1 Corinthians 13:5a (Love) Doth not behave itself unseemly

Now we are looking at behavior. But what is unseemly as a behavior? I would guess that would cover a wide array of behaviors. I was looking into other translations and found words like rude, haughty, selfish, dishonorable, improper, disrespectful, conceited, arrogant, ill-mannered, and even ambitious. With such a wide variety of behaviors how can we pin down unseemly to a common and acceptable word?

2 Corinthians 8:7 Therefore, as ye abound in every thing, in faith, and utterance, and knowledge, and in all diligence, and in your love to us, see that ye abound in this grace also.

If we were to take a negative and turn it to a positive, then perhaps 1 Corinthians 13:5a could be read like this: Love is always gracious.

Are we always graceful? I trip from time to time. In this I am reminded of Romans 14:13 Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way.

Note that judgment is subject of this verse but nowhere in 1 Corinthians 13 does a verse exist that says “Love does not judge.” Perhaps that is because love judges our own thoughts and behaviors in order to render our behavior to be holy in His sight.

1 John 2:10 He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.

Colossians 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

1 Corinthians 13:4d love is not proud.

The King James version says “is not puffed up”. If you go to the Greek the word is physioō and the primary definition, its first use context is “to make natural, to cause a thing to pass into nature”.

We who have made Christ our Lord are a new creature, old things have passed away, all things become new. I don’t have to quote chapter and verse to you, you know this to be true. Our very nature has changed.

The imagery of puffed up in the Greek is of blowing, inflation, and in the spiritual sense to breathe life back into the old dead man we once were but are no more.

Romans 8:6-7 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

I used “love is not proud” as my opener because it is easier to understand and brings us into a state of remembrance that God resists the proud. Pride is one of the seven deadly sins. When we think of pride we think humility, the opposing force. We could literally say love is humble, but humility is not listed in the attributes of love, not directly anyway.

What I wanted to do here is to point out our new nature and humility is not an action but rather a character trait. You cannot act humble, you either are or you are not. Humility is a state of being.

1 Corinthians 13 teaches us how love acts but in this one case, love isn’t an act. Humility sets itself apart from acts of love in being our new nature. Humility isn’t an act.