Love Bears All Things

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Cor. 13:7)

​What does it mean that love “bears” all things or that love “believes” all things?  Does this mean that love is gullible or naive, believing anything we are told?  What does it mean that love “endures” all things?  Today, and over the next three days, I want to briefly look at each of these words because these words are important and are rich with meaning.  But also because today many people, many Christians, have a fundamental misunderstanding of what true love is, what biblical love is.  Thus, the first verb in this sentence describing what love does or how love behaves is that “love bears all things.”  The Greek word for “bears” is the word stegō, and it carries the meaning of ‘to cover, to pass over in silence, or to keep confidential.’  Thus, when scripture says that love bears all things, it means that love is willing to overlook the flaws and shortcomings of others.  Peter uses similar language when he says, “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Pet. 4:8).  Love is being willing to be honest with ourselves and say to someone we love, ‘I know you’re not perfect, but neither am I.  I know you have many flaws and sins, but so do I.  And because neither one of us has cornered the market on perfection, I’m going to overlook, I’m going to pass over your sins and love you anyway.’  This does not mean that we don’t hold each other accountable for sin, because that is what love does.  Love always wants and does what is best for someone else, so when we see our brother or sister in Christ sinning, we gently try and correct them (Gal. 6:1).  But love never gives up on people.  Love never grows tired of forgiving.  Love does not seek to hold others to a standard that we can’t even live up to ourselves.  Charles Spurgeon, the early 19th century preacher, once said, “Why do you grow frustrated when you cannot make others as you would want them to be when you cannot even make yourself as you want to be?”