THE KING’S BUSINESS'
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elucidation (cf. ch. 10 :24, 33; 1 John 3:16,- 17 R. V .; 2 Tim. 2 :10). These words, how ever, suggest a question which is a per sonal one. Are you seeking your own or another’s good? If the former yofi have not love and in God’s sight are nothing. ( 8 ) “Love is not provoked.” The transla tors of the Authorized Version hesitated to accept the full force of Paul’s word, so they inserted the qualifying word “easily,” but there is no easily in the text. What God said is “Love is not provoked.” Love knows no irritation. It is often grieved, bitterly grieved, but never irritated. How ' searching these words . are. We get so hot over the unkind words that are spoken to us, but love never does. (9) “Love taketh not account of evil.” Love never puts the wrong done it down in its - books—-nor in its memory. Some of us do. Someone does us an injustice or a wrong of some kind and we store it away in our mind and whenever we think of that per son we think of the wrong they did us. That is not love. Love takes the pages of the book of memory on which the wrongs done us are written and tears them out. If wrong is done us, love keeps “no account” of it. (10) “Love rejoiceth not in unrighteousness.” Love is not forever' calling attention to the wrong that exists in individuals or in the church or in the state. It may see these things but it is sad over them, nqt triumphant and rejoic ing. Why is it that we are so often, found dwelling upon the evil that exists in church and state. God tells us the reason here, we do not love. (11) “Love rejoiceth with the truth.” Oh, if we love, how our hearts will bound whenever we discover truth in others! How gladly we will call attention to i t ! Are you much busied that way ? How ready some of us are to go and tell the wrongs we have discovered in other people. Would it not be better to go and tell the excellencies that we have discov ered in someone else? God says that is the way love behaves. ( 12 ) “Love beareth all things.” The word translated “beareth” means primarily “covereth” and may pos-
and tender. (Eph. 4:32; Gal. 5:22 R. V.). (3) Love envieth not.” How can it envy? Is not another’s good as pleasant to “love” as our-own? Does the mother envy the prosperity of her child? Is not the pros perity of the child she loves her chief delight? Love never envies, never. Do you ever secretly grieve overhand try to discount another’s progress, temporal or spiritual (James 3 :14-16- R. V.). Love never does. Do you love? (5) “Lové vaunteth not itself.” If another’s greatness isTis precious to us as our own. how is it we talk so much of our own, and are so anx ious that others see it and appreciate it? There is no surer mark o f the absence of lové and the presence of selfishness than this. If we really love the achievements of others will be more to us than our own and it is about them that we will talk ; for “out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh” (Matt. 12:34). (S) “Love is not puffed up.” It is quite possible for one to have good sense enough not to vaunt himself and yet in his heart be puffed up over his own virtues and victories, but love is not even puffed up. Love is so much taken up with the excellencies of others that it will never dream of being inflated with its own (cf. Phil. 2 :3, 4). , Saturday, December 8. i Corinthians 13 : 5 - 7 . We have just seen five ways in which love magnifies itself in every day life and now Paul presents the sixth ( 6 ) “Love doth not behave itself unseemly.” . Love is too considerate of the feelings of others to do indecorous, rude, ill-mannered or boorish things. It is so considerate of the feelings of others that it avoids all that might offend them. Nothing else will teach us what is “good form,” “good manners,” or “true etiquette,” as well as love will. Those Christians who take rude delight in tramp ling all conventionalities under foot, and playing the boor, would do well to ponder these words. Love in a mans heart will make that man a perfect gentleman. (7) “Love seeketh not her own.” These words need exemplification more Jhan they need
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