This month brings us to Valentine’s Day. If this special day has one word that seems to stand out among all others, it is “love.”
This week, the focus of Theology 101 is the same: love. The third chapter of Ecclesiastes opens with the assertion, “To everything there is a season” (v. 1).
Later, in verse 8, we read that one of those seasons is “a time to love.” Valentine’s Day serves as an annual reminder of the reality and blessing of loving and being loved.
Essence of God
The biblical starting point for thinking about love is God. While we typically list love as one of the attributes of God, we might be more on target to think of it as the essence of God in light of the dual declaration in the fourth chapter of 1 John that “God is love” (vv. 8, 16).
How might we define love, whether it be divine love or human love?
Someone once said love is defined by what love does. The finest expression of divine love is that God so loved the world that He “gave His only begotten Son” to be the Savior (John 3:16).
Not only is love defined by what it does, it also is defined by what it doesn’t do.
If we ponder this approach in thinking of human love in terms of what it is doing and not doing, our minds tend to go immediately to 1 Corinthians 13, the New Testament’s “love chapter.” Verse four begins to tell us what love does: it shows patience and kindness.
The seventh verse summarizes what love does in four phrases: it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things.
Revelation of truth
Not only does the Bible define love in terms of what it does, it also looks at what it does not do.
The previously referenced fourth verse tells us that love is not envious, boastful or conceited. The fifth and sixth verses continue the list of what Godlike love does not do: it does not act improperly nor is it selfish, easily provoked, prone to keep a record of wrongs or take any joy in unrighteousness.
These things love does and those it doesn’t are not found in nice messages read on Valentine cards.
We find God’s revelation of truth in His word. And that Word reminds us that every season of life is a season to love.
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