1 Corinthians 13:4-7

b. Picture of Love in daily life, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 .

The hyperboles of the apostle in the last paragraph rush like a cataract; the descriptions of this paragraph flow like a gentle and limpid stream. He does not describe love in its heroic moods, dying for its loved objects, but in the aspects of ordinary life, and particularly in references to those vain glories and bickers among his Corinthians, of which love would be the corrective. He gives fifteen traits of love. The first three touch the patient kindness of love; the next eight are negatives, describing qualities which love does not exhibit, but which, unfortunately, the tempers of the Corinthians did; then four traits which our apostle’s conduct was exhibiting towards them. The passage is no fancy piece, but aims at practical life.