Love Is Not Arrogant or Rude

A warning from the beginning of a well-known televised sports program recently caught my eye:

The following program is a collection of stooges talking about happenings in the sports world. It is meant to be comedic [sic] informative. … There may be some “cuss” words because that’s how humans in the real world talk. … p.s. Don’t sue us.

Much could be said about what does or doesn’t count as “corrupting talk” (Ephesians 4), but what is so fascinating about that warning is the assertion that their pattern of speech is normal: “That’s how humans in the real world talk.”

That, I think, illustrates something about our world that makes the biblical portrait of love in 1 Corinthians 13 all the more countercultural. Here in 2025, the American West is often crass. But, love, Paul writes, “is neither arrogant or rude.” (1 Corinthians 13:4–5)

Love Isn’t Arrogant

Arrogance was the characterizing sin of the Corinthians, and they continued in such arrogance despite the egregiously sinful behavior of their own (1 Cor 5:2)—as though Paul is not coming to find out their talk (1 Cor 4:18–19)! When Paul marks arrogance as a verb, the ESV translates it as “puffed up,” as in the knowledge that puffs them up (1 Cor 8:1), and the underlying puffiness that their divisive behavior revealed when they claimed to follow Paul or Apollos to put each other down.

However, Paul says in chapter 13 that love will have none of that. The key verse to get a sense of what that means is found in chapter 8, when Paul writes,

“Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that ‘all of us possess knowledge.’ This ‘knowledge’ puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.” (1 Corinthians 8:1–3, ESV)

There’s the difference, then, between arrogance and love: the puffed-out chests of the arrogant claim to have knowledge over and against each other, but love builds up others rather than oneself. That’s one way to check yourself when you start to name-drop your favorite internet preacher. Who are you trying to impress by rattling off names like that? Or, are you trying to build someone up instead? I don’t think Peter did anything wrong when he made sure his readers knew that he was “of Paul” in 2 Peter 3:15. Follow that example and remember that love isn’t arrogant. Love wants everybody else to look good, forgetting what others think of themselves.

Love Isn’t Rude

Another way to discern your arrogance is rudeness. Arrogance often spills over into rude speech or behavior because the arrogant don’t consider others, nor do they think they do anything wrong. The word Paul uses here is relatively rare in the New Testament (appropriately, so is the word “rude” in the ESV). Such rudeness incurs disgrace ( by going against common courtesy.

That’s why the example of asserting that some “cuss” words are appropriate for “the real world” is so telling. It willfully goes against the cultural expectation of propriety, even subtly mocking that expectation in the process. Love doesn’t do that. Love doesn’t demean the sensitivity of another’s conscience or flaunt what most people consider good behavior for shock value or out of a lack of self-control.

Can you perceive Paul’s concern that the Corinthians stop trying to one-up each other in holiness over food offered to idols? It’s a great application of the text for us to consider.

Do you consider yourself a better Christian because you allow yourself liberties others deny themselves, like alcohol, movies, music, leisure activities, or even junk food? On the flipside, do you demean fellow believers who allow themselves those liberties?

Knock it off. Love will have none of such puffed-up rudeness. If a brother thinks that listening to secular music is permissible, go with him as far as your conscience can allow and bow out graciously if it gets to be too much for you. You don’t need to sneak in a comment on the way out.

Likewise, if you realize that your liberty makes another uncomfortable, don’t cause a brother or sister to stumble. For example, maybe you think a good can of soda is a glorious gift from God on a hot summer day, but you know your sister in Christ has decided that soda is so unhealthy she can’t go there anymore. Neither trip her up by flaunting your freedom nor whisper about her “uptightness” to others.

Christlike humility and graciousness ought to characterize us, not arrogance or rudeness—no matter what the “real world” says.