Verse 4 – Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant

Spiritual experience (v.1), insight (v.2), and sacrifice (v.3) are not definitive markers of true spirituality, love is. So, what is love?

Paul does not provide a definition of love. Rather, he describes love in action. With fifteen verbs (running through verse 7) he provides descriptors of love on the move. Love is not static, but active. Love is not inert, but always on the move. We discover that love makes itself known both in what it embraces and in what it rejects. In what follows Paul will state positively seven times what love does and negatively eight times what loves does not do. He begins with two positive statements about what love is (v.4a), then lines up the eight statements about what love is not (vv.4b-6a), and then closes with five more positive statements about love (vv.6b-7).

We learn first that “Love is patient” (Ἡ ἀγάπη μακροθυμεῖ). Note the definite article (lit., “the love”). The verb (μακροθυμέω) means “to bear up under provocation without complaint.”[1] Thus, “patience” involves three elements: a provocation that creates a weight that presses downward upon us, remaining under that weight rather than fleeing, and refusing to complain while waiting for relief from that weight. It is “to be patient in bearing the offences and injuries of others; to be mild and slow in avenging; to be long-suffering, slow to anger, slow to punish.”[2] The root word is a compound, comprised of μακρός (long) and θυμός (anger/wrath/rage). The resulting sense is “to take a long time to become angry.” Patience holds out a long time before it gives way to emotion, before breaking out into flames of anger. We might say, then, that patience is inflammable. Paul used the same verb to tell the Thessalonian believers to be “patient with everyone” (1 Thess. 5:14, NASU). Some need admonishing, some need encouraging, others need helping, but love sees that everyone gets patience. The present tense pictures the ongoing and abiding nature of love.

In addition (“and,” not in Greek text) Paul tells us that love is “kind” (χρηστεύεται ἡ ἀγάπη). More literally it might be rendered, “kind, the love.” The verb is used only here in the NT. It means “to provide something beneficial for someone as an act of kindness.”[3] The middle voice is deponent, thus having an active meaning.[4] The cognate noun is used ten times in the NT, all of them by Paul. It refers to goodness, kindness, and generosity, either of man (2 Cor. 6:6; Gal. 5:22; Col. 3:12) or of God (Rom. 2:4; 11:22; Eph. 2:7).[5] The unredeemed man has no such “kindness” in himself (Rom. 3:12). It can only come from him as God produces it in him (Gal. 5:22).

With a turn toward the negative consideration, Paul says, “love does not envy” (οὐ ζηλοῖ, [ἡ ἀγάπη]). In each case of negation Paul uses the adverb οὐ (“not”), which denies a thing categorically or absolutely.[6] This first verb means to desire intensely and earnestly. That desire can be positive (e.g., 2 Cor. 11:2; Rev. 3:19), but here is negative, pointing to “intense negative feelings over another’s achievements or success.”[7] Interestingly, Paul brackets the entire discussion of love with the command to “earnestly desire [ζηλοῦτε] the higher gifts” (1 Cor. 12:31a) and “Pursue love, and earnestly desire [ζηλοῦτε] the spiritual gifts” (1 Cor. 14:1). And he then closes out the entire discussion of spiritual gifts by exhorting them, “So, my brothers, earnestly desire [ζηλοῦτε] to prophesy” (v.39). Thus, he does not deny the legitimate and holy use of such strong desires put into action, but only their sinful tendency. Love is the great constraint on all human passions.

Neither does love “boast” (οὐ περπερεύεται). The verb is found only here in the NT. It is to act as a braggart, to heap praise upon oneself or one’s accomplishments. The middle voice effectively emphasizes acting upon oneself in such self-preoccupation and self-promotion. While the verb is used only here, Paul has just used a different, but semantically related verb in the previous verse (καυχάομαι, “I may boast,” NIV). Paul uses that verb and its cognates throughout his two letters to Corinth to speak frequently of the matter of boasting. That word group is found ten times in this letter (1:29, 31; 3:21; 4:7; 5:6; 9:15, 16; 13:3; 15:31) and twenty-eight times in 2 Corinthians. How are we to relate love’s prohibition of boasting to Paul’s boasting as the Corinthians appear ready to reject him in favor of other leaders (cf. 2 Cor. 10-12 where the word group is used nineteen times)?

God has worked through Christ “so that no human being might boast [καυχήσηται] in the presence of God” (1 Cor. 1:29). And indeed, “because of him [i.e., all of God’s gracious doing] you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption” and this “so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts [καυχώμενος], boast [καυχάσθω] in the Lord’” (vv.30-31). That is the very opposite of the self-absorbed, self-promoting boasting (περπερεύομαι) love prohibits here. Thus, Paul continues to denounce boasting (e.g., 1 Cor. 3:21; 4:7; 5:6). But he does find a place for Christ-centered, Christ-exalting glorying (boasting) for those who deflect all praise to God (1 Cor. 9:15-16; 15:31). This, then, helps us understand the boasting of the apostle in 2 Corinthians 10-12. There he views the very gospel as at stake for in the Corinthian’s rejection of him as Christ’s apostle they are in danger of being led astray from Christ Himself. Thus, he dares, uncomfortable for him though it is (cf. 10:2; 11:1, 17, 21-23; 12:1, 11), to compare their “false apostles” (2 Cor. 11:13a; indeed, “super-apostles,” 11:5; 12:11) to a “true apostle” (12:12), as embodied in, though not restricted to (cf. 11:13b), himself (1:1). He only does so by laying out proper boundaries for his actions (10:13-18; 11:30-31; 12:9). He undertakes this uncomfortable and unorthodox practice as a last resort in view of the spiritual danger that looms over them (11:3-4, 14-15). His discomfort with the entire practice and its inherent Christ-centeredness identifies it as in fact an act of love, not a violation of it.

With love’s rejection of boastful self-promotion, it comes as no surprise then that love “is not arrogant” (οὐ φυσιοῦται). The verb appears seven times in the NT, all from the pen of the Apostle Paul and all but one here in 1 Corinthians (1 Cor. 4:6, 18, 19; 5:2; 8:1; 13:14; Col. 2:18). It comes from φῦσα (“a pair of bellows”) and literally means “to puff up” or to “inflate.”[8] It came to be used metaphorically of pride and arrogance, as it is here. The fact that six of the seven usages of this verb occur here in 1 Corinthians indicates that they had a particular struggle in this area. In its only other use, it describes false teachers (Col. 2:18). This may indicate that the Corinthian’s arrogance is a fruit of their listening to the “false apostles” with whom they had taken a fancy (2 Cor. 11:3). The true gospel exalts Christ. Any other “gospel” (indeed, “another Jesus,” cf. 2 Cor. 11:4) exalts the disciple, not the Savior, for it rests not upon His work and free grace, but upon the disciple’s efforts and the pedigree of their “apostles.”

[1] BDAG, 4683.2.

[2] Thayer, 3301.2.

[3] Louw-Nida, 88.67.

[4] BDAG, 7975.

[5] Ibid., 886.

[6] Thayer, 408.

[7] BDAG, 3375.2.

[8] Thayer, 660.