serve others.
This way—Jesus' way—shows love.
So again, “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.”
How can we speak the truth in love today? How can we live the way of love? May God give us great joy along the way.
Love,
Your Friend
