Let’s take a look at Paul’s famous love passage one last time, and today, pay particular attention to verse 7:

1 Corinthians 13 (New Revised Standard Version )

⁴ Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; ⁶ it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. 

⁷ It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

This love comes from Jesus, who loves with an agape love that Paul contends is patient, kind, and “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.”

Did you notice how Paul repeated the word “all” four times in one sentence? Paul used the Greek word “panta” for “all things” in this passage, which leaves no room for doubt about what he is saying. 

Panta means “all encompassing.” For example, the word pantheism is the belief that God is in everything. The word pantry is the place where you put all your food. A panacea is a cure for everything. So Paul is emphatically saying that love doesn’t exclude anything or anyone in the way that it bears everything, believes everything, hopes everything, and endures everything. No one is left out. Cherry picking things to love that are lovable doesn’t qualify. 

This passage challenges us as individuals and as a church that we are to love as Christ loves. Are we truly a church of open hearts, open minds, and open doors? Even when we experience differences, do we put on love over everything?  Remember what Paul wrote to the church at Colossae: 

Colossians 3 (Common English Bible)

¹² Therefore, as God’s choice, holy and loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. ¹³ Be tolerant with each other and, if someone has a complaint against anyone, forgive each other. As the Lord forgave you, so also forgive each other. ¹⁴ And over all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. 

There’s that word again: all things. Over ALL THINGS put on love.

To be called to offer agape love to the world is the mission of the church, and it starts here. Our one and only job is to teach the world hope that is grounded in God’s unconditional and unwavering love for all of us. At the end of time we will be judged on one thing alone, and that is our ability to love.

How are we doing?

Over All Things by Michelle Robertson