what is love?

I believe, so you will be there. Perhaps you are there already and just not yet aware you are there. I know I am not brave, but also I did once do something really stupid, others would call brave, and did save a few lives.....I still feel like I am not a brave person....I pray God will complete His work in me. He will on His Day, again, I believe, and I know He will with yo for the same reason. All blessings in the love or ou Savior..j

Amen brother we pray and keep abide in Him. And as His promise we Will be there.

Love is the cross, and Jesus dying on it, saying
"Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing" Luke 23:24

From eternity to eternity, no bigger demonstration of love is there than this.

6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Phil 2

Yes you are right. Truth is more important than love.
But love is God, and God is the truth.

Love is relational, it is about how we have attitudes and direction towards others.
It is though under righteousness, justice, holiness, purity.

So though God is love, He is constrained by who He is and the sinners that we once were.
Without cleansing and purification, the two can never come together.

The whole temple shows the Lord is prepared to make a way, and then put Jesus in the middle.
The temple demonstrates what we have in Jesus and how difficult this all is, and dangerous.

Some would downplay God is not fearful, awesome and life threatening, someone to fear and be
very careful about. No they swagger in and claim the biggest things with no regard to what is
actually going on, but appease the consciences of their listeners.

The truth is we need Jesus in our hearts, in every aspect of everything we do, and this only
comes through repentance, brokenness and submission.

Hello Defenderofgrace, and welcome to CC.
I'm glad you posted this, it is a verse I have been "chewing on" for a few weeks now. In fact was thinking about it last night, and as I look at the time stamp on the top of your OP here, I see that for me, it was posted at the same time I was reading these very verses

Welcome and Blessings 🙏🙏🙏

((((((((((((((((((((((LEAST!!!!!!!)))))))))))))))))))) THERE you are!!!!!!

I have long been thinking that truth is above love, or at that love is inside of truth, since truth is proclaimed more in the bible than love, as in one cannot know love apart from truth.

Love is a verb

NOW I just can't help it.......

Going back in time here, lol and first the lyrics for those who don't much care for the music style (or wanna know what the words are sayin....)
the song is titled: LUV IS A VERB

Down with the dc Talk, d- d- down with the dc Talk
Are you down with the dc Talk, d- d- down with the dc Talk
Pullin' out my big black book
Cause when I need a word defined that's where I look
So I move to the L's quick, fast, in a hurry
Threw on my specs, thought my vision was blurry
I looked again but to my dismay
It was black and white with no room for grey
Ya see, a big "V" stood beyond my word
And yo that's when it hit me, that luv is a verb
Words come easy but don't mean much
When the words they're sayin' we can't put trust in
We're talkin' 'bout love in a different light
And if we all learn to love it would be just right
Hey, tell me haven't ya heard?
Luv, is a serious word
Hey, I think it's time ya learned
I don't care what they say
I don't care care what ya heard
The word luv, luv is a verb
Down with the dc Talk, d- d- down with the dc Talk
Are you down with the dc Talk, d- d- down with the dc Talk
Thinkin' of a way to explain-o
Cause ya' know when I'm flowin' like a bottle of Drain-o
Simple and plain, L-O-V-E
Ain't all that junk that ya see on TV
Put soaps on a rope cause they ain't worth copin' with
It's a myth that there ain't no hope and
Luv is enough if it's unconditionally
Givin' now you're living out the Great Commission
Back in the day there was a man
Who stepped out of Heaven and he walked the land
He delivered to the people an eternal choice
With a heart full of luv and the truth in His voice
Gave up His life so that we may live
How much more luv could the Son of God give?
Here is the example that we oughtta be matchin'
Cause luv is a word that requires some action
Words come easy but don't mean much
When the words they're sayin' we can't put trust in
We're talkin' 'bout love in a different light
And if we all learn to love it would be just right
Hey, tell me haven't ya heard?
Luv, is a serious word
Hey, I think it's time ya learned
I don't care what they say
I don't care care what ya heard
The word luv, luv is a verb
Hey, tell me haven't ya heard?
Luv, is a serious word
Hey, I think it's time ya learned
I don't care what they say
I don't care care what ya heard
The word luv, luv is a verb
Hey, tell me haven't ya heard?
Luv, is a serious word
Hey, I think it's time ya learned
I don't care what they say
I don't care care what ya heard
The word luv, luv is a verb
Hey, tell me haven't ya heard?
Luv, is a serious word
Hey, I think it's time ya learned
I don't care what they say
I don't care care what ya heard
The word luv, luv is a verb

Just my thoughts....

Love, thought, word, and action, thinking others more important than ourselves, is a product of a servants heart, given by Him, the greatest Servant of all. He serves us so righteously and I am in awe how He having everything wanted only to save us. Though I am far from perfected, the One who is my hope, dwells within. I am so grateful. I do believe His Will for us all is...to not only to be ready, but also be eager to be a blessing to others, all for His Glory.

