This Thing Called Love Part 1

Hello, this is Matt Slick from the Matt Slick Live Podcast, where I defend the Christian faith and lay out our foundations of the truth of God's Word. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Man Talk, brought to you by TAWCMM, talking and walking Christian men's ministry, where they're devoted to breaking down the walls of race and denomination and challenging men to take their God-assigned role.

Here's our hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr., a black guy and a white guy. Well, praise the Lord. Hallelujah and glory to God in the highest. We are back, Mr. Roy, with Man Talk Radio Podcast. Will, it's good to see you, my brother.

It is. And today, you know, we need love in the air, brother. We need love. We need love in the air. So we're going to be talking about this thing called love. This thing called love.

That's right. And this thing called love, you know, is 1 Corinthians chapter 13. You know, and I think that chapter sort of embodies the things that love should encompass. And before we get into the scripture, though, I want to talk about a little bit about the four Greek terms. There's more Greek terms, but the four Greek terms that are mentioned in scripture predominantly that refer to love. And, of course, all of us know about the agape love, the love that God bestows upon mankind, and it's unconditional.

You don't have to do anything. God just loves you because He loves you. And then, of course, there's the eros love, the fleshly love that scripture also mentions. And this is just the love. Well, we don't have to go into any detail. I think I got that one.

But if you need some further instruction now, we can give that to you as well. But the eros love. And then, of course, there's the phileo love. And, of course, we know Philadelphia is the city of brotherly love. So that has to do with having, well, let me put it this way. If, you know, you have a fraternal order, like of policemen, fraternal order of lawyers and doctors, it's sort of like that type of brotherly love, not necessarily family-related or fraternity or sorority. Well, we could even say the talcum men, the organization men that really love each other.

Exactly. So that's phileo. And then the one that we hardly ever talk about is storge. Storge love is love within the family. So you're talking about love between mother, father, son, dad, that type of love, uncle, aunt.

It could be immediate family or it could be extended family. And I think that's the type of love that Jesus put toward Peter when he talked about Peter, do you love me? And, of course, Peter says, yes, Lord, you know I love you. So love, I think, in the Greek is there just brutally detailed when it comes to defining the necessary terms of love. But with that as a foundation, now we can get into 1 Corinthians 13.

Well, thank you, Will. 1 Corinthians 13. Let's read the first couple of verses here, really.

1. If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. It's verse 1. And, you know, when I hear that, if I speak with the tongues of men, so if I understand all of the languages of the world, and if there was an angelic language, and if I could speak the angelic language, if there was, and I don't govern what I'm saying in love, then basically I'm just making noise. And, of course, what happens when you hear the squeakiest wheel gets the... Grease. I wasn't looking for that, Roy. I was looking for the squeakiest wheel gets the most attention.

Well, that's true, yeah. But the grease could be the attention. You need to put grease and oil on it. To take the squeak, yeah. But I'm saying when you hear the squeak... It does get the most attention. It gets the attention, which means you gotta take action. Right. So, if I'm not governing these things in love, then I'm just like that squeaky wheel.

I'm making a lot of noise, and, of course, the noise is drawing attention to me. Right. Rather than putting it on God. And it reminds me of, it's like your words are one thing and your actions are another.

We've talked about that in the past. If your actions should be speaking louder than your words so that your words are just really reinforcing what they're seeing in your actions. But in this case, it's like a resounding symbol or gong if you're just... Basically, it's words for nothing. Exactly. Exactly.

Because it's profiting no one except you. Except the individual. Yeah. And, of course, see, that has to do with, of course, self-serving, self-glorifying. So you're bringing attention to yourself and the foundation of which you should be manifesting the love of God is so that where the purpose is to build up the kingdom of God.

