Katie and I recently did a message on 1 Corinthians 13 in our series Fully Charged.
It is one of the most well-known passages in the bible. It’s read at most weddings, but what is it telling us? On the one hand, it is about relationships with other people. What it looks like to relate, to have a healthy marriage, friendship, or family. It also shows us what God’s love for us is like. We see a picture of a Father in heaven who loves us in a way that is hard to fathom. But it is also about what spiritual maturity looks like. In the context, Paul says we could have all kinds of gifts, but if we don’t have love, what do we have?
I think this passage is especially important in the world we live in, where we are sheltering in place, spending more time with our family, and missing some of the community that we have built.
Dave Willis said, “We are facing a defining time for marriages. No couple will emerge from this the same as they were before. You’ll either emerge from this crisis stronger by leaning on each other or weaker by fighting with each other.” and I think that’s true.
So what does it look like to have a healthy relationship in quarantine? Paul lists out what love is and is not.
The first was patience.
The second is…Kindness.
Kindness is serving someone, helping someone, believing in someone, encouraging someone’s strengths.
What do you do when you serve someone? You help them; you use what you are good at, your strengths to make up for their weakness.
Kindness is giving.
Kindness believes in someone. All of us, men and women, young and old, kids, we want to know someone believes in us. That someone is proud of us.
In the ancient world, kindness could also refer to affection. When we first start dating someone, we shower that person with kindness. We go out of our way to serve them, compliment them, shower them with gifts, affection, but as a relationship grows and gets older, that can begin to diminish.
Think about it: do you know what one of the first things to happen in a relationship is? Affection. Do you know what leaves a marriage first? Affection.
Katie and I often tell couples: Affection is the barometer of your marriage.
Now, for men, when we think of affection, we often think of sex. But affection is very much like kindness. It is caring, reaching out, giving a hug, a compliment, holding the hand of your spouse.
This shows up in love when we do it without any hope of receiving something.
Often, kindness disappears in a relationship because the other spouse isn’t reciprocating the way we’d like. Many of us are fearful of going first and breaking the cycle that couples get stuck in. But kindness can soften the heart of the other person, especially when there is nothing underneath it, no motivation outside of wanting to love the other person.