What comes first........No one can let the love of GOD be perfected in them until they are BORN AGAIN from above first BY THE TRUTH......

Love is the truth, I do not think the truth more then love.

Because love is truth

So love is equal the truth

God is love

God is thruth.

So love is truth.

1 for 13

13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

According to the Bible Charity or love in action is greatest than faith.

We may ask why, Paul was say salvation by faith, now he change his mine now he say love greater than faith

What make you save is the greatest isn't it and faith that make you save.

The problem is jesus die on the cross because of love, and the cross that make you save.

So salvation by faith is working under the love or love is greater than faith as Paul say in 1 for 13

Thanks I was amazed the first time I understood how important God considered His word (the truth). As you said, He does seem to say that He magnifies it above His own Name.

In this case however, I think we are dealing with a couple of different things that the context of the passage (as well the Greek used in the verse) point out nicely for us. First and foremost is what we learn about the truth (when it is by itself) just four verses earlier, that His truth is rendered inert/meaningless whenever we attempt to bring it to bear in the lives of others (be they non-Christians or brothers and sisters in Christ) apart from love.


So it seems to me that the choice to use συγχαίρω in v6b was correct (whether it's translated "rejoice in" or "rejoice with" in English) because of what συγχαίρω means ~1 to rejoice with, take part in another’s joy. 2 to rejoice together, to congratulate~. It best expresses the point that I believe the passage labors to make to us, that apart from love (for God and for others), we are nothing, and whatever we do ends up being of little to no value to anyone.

Something that the sons of Korah once said captures the sense of the Apostle's meaning in v6b I think:


God bless you!

~Deut
p.s. - no doubt the Apostle's earlier choice of χαίρει ἐπὶ (in v6a, which translates plainly as "rejoice" "in") surely played at least a small role in the NASB, ESV, NIV.... translation teams' decisions to go with "rejoice with" as their translation of συγχαίρω in v6b (along with the definition of συγχαίρω, of course ).

Amen, truth is love and love is truth.

In a sense of feeling mercy and empathy over the truth of corruption, degredation and defilement, Holiness
and judgement wins.

This is why to construct a gospel where free will walks in sin, does not work, ever.
God bless you

The reason we are born again is because we see Gods love portrayed through the cross.
The truth of this love brings us home in faith.

The only reason some want to put truth above love, is because they want to deny the need
to love as part of following Jesus rather than just preaching truth, facts conviction, and to
root out "false teachers" rather than be a shinning light of Gods heart to the church and the world.

The RCC put many to death on this very idea and foundation, and the reformation that killed
25% of europe waged on this lie. If these people had seen truth is expressed in love, then this
would have never happened.

The Apostles chose nothing....God inspired the word and the definite article points to In not with......take it or leave it....

Love will never rejoice with sinful behaviour or in sinful behaviour, but love will rejoice in the truth
which is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

When talking about love, it is the summary of a relationship approach. Truth is the foundation
upon which everything hangs. It is like saying a car is less important than the metal it is made
of. They are part of the same thing, you cannot separate them.

But for people their loyalty to others can lead them to lie and sin, while love would honour the
truth and its declaration.

In this there is also a problem. Rahab hid the spies in Jerecho, yet the truth would have meant
she would have declared their presence. Love of God and His people over-rode the loyalty to
her city, rather the truth of God was greater.

This demonstrates truth is not obvious or even objective. Truth always comes back to the Father
for its reference point, which is a hard concept to grasp. It is why Jesus kept quiet when challenged
to speak at His trial, because the truth would just have got in the way of the injustice which needed
to be allowed to continue to make His death a true atoning sacrifice freely given. Amen

In my estimation you are a brave man.

You know, I thought of an analogy (of a car actually) for this Chapter (1 Cor 13), where God's truth is the gasoline, and love is the spark that ignites it. IOW, you can have access to all of the reserves of gasoline in the world, but it's all worthless because your car, with a full tank of gas, isn't going to get you anywhere without the little spark that it takes to ignite it

That's the sense I get from this passage, that love and truth rejoice ~together~ in the accomplishment of God's will in us and in others, because by themselves/apart from each other, they accomplish little to nothing. After all, we aren't simply called to speak the truth, we're called to speak the truth in love, nor can we "love" others apart from God's truth.

Likewise, the Bible tells us that it's God's "kindness" that leads us to repentance, and that it's our "love" for others (not our extensive knowledge and understanding of Biblical doctrine), that will cause us to be recognized as Christians.

That said, God is not loving towards us (patient and kind towards us) apart from truth, and neither can be loving towards others apart from His truth, but trying to bring the truth to bear in people's lives in an unloving manner (w/o loving patience, concern, and kindness, on our parts), does no good either.

So, if I have to make a choice/"take it of leave it", rather than accepting both "with" and "in" as basically the same thing in v6, then I think that I'm going to side with the majority of our 20th/21st Century linguistic scholars on this one, especially when all that's been said in this thread is taken into consideration.

~Deut