Year 5, Day 81: 1 Corinthians 13

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Father

• Father: This is the pinnacle of the Covenant Triangle.  God is the Father.  He is the creator.  He is love.  Our relationship with the Father is rooted in His love for us.  We get our identity through Him.  When the Father is in our life, obedience becomes clear.

Agape.  What a wonderful word.  What a wonderfully misunderstood word.  Agape means love.  But agape means an unconditional love for some specified thing or person or collective.  In 1 Corinthians 13 we hear all about love and its many splendid applications.  But we need to understand agape love as it comes from the Father.

Think about an earthly father for a second.

• Does an earthly father love to possess his children?  No.  That would just be wrong.  That’s the kind of love that the Greek language calls “eros.” (ἔρως)  A father doesn’t love his children in order to possess as a person might love a cell phone or a car or even a house.
• Does a father love all children of the world universally?  This is what the Greek language calls “phila.” (φιλία) To some level, I’m sure a good father won’t want to see any harm come to anyone’s child.  But certainly a father loves his own children differently.  The same kind of love that a father might have for all children of the world is different than the love he has for the children in his own protection.
• This brings use to “agape.” (ἀγάπη) Agape love is an unconditional love directed at a specific person or thing or group.  This is how a father loves.  A father loves his own children unconditionally because they are his.  They are in his care.  They are his to raise.  They are his to protect.  They are his to watch grow.  These are the ones that a father loves unconditionally.

This is why in a chapter on agape love that we should spend so much time talking about the Father.  How is it that love is patient, kind, gentle, not arrogant, not rude, not resentful, not irritable, capable of enduring all things, hoping all things, bearing all things, and believing all things?  Love can do this because it is a reflection of the agape love that the Father shows those who are His.

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