Right. And I think we get to it a little bit later in the scripture here that we're reading, because we're reading, I believe, the whole chapter. But if the flip side of that wheel, what are your thoughts on that person uses words to attack or tear down, but yet says they're walking a different journey than the way their behavior is demonstrating? Well, and I think it goes back to what you said, then their actions is not demonstrating what they say they believe. So we could have a understanding that if I am in a position and God is leading me to do this, that, or the other, I have to consider who I will be affecting with whatever it is I'm going to say.

Because like we have talked about in the past, everything you say and do is going to have an effect on maybe your wife, your children, people in the church. So there's this repercussion effect. And of course, that could roll downhill. But again, we'll get to that more in detail as we read through it. Good. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

Wow. So if I can prophesy, if I can understand all mysteries, if I have faith, all knowledge, faith to move mountains, and again, if these things are not governed in love, then it's basically for naught. So Paul, I think, as God is blessing through him, to build upon the first verse, and of course, he's going to keep building as we go through.

Right. Verse three, if I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship, that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. So again, see, he's continuing to build using these examples of if I do these things, and I'm not doing it to glorify God, or... Out of love.

Yeah, to reach out to people, because again, as we go through, everything I say and everything I do is ultimately going to affect someone. Now, we have to understand the backdrop of this, too, I think, Roy, is that the Corinthians, they were involved in a lot of pagan worship. And what they were attempting to do is to bring this pagan style of worship and worship the true and living God the same way that they were worshiping their idols. And so this was the reason behind, well, one of the reasons behind Paul writing this letter. This letter is written to sort of like straighten the Corinthians' thinking out, because they were boasting, some was boasting, well, I got prophecy. Another one was boasting, well, I got faith. Another one was boasting about, well, I got knowledge on this, that, and the other.

And so they were competing against each other. And of course, God is, again, blessing through Paul to say all of the gifts, and this is in the earlier chapters, chapter 12, all of the gifts are for the edifying of the church. And no one gift is more important than the other. Very good.

That's very good. And that's important for us to remember. So if we try to size ourselves up against a brother or sister in Christ, we shouldn't be doing that, because my gift is equally as valuable to God as your gift is. And oftentimes in our secular world, even though we're a church in the world, we still start measuring up like the secular world does. Well, he's got more, he does more, he knows more. And that's important, listeners.

God's got you right where he wants you if you are walking with him. Verse four, love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. I say we don't have enough of that. We don't have enough patience, but we have a lot of envy.

Yes, we do. And we have a lot of regret and we have a lot of boasting. So we have the opposite of what God's saying that we should not have. So again, if we're governing ourselves in love, then love wants to manifest itself. See, and this is when we get in the way. We get in the way when love wants to manifest itself according to how God has placed that love within us. And when we start boasting and envying, what we're doing now is we're cutting love off because we're letting our envy and boasting now get in the way of what love wants to do.

So when you talk about love manifesting itself, why don't you explain that a little bit further when you, as it's starting to naturally occur and we cut it off? Well, the manifestation of love says that I'm going to do whatever God wants me to do. I'm going to govern what I do in love. Now, that says that I'm going to be patient. I'm going to be kind.

I'm going to be level-headed. I mean, you could use all of the adjectives that you want to use in describing how God wants to work through you in a certain area or in a certain way. And so when we get in the way of that, now we want the attention to be upon us. So what we're doing is we're throwing up this blockade and says, although love, you want to do this and you want to manifest yourself, now I'm coming in and I'm boasting about something that I'm not getting enough help and all these brothers out here and I'm not getting enough help and I'm not doing this, that, and the other thing. And so what we're doing now is we are pushing love aside for the sake of boasting and envying. And that goes back to the being selfish, right?

Most people, and I think a lot of times it comes from insecurities and so forth, but I think we'll come back to that here in just a few moments, folks, when 1 Corinthians 13. We'll be right back after the break. Darrell Bock Welcome back to Man Talk Radio. We all can't help but laugh whenever we hear that a black guy and a white guy. Well, I didn't realize I was a white guy. Did you realize you were a black guy? I'm just a new man in a white body.

