Bears, Endures, Hopes

In the verse before us today, Paul begins to bring to a close his series of short descriptions of the God-like love that is to dwell in the hearts of God’s people. The four parallel characteristics Paul mentions in this verse also serve well to reiterate several of the key points he has made in this magnificent catalog of the ways of love.

Love, Paul writes, “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” For the sake of convenience, we will consider the first and last of these four characteristics, then the second and third. When the apostle speaks of love “bearing” and “enduring,” we are reminded of his first description, “Love suffers long” (v. 4), by which Paul taught us that love is patient and forgiving, that it is able to tolerate affronts and injuries, that it accepts the weaknesses as well as the strengths of the beloved one. Paul is saying much the same here. Peter gives a similar call in his first epistle, charging his readers to love one another with a “fervent love,” for “love will cover a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). Their point is that true love does not keep a tally of the wrongs it has suffered at the hands of the beloved, but freely forgives and so forgets the offenses.

But Paul makes clear that love is not just grim endurance of repeated wrongs. It is not just the possession of a very thick skin. Love that bears and endures is driven by something deeper, something Paul touches on when he writes that love “believes all things, hopes all things. . .” As we have seen, love “thinks no evil,” but that does not mean that it is blind. Christians know that their brothers and sisters are fallen and imperfect. And yet, they also know that the Holy Spirit is doing His sanctifying work in each of them. Thus, there is solid ground on which to believe the best about another person, to assume that his or her motives are good though the deeds may appear questionable. Further, there is reason to hope that in His time the Spirit will round off the rough edges of the other person, making him or her lovelier and therefore easier to love. And as we have seen from Romans, biblical hope is no mere wish. It is assurance, for it is based on the facts of the character of God. The knowledge that God Himself is at work in other believers is all we need to have full confidence that the image of Christ is being formed within them.