1Co 13:1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
1Co 13:2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
1Co 13:3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
1Co 13:4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant
1Co 13:5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
1Co 13:6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
1Co 13:7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
1Co 13:8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
1Co 13:9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
1Co 13:10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
1Co 13:11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
1Co 13:12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
1Co 13:13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
The first three verses speak of the importance of love in the Christians life. We have looked at other verses that support that and moved on to defining what love is and is not and how to apply that to our lives in order to be obedient to the Lord, the One who first loved us.
We have covered patience. Patience is slow to react and waits steadfastly. Kindness looks for a place to act. It is active. Now we are looking at a few things that love is not. Love does not envy. Love is not jealous of others accomplishments. Last time we covered boasting and arrogance. We saw that boasting and arrogance covers a little more than it seems on the surface. Remember that arrogance believes that we know more or better than God does. Now we move on to Love is not... Rude.
Once again if there is such importance in loving on another and this is God's definition of what love is than we need to do due diligence to understand what is being taught to us here. Is it as simple as don't be rude to one another? I am not usually rude. As a matter of fact I will usually go as far as I can the other way to not be rude. Not because I am some kind of a saint but because being rude causes conflict and I avoid conflict at almost any cost. Sometimes avoiding conflict is good but I am learning as I grow older that conflict is sometimes the only means of resolution. It is how I handle myself in the midst of that conflict that will determine how that conflict will effect me. Back to my point! I do not consider myself to be a rude person and usually go out of my way to be sure that I am not rude and I do everything that I can to be sure that no one else mistakes one of my actions as rude. As I began to study this I realized, as I have with all the other parts of this series, that there is more to being rude, as we understand it, than it appears on the surface.
Most versions render this text... Love doth not behave itself unseemly, some use the word indecently. I like the use of unseemly much better than rude because it covers a much broader definition and fits in with the things that the Corinthians were doing better than just being rude as we understand the word rude today.
The most common online definition for rude is... discourteous or impolite in a deliberate way. One of the less used definitions was not properly or fully developed.
The definition of unseemly is... not keeping with established standards of taste or proper form; unbecoming or indecoruos in appearance, speech, conduct, etc.
As you can see the term unseemly covers a lot more ground than just rude. Although rude could be in the definition of unseemly.
Again, I want us to come back to the context of our text like we did last time when I spoke on arrogance. Paul is admonishing the Corinthians because they were doing things that were not in line with what he was teaching them. We can see that rudeness played a part in that admonishment if we look at a few particular issues.
In chapter 5 we see an example of the rudeness or the unseemly behavior that the Corinthians were doing.
1Co 5:1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father's wife.
An act that is not acceptable by even paganistic standards is a rude, unseemly behavior that is not acceptable by the standards of love. Love should be the example of a moral character that is above what is just considered acceptable.
Another example that the Corinthians give us I used last time.
1Co 11:20 When you come together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat.
1Co 11:21 For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk.
1Co 11:22 What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not.
John MacArthur writes this on this text...
This is a person, a man or a woman, who has not the ability to discipline his behavior with others in mind. He's just rude and out of place and overbearing and totally self-centered. And this... there couldn't be a better definition of the Corinthians. They were so rude, for example, they came to the love feast and ate all their food before the people who had none got there. They over indulged. They were like hogs when it came to eating at the love feast. Their behavior at the Lord's Supper was so bad they got drunk, kept taking the cup. Women had overstepped the bounds of female propriety before God and the women were taking their veils off and usurping the role of a man in the church and he's saying. “ You are not acting in a becoming way.” And the undisciplined, rude conduct of the Corinthian glossolalias (tongues) had come to the place where it was the antithesis of love, Everybody shouting out. Everybody talking. Everybody trying to get the prominence and nobody considering at all the other. And when you do that, there's no love there. Love is never rude because love is always lost in how what I does affects somebody else.
This is about a lack of courtesy, civility, consideration, tact, manners and politeness. A person who is rude isn't concerned about how their bad behavior is limiting the enjoyment of others. It is like a loudmouth or constant complainer at the restaurant, or the person who eats with their mouth open, talks with their mouth full, and slurps their soup. These are practical, silly illustrations but the point is the same. It is not very loving to disregard decorum by carelessly demonstrating our own lack of discipline.
We are called to live a life of self sacrifice. If we love to wear hats in the house and we go into someones house who is offended by wearing a hat indoors. Then our love should cause us to remove our hat. If you walk in the front door of someones house and you see a pile of shoes next to the front door and a white carpet. Then our love for others should cause us to respect that individuals wishes and remove our shoes. We should be active in this and observant. Look for ways to not be rude or offensive to others. Be sensitive to others feelings.
You are going to think some people are silly or plain out crazy with some of the things that bother them but, again, we are called to give up our desires for God's desires. His desire is for us to not be rude or act unseemly as we love one another as He loves us and puts up with our little quirks.
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