Love is kind

 

DEVOTION

THE 1^ST LETTER TO THE CORINTHIANS

LOVE IS KIND

1 Cor 13:4-7

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

NIV

Love is kind, which is an extension to love is patient. But then, all of these traits of love are so interconnected it is difficult to cut one out from all the rest. Still, in some sense, it is right to deal with each of these aspects of love to see how they fit in. So what is kind, or being kind mean? How do we define kind? The Greek word does not give us too much help here for it means being kind, however, its meaning does include showing oneself to be useful, beneficial. It also means to show oneself mild. It is interesting this form of the Greek word is used only once and it is here. If we were to include kindness, as a verb, instead of this word kind as an adverb, we could find several places it is used, one of which is in the fruit of the Spirit. But still, it gets defined as being kind or showing kindness. It still does not give us a full understanding of what it means to be kind. We think how the English word ‘kind’ means and still come up with being kindhearted, courteous, amiable, charitable, affectionate, cordial, sympathetic, thoughtful, considerate, gracious, compassionate, and gentle as synonyms, and still, it seems we come up short to fully understanding this word. Perhaps if we investigated some antonyms we would get a better picture. These would be aloof, antagonistic, disagreeable, harsh, cruel, hateful, inattentive, unfeeling, and thoughtless, just to name a few. Now we are getting this fuller picture of what type of an attitude and behavior being kind looks like. So then because we love, and that itself is altogether the point. Love is a choice, we choose to love. One, because we are told to love as a command of God, and two, we choose to obey or disobey God, and thus if we choose to obey him, then we have to choose to love others, and therefore act in a manner of kindness. It is our choice, it does not come naturally, but we choose to love and therefore we choose to be kind, with all its similar words, and set aside all those opposing words. Love is kind.