Like Bishop always says, it could be a black man in a white body, but as a new man, who knows? We are spirit first. Amen to that. Amen to that. Welcome back, folks. So we're at verse 5 in 1 It is not easily angered and it keeps no record of wrongs.

I think there's a lot of people picking themselves up off the floor right now. So it does not dishonor others. It is not self-seeking. This referring to love is not easily angered.

Love keeps no record of wrongs. So see, so it's not self-seeking. So it doesn't seek self-glorification like we do when we're boasting and envying after something.

And then the second part of that, it said, it's not easily angered. So when someone come at us, love says, whoa, whoa, whoa, don't go to that level. We can go over there to Proverbs 18 and 21, where, you know, God clearly states that our tongue, death and life is in the power of the tongue.

So we can kill people with the tongue and not raise up a physical weapon. And so when we do that, I think we stifle what love wants to do in and through us. So love is steadily saying, give me a chance, give me a chance. And so if we yield to the voice that's saying, give me a chance, let love shine through. And yet we start boasting and envying again.

Now we're attempting to cut love off. And of course, that's what the Corinthians were doing with the spiritual gifts that God had given him going back to the context of surrounding these particular verses. Let's go back to the very first of this, verse five, where it said, it does not dishonor others.

And let's talk a moment about that. When it does not dishonor others, when you think about dishonoring, what first comes to your mind when you think about dishonoring others? Well, what first comes to mind when I talk about dishonoring is you're not holding a person in a way that's to esteem them in such a way that's pleasing to the Lord. So again, because the scripture and verses is surrounding love, so if we're not esteeming someone in that way, then what we're doing is we're dishonoring them. We're not giving them what love wants to give them through us.

So the, probably a good way to talk about this too, let's just flip it back and do the opposite, right? Love honors others. Love seeks others. Love is not angered, easily angered, right? So, and it also does not, love rather than keeps no record of wrongs, it's always doing the right thing for others. It's always looking at the positive in the other person, right? Rather than saying, well, they did this wrong, they did this wrong, they did this wrong.

So you're, if you're truly loving on them, then you're going to look for the things they're doing right. Well, yes. And I think what's even more so, Roy, is that we're looking at what they're doing for the Lord.

Because again, it's all about glorification of God and edifying the church. Right. So if that person is indeed living their life in such a way that is glorifying God, number one, edifying the church, number two, now what we're doing is when a person dishonors, then they're actually dishonoring the work in which God is doing in and through that individual. But yes to your response in reference to that, you know, and flipping that around. Right. So verse six, love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. I think that's self-explanatory. It is.

Yeah. When you look around the world today, there's a lot of delight in the evil that's going on in our world, from current events to many, many, many topics that we've talked about in the past. And see, and we should all, as born again believers, those who are born again, we should all look and be on the side of the Lord. Look at things through the eyes of scripture. And when you look at things through the eyes of scripture, then there's no partiality. And, and you're not holding one side above the other, regardless of whatever that side believes and holds. Right.

You're holding to the truth. So Will, there is a, in saying that, I'm going to come behind you. So there, in order to do that, in order to do that, you've got to recognize there is a right and there is a wrong.

Yes. And the scripture clearly states that, but what we're doing is we're not stating it is because a particular group or person believes it. We're stating it because the Bible says that's exactly right. And see, so we're, we're always uplifting the word of God and we're always uplifting Christ. We're not uplifting a group, even though that they may be, they may believe the same thing. So our attention is not there. Our attention is truly on the word of God and Jesus Christ.

Excellent. Verse seven. It always, it being love always protects, love always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. See if, if you love your, if you love your family, and again, I want to, I want to go back and talk a little bit about protection because men are priests of the home, they're protectors of the home, they're providers of the home. So we can call that P squared or P cubed, excuse me, P cubed.

So it's P cubed. So, so priests, protectors, and providers. So if I'm doing that, and again, we have talked about some of these things in the past that we are guarding what comes into the home and what is going out of the home, that which we can control. Now, when your children or your wife or whoever is out there in the midst of the world, you know, interacting with maybe people at church or people in the supermarket or wherever it is, the beauty parlor, where they go, you don't have any control of that.

You don't know what's going on. So what we're doing is we're hoping and praying that the things that we have instilled in our children, the things that we have instilled in our wife, or if it's the wife instilled in her husband, then we hope that those things prevail when you start going out interacting with the general public and community at large. So when I hear about, think about perseverance and hear love always perseveres. You know, we've become a society at times, and we've seen this quite often, right, with the number of divorces that if it gets just a little bit rocky, it's time to bail out, right?

It's easier to bail out. And in fact, I saw Billboard the other day. I meant to take a picture of it. The essence of the Billboard was unhappy, life is too short, get a divorce. Get a divorce. That was the message on the board. Unhappy, life is too short, get a divorce.

And I just shook my head when I saw that. I said, you know, that's what's wrong with our society specifically, I guess in the U.S. more than others. But it's immediate gratification if things aren't quite hunky-dory, we can just bail out and go get a divorce and start over. Fell in to realize that whatever we're unhappy about over here is going to be equally as bad or worse on the other side because typically it starts with us, that there's some root cause in us that's causing all this issue, right? So perseverance, that's something, listeners, that if you're in the middle of a storm right now, love perseveres. It doesn't bail, it perseveres.

And that's the key, Roy. Only if we let love persevere will it persevere. So it's saying that love will persevere, but you have to let it. Love, again, love is not going to say, I'm just going to break through whatever wall that you put up. If that wall you put up is stronger than love's ability to break it down. So it's just like get into an argument with your spouse and now you go to separate rooms, she's sleeping in one bed, you're sleeping in another bed.

And it's like when you get up in the morning, everybody does the silent treatment and you're cooking breakfast and everything and the plate goes down. That sounds like a voice of experience right there. Well, having been married for 32 plus years and counseling several hundred couples in the time in which God had blessed me to be up on this earth, I learned just a little bit, Roy, just a little bit.

I'm right there with you, Will Hardy, right there with you. Okay. Verse eight, love never fails, but where there are prophecies, they will cease. Where there are tongues, they will be stilled. Where there is knowledge, it will pass away. Now, when we have to go back again and we have to look at where we talked about, it talked about prophecies because he said, if I have the gift of prophecy, you know, speak all mysteries, all knowledge, if I have all faith that I can remove mountains and all these things and I don't do it in love, then I'm like that sounding brass or tinkling symbol is what the King James says. So here now it's saying all of those things.

So if you're skilled in the ability to know every language upon the earth, if you have the ability to, if there were angelic language and you knew that angelic language, again, if it were, then all of those things are going to pass away. And the only thing that's going to be standing is love in the end. In the end. Roy, we got to pick that back up on next time.

Absolutely. This is good stuff, but go ahead, Roy. This thing called love. We'll do a little bit of this thing called love. Hey folks, we thank you for joining us so much. We love having a good time. We love having you as our guest and listening to us. And we just appreciate you taking a little time to hear about man talk.

We'll be back next week with this thing called love part two. God bless each of you. I hope you have a great week, Will. We just love you and we love what you're doing with respect to supporting the ministry. Keep going, send us your emails. If you want to respond back and your prayer requests, we are here for you. Send it to info at talkum.com.

Thank you and God bless you. As we wrap up today's show, be assured that TAWCMM, Talking and Walking Christian Men's Ministry is building a community of men that are Christ followers with a desire to be servant leaders in their homes, communities, churches, and work environments. Check out our website for upcoming events and regularly scheduled meetings. Drop us a note for topics that you would like to have us visit in the future. Thank you for joining us on Man Talk today. Visit us at www.tawcmm.com. Men walking the talk. This is the Truth Network.