This month many of us will be giving special attention to the subject of love. Valentine’s Day falls right in the middle of February, and that red-letter day brings all sorts of thoughts and questions. Those of us who are single may be wondering if we will have a special someone by the fourteenth. Or maybe we will be glad that we don’t. Married couples will be wondering where they will have dinner, what card to pick out, or whether gifts are in the budget this year. Some of us will be especially grieved by loss this month – we too will be thinking about love.
As you think about the love that you express and experience in your relationships with friends, family, and significant others, consider a critical aspect of love that our culture often ignores: “Love bears all things.” (1 Cor.13:7).
The particular word for ‘bearing’ that the Apostle Paul uses in that verse is the word stegei. This is the word that in its noun form means “roof.” In its verb form, it can mean protect, support, bear, or cover. Keep in mind that roofs in those days tended to be flat and were built to carry the weight of the home’s occupants.[1] During Biblical times, the roof of one’s house was required by law to have a fence built around it so that folks wouldn’t fall off (Deut. 22:8). The roof was a carefully constructed, load-bearing, platform that offered protection from the elements – providing a cool place during the hot summer months and a warm dry place during the cold rainy season.
So, what does it mean that love is always a roof? Or that it acts like a roof?
The Apostle Paul uses this same word earlier in this same letter. In chapter nine, Paul writes about how he as an apostle has certain rights – he has a right to eat and drink, to have a wife, and to receive pay. But then he says that despite his rights to such things: “Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 9:12). In this case, the verb form of our word “roof” means ‘to endure.’ It carries the meaning of ‘to bear with.’ Or, ‘to carry the cost of.’ In some translations we read that he “puts up with” all things! His desire is to protect the communication of the gospel – and in order to protect this, he will bear with anything.
And this is what love does. There is no limit to what love will absorb in order to protect a person who is loved or a relationship that is valued. Even that offense that you find unbearable – love bears even that.
But what if someone sins against you terribly? How do we bear with or put up with those things? Two other scriptures help us to understand how love bears such things. In the first place, all people sin against others – you yourself sin against others on a regular basis in your thoughts, attitudes, words, and actions. But, as 1 Peter 4:8 teaches us, “Love covers a multitude of sins.” Remember that the Bible knows no uglier word than ‘sin.’ Love simply counts grave offenses as so many nothings – things more than made up for by the grace given us by Christ (see Matthew 18:21-35). Secondly, in cases where some sin is outstanding and requires some response other than immediate and genuine forgiveness, Jesus gives explicit commands about how such matters must be handled by his disciples: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone.” (Matthew 18:15). Protect the reputation of the other person, and your relationship with them, by refraining from gossip and go to them privately, humbly, and with a sincere desire to save and keep the relationship!
Too often I have heard a husband or a wife complain about their spouse and how hurtful they have been and, upon asking, discovered that they had not spoken to their spouse directly and privately about this. Gossip between friends is in every case the opposite of what biblical love entails. It entails not only keeping a record of wrong and bearing a grudge – it actually involves communicating that bitterness to more than the individual person against whom you harbor disappointment. This is not bearing all things. It is not covering all things. It is not protecting anything at all.
Dear Christian, would you be a loving person? Then bear all things. If someone has hurt or offended you and you cannot let it go, then protect, bear the burden of that relationship, and take every precaution to keep your experience (which might, after all, be a mere misunderstanding) private between the two of you. Only after such personal, private attempts should one involve another person (see Matthew 18:16). But as a very first order of business, when you are disappointed with someone, be very careful to consider what they have done to you against the backdrop of what you have done before the face of God. How freely and completely God has in Christ forgiven you and loved you – he has truly borne all things. Won’t you do the same for others?
Your Pastor,
Bob Bjerkaas
[1] “How the People of the Bible Lived,” Harper’s Encyclopedia of Bible Life, eds. Miller, Miller, Bennett, and Scott (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1978), s.v. “Houses, roof.”
N.B. The image is provided by Bible History Online and is free to use with acknowledgement and this link.
Well said my friend!