Love is patient, love is kind.
The most famous description of love — and the hardest to live.
The episode in a glance.
- 01This list describes what love does, not what love feels.
- 02Patience and kindness are the first two because they're the hardest.
- 03Love is defined by action in hard moments, not by emotion in easy ones.
- 04This is the standard for every relationship you have.
Read along.
1 Corinthians 13:4 — 'Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.' This is the most famous description of love in human literature. And it's also the most humbling.
Notice what Paul doesn't say. He doesn't say 'love is a feeling.' He says love is patient. Love is kind. Love doesn't envy. These are actions. Choices. Behaviors in moments when you don't feel loving.
Patient and kind are listed first because they're the hardest. Being patient with someone who frustrates you. Being kind to someone who doesn't deserve it. That's not emotion. That's discipline.
This isn't a description of romantic love. It's a description of the love that should characterize every Christian relationship. Including the ones you're in right now.