Love is an essential ingredient to assembly life. The great love chapter of the Bible (1 Cor. 13) was not included in the poetic psalms but in the ever practical first letter to the Corinthians. The chapter is part of the section of Paul’s epistle dealing with order in the meetings of the local assembly, a section beginning at chapter 11 and concluding at chapter 14. The dreamy poet may write or sing about love, but it is in a company of redeemed sinners that love has the opportunity to show what it is made of.
Love is an evangelist for the local church. The new commandment of John 13 puts it this way, “That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another” (Jn. 13:34-35). Up until that time, God’s people were marked by their nationality. In the church, God’s people are to be marked by their love. In a world that talks about all kinds of love, but knows little of the real thing, loving Christians speak volumes to the unbeliever. A person may try to arrange logical arguments against the Bible in their minds, but such logic crumbles in the face of genuine love. “…whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away” (1 Cor. 13:8).
Love is Christlike. “Christ…loved the church, and gave Himself for it” (Eph. 5:25). Remembering this keeps my attitude in check. I must not allow the imperfections of my brothers and sisters in Christ to justify unkind words or deeds. The church is loved by the Lord Himself. I must be careful how I treat what He loves.
Those who love in the local church expose their love for God. Notice God’s simple and irrefutable logic in 1 John 4:20-21, “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from Him, that he who loveth God love his brother also.” These are plain statements.
But true love means not loving certain things. We are commanded, for instance, to “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 Jn. 2:15-16). Loving the world has plagued God’s people since the days of Adam. It makes no sense to love the world. It brings no spiritual power or joy to love the world. It impedes our progress and service, and yet how often we still love the world. It defies logic. Perhaps we love the world because its hatred towards God is cleverly concealed from us. Or maybe we find the world attractive because we spend little time thinking about the loveliness of Christ.
True love hates error but loves truth. Love in the local church means always wanting the truth of God to prevail. “Love rejoiceth in the truth…” (1 Cor. 13:6) This explains Paul’s ability to declare his love for the believers he wrote to, and yet at the same time root out evil and evil men with forceful determination. Love will move to restore my brother or sister who stumbles (Gal. 6:1). Love will firstly seek to cover a multitude of sins, not expose them. But when believers persist stubbornly in error or ungodly living, then love for the whole body must prevail and love for the offender may mean separating them from the fellowship (Titus 3:10-11; 1 Thess. 3:14-15). This kind of love takes great discernment and prayer.
Love. Only modern English would allow one word to describe something understood so differently by so many. Maybe the translators of the Authorized Version had a good idea using “charity.” Read again the apostle’s words to the Corinthian assembly. This is good advice for your assembly too:
Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth.