Love Bears All Things
You can learn a lot about yourself by examining your motivations. “What motivates you?” can be a tough question, though, because it’s hard to see inside our own heads sometimes. Here’s one way to get a clearer picture: ask yourself,
What am I willing to put up with to get what I want?
Are you willing to slave away at that driveway after a snowfall? Why?
Motivation shows through where patience cracks. If your doctor’s office is running late, you’ll sit in that waiting room a lot longer to receive a biopsy result than you would to have them check a bunion, wouldn’t you?
What are you willing to put up with? Why?
The Gospel Motivation
The Corinthians were likely confused by Paul’s compensation strategies. It seems like they couldn’t understand why he insisted on working for a living when he didn’t have to in 1 Corinthians 9. Paul explains to them carefully that though he has a right to payment, “who serves as a soldier at his own expense?… you shall not muzzle an ox…” (1 Corinthians 9:7-10). Even though Paul has a right to be paid, he refuses to accept it.
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, ESV)
Do you see that? Paul endures—he puts up with—a second career as a tent maker. But, what was the motivation? To keep the gospel of Christ free from obstacles. Paul says, “Because the gospel motivates me, it’s worth the inconvenience.”
“We endure anything” is a fine translation of that unique Greek word. Paul doesn’t use it often. He uses it again in 1 Thessalonians 3 to say that he could no longer “bear” not knowing how the Thessalonians were doing.
What are you willing to put up with? Why?
The More Excellent Motivation
It’s pretty clear from the context of 1 Corinthians that the words Paul chose to describe love were incredibly loaded by the time he reached chapter 13. The Corinthians couldn’t even put up with one another without taking each other to civil court! We’re no better when our patience wanes before a brother’s weakness! For the Corinthians and us, Paul putting up without payment for their apprehension of the gospel is a stark contrast. The apostle drives the nail home when he tells them,
Love bears all things
With these words, Paul takes the argument we’ve been following from the practical to the abstract and absolute. If love is your motivation, you can put up with anything. This doesn’t mean ignoring sin; it means enduring it righteously. Even enduring the agony and awkwardness of speaking the truth (in love) when a brother sins because you love them.
What parent hasn’t learned this lesson? Who in their right mind would stick with a relationship so imbalanced as that of a parent to a child? Sleepless nights, cruel words, selfishness abounding. Parenting has its joys, to be sure. But can’t you see how well the exhausted parent of a disrespectful teenager, at the end of their wits, illustrates that love is the most excellent motivation to endure with somebody?
Consider the child who cares for an aging parent, or the spouse of a terminally ill husband, the sibling who shares her toys. Or the God who loved you enough to send his only Son to bear the grotesque weight of your sin.
We must face it: we don’t endure things out of love for others or for Christ. Not consistently, not freely, not without complaining—and we still need somebody who will put up with our impatience, don’t we?
Remember: God in Christ has borne all things because He loves you.
“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:10–11, ESV)