Love does not rejoice in wrongdoing but with truth

I hardly need to introduce our passage by now, right? And yet this love that Paul speaks of is so foreign to the human heart, that we still have an age to learn all the truths revealed here. So let’s read it again, and let’s try to hear it with fresh ears, all over again—ponder each verb, every noun, all of the adjectives, adverbs and prepositions.

Bible

1 Corinthians 13 NIV

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. 2 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. 3 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. 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 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. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Our verse

The verse we are focusing on today is verse 6:

1 Corinthians 13:6 NIV

6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

Video

Before we dig into the passage, I want to play a short clip that shows how our culture understand love and loving someone. Let’s watch this motivational clip on How to Love People for Who they are:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvzGZCCq8hk

Question:

What does this clip assume about the human struggle, and how is that different from the Christian perspective?

God’s love

Perhaps the biggest difference between God’s love and our culture’s view of love is due to the difference in understanding of the human condition, the human struggle, the human problem.

The world claims that human beings are inherently good creatures who suffer from merely from ignorance or injury. Buddhism, for example, claims that all we need is enlightenment—rescue from ignorance. The doctrine of social justice, what is now called “wokeness” tells us that we need to be healed from the injury that a corrupt system has inflicted on us. And so on.

Christianity makes a different claim:

Romans 3:10–12 NIV

10 As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; 11 there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

You can see that Christianity does recognise ignorance as a problem, but it is a self-inflicted problem. Injury (here “becoming worthless”) is also a problem, but again, it is self-inflicted. Every human being has chosen to turn away from God and has thus brought all these problems on themselves.

Christianity therefore insists that there is a necessary step before any healing can take place: to turn back to God. This repentance is motivated by a realisation that we are indeed, abject failures, but were created to be God’s children.

2 Corinthians 7:10 NIV

10 Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.

How to show God’s love

Question:

Thinking back on the clip we watched, what did it say about how we are to love someone?

OK, now let’s look at our passage:

1 Corinthians 13:6 NIV

6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

Let’s just get these words clarified, because that’s important.

Part 1: Not rejoice in wrongdoing

The word that the NIV translates as “delight” most often means rejoice. The picture the word paints is of someone who received genuine joy over something. Remember Jesus’ explanation for the parable of the lost sheep?

Luke 15:7 NIV

7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

That rejoicing that happens in heaven is what we’re talking about here.

Except, of course, that love does not do that with our next word, evil, wrongdoing or unrighteousness.

This word refers to the type of wrongdoing that is breaking some rule. Sometimes the New Testament uses it to refer to breaking God’s rule, which is when it is translated as unrighteous. But much of the time it is referring to breaking the general moral code that all human beings have written on their hearts.

1 Corinthians 5:1–2 NIV

1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. 2 And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this?

In chapter 5 of this letter to the Corinthians, Paul has chastised them for tolerating a type of sexual immorality that even the pagans don’t tolerate, incest. So when Paul is talking about wrongdoing here, he’s talking about a wide range of sins.

But what does it mean that love does not rejoice in wrongdoing? Anthony Thiselton suggests that this goes beyond merely regarding the sin as wrong, but rather:

The First Epistle to the Corinthians b. The Nature and Action of Love (13:4–7)

If we genuinely love a person, we should not take pleasure at conduct which gives us the opportunity to lecture them or to rebuke them about their wrongdoing. Here, again, may be an allusion to overly ready pleasure in prophetic rebuke and pronouncing judgment on failures within the congregation. Does such a prophet or preacher genuinely love those whose welfare he or she claims to cherish if this gives pleasure?

God’s love takes joy in neither the wrongdoing, nor in the naturally hurtful consequences.

Reflection:

How often have you taken comfort, or even joy, in the idea that a tormenter will eventually receive their comeuppance?

Part 2: Rejoice with truth

1 Corinthians 13:6 NIV

6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

Now, for the first time in his description, Paul provides an opposite, or a counter to one of his descriptors. He says that love does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rather rejoices with the truth.

You might have noticed that love rejoices with the truth, not in it. There are two ways to understand this, rejoicing with something is simply joining in with it in your rejoicing. But it’s hard to understand what that means, when the thing you are joining in with is truth. A second meaning, is that in rejoicing with something you are actually multiplying the rejoicing, so it indicates an even greater rejoicing.

But what is it that love is pouring out this rejoicing over?

The word “truth” is very common in the NT, and has quite a broad range of meanings, although since the range of meanings maps almost directly onto the English word “truth” it doesn’t need to be translated into other words much.

For example, does it mean this?

John 14:6 NIV

6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

What does that mean, anyway? That’s a good topic for another sermon.

Or does it mean this?

1 Corinthians 5:8 NIV

8 Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

This comes from chapter 5 of this letter, where Paul is, remember, criticising the Corinthian church for celebrating, even boasting about, sexual immorality. Here truth seems to have a broader meaning, and refers to the real nature of the universe.

The universe is made in such a way that some things are simply morally wrong—morality is a part of the fabric of the universe, just as much as atoms and energy are. This is completely at odds with our post-modern culture, which sees so-called “truth” as a weapon wielded to gain power over others. We cherry-pick evidence to suit our own perspective. We indulge in the fallen human error called “confirmation bias,” which makes us inclined to only listen to those who agree with us. We choose our words so that they carry imply something quite different from the actual truth—for example we’ll call someone we disagree with stubborn or pig-headed, but someone we agree with persistent or strong-minded.

Love doesn’t rejoice in this. Love is absolutely delighted when all this is swept away, and people focus on the truth that we all share—the reality that we all live in. The world that we all dwell in. The God who created and sustains each one of us. Love goes wild when people share in that truth. When they care more about understanding both their own weaknesses as well as their strengths. When they put as much effort into truly understanding others as themselves, not just making excuses, but really understanding.

That’s love! And that’s hard, because in a world where “truth” is weaponised, we are saying, “No, I refuse to use truth as a weapon, because it is too precious.”

Reflection:

What is an area in your life that you would love to be able to share with others, warts and all, and be able to rejoice with them, rather than be afraid that they would use your weaknesses against you?

Let’s pray:

Lord, please help us to not rejoice in wrongdoing, especially when it seems that an annoying person will be caught and punished in their wrongdoing. Instead help us to talk the greatest delight in really seeing clearly, in knowing what is true, not just what is convenient or comforting to us.

In Jesus name,

Amen.