Love or Die

“But I have this against you, that you have left your first love” (Rev. 2:4).


Maybe your still not convinced that love is indispensable to leading, teaching, and all Christian service. Then listen to the solemn words of our Lord Jesus Christ to the church at Ephesus in the last book of the Bible, the Book of the Revelation:

I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false; and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place—unless you repent (Rev. 2:1-5).

Our Lord begins by commending the church for its good deeds, hard work, steadfastness in the faith, intolerance of false teachers, jealousy for doctrinal purity, and patient endurance under persecution. There is much to commend this church, and we should prize all these exemplary qualities. It would seem that all was well. They could have written a book on successful church ministry.
However, all was not well. Something was fundamentally wrong. With divine penetrating insight into the true spiritual state of this outwardly successful church, Jesus turns from commendation to condemnation. He says to the church, “But I have this against you. You have left your first love.”
In light of all the commendable qualities of this church, Christ’s criticism might seem trivial. But in Christ’s eyes, the very heart-beat of the Christian life and the church was being lost. This was a matter of life and death. They had left their “first love.”

First Love
Since “first love” is vitally important to Jesus Christ, we must inquire as to what it means. Note first what Jesus didn’t say. He didn’t say, “you have no love,” or “you have no love for one another,” or “you don’t love Me.” He says “you have left your first love.” The emphasis is on the word “first.”
“First love” is that fervent, original love for Christ when we were converted. William Kelly describes first love as “when Christ was all.”[i] Our love for Christ is to be growing, wholehearted love, not half-hearted. Jesus taught that we are to love God with all our heart, with all our emotions, with all our strength, and with all our mind.[ii] Furthermore, Jesus said that to love any other person more than Himself disqualifies one from being a disciple (Matt. 10:37). Christians can be defined as “those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love” (Eph. 6:24). Our love for Christ is to be constantly growing stronger, deeper, and fuller, not stagnate. In fact, our love for Christ is either growing richer or shrinking into nothingness. Love grows or goes cold. It never stands still.
First love is the love the disciples felt when they left all to follow Jesus, that Mary expressed when she anointed Jesus with costly oils (John 12:3), that the unnamed, immoral woman displayed with her tears at Jesus’ feet (Luke 7:38), and that the first African convert grasped when he cried out for immediate baptism (Acts 8:36). It is the love every new believer feels when indwelt by Christ and transformed by the power of the gospel. It is the love the Holy Spirit inspires in believers (Col. 1:8). It is the love that moved the hymn writer Isaac Watts to write, “love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all” (When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,). Our hymn books and praise songs are filled with expressions of first love.
The church at Ephesus had in its possession Paul’s Letter to the Ephesian which has as one of its major themes the subject of love. In this letter, Paul prays that they

“may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth [of Christ’s love], and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:18, 19).

So they knew, at least intellectually, the critical significance of knowing Christ’s love and being motivated by His love (2 Cor. 5:14). So their loss of first love meant a loss of grasping Christ’s infinite love. They were not responding in kind to Christ’s love for them.
First love also would include love for one another. Love for Christ and love for His people are inseparable partners (1 John 4:20, 21). “All the commandments,” remarks David Jones, “are to be performed out of love for him, even the service of neighbor as well as the service of worship.”[iii] Just as Christians are to love God wholeheartedly they are to “fervently love one another from the heart” (1 Peter 1:22), willing to give their lives for one another (1 John 3:16). It is a fact of reality that once the love relationship between Christ and His bride begins to erode, the mutual love relationships that are to brightly characterize the local church also erode.


In light of all the commendable qualities of this church, Christ’s criticism might seem trivial. But in Christ’s eyes, the very heart-beat of the Christian life and the church was being lost. This was a matter of life and death.


Christ’s Remedy for Diminished First Love
At one point in their history, the believers at Ephesus possessed wholehearted, undivided love for Christ and one another, but that had changed. Although Christ’s love in all its original freshness had not changed or diminished, theirs had:

while Christ, the bridegroom has love in all its freshness, and will evermore have, for the Church. It was Ephesus, leaving that devoted pouring out of response to His love that grieved His very heart![iv]

When we think of how much God loves us and that Christ died for our dreadful sins, we begin to realize what a serious matter loss of first love is in Christ’s eyes.[v] Certainly it must greave Him. Loss of first love implies a heart preoccupied with itself and a lack of gratitude for the enormous debt of sins God forgave.
Jesus therefore calls upon the church to do three things and to do them immediately or He will remove their lampstand: “(1) remember from where you have fallen, and (2) repent [because it was sin] and (3) do the deeds you did at first” (Rev. 2:5). The situation was not past repairing, but they must take immediate action to recover their first love. To not act would spell disaster for the church.

Divine Discipline
The most disturbing thing our Lord says appears in the second half of verse 5: “Or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place-unless you repent.”
This warning demonstrates how seriously Jesus takes departure from first love. He threatens that if they do not repent, He will come and remove their lampstand out of its place. The Lord Jesus loves the Church and gave His life’s blood to purchase her (Acts 20:28), so He cannot be apathetic to her sin. Sin always destroys. That is why love “Abhor[s] what is evil” (Rom. 12:9). It ruins the lives of loved ones. Thus He must discipline this local church. “Whom the Lord loves He disciplines” (Heb. 12:6). “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline” (Rev. 3:19). Although the exact meaning of this judgment is debated, the seriousness of the situation is frightfully clear. Christ will come and He will act in judgment on this local church.[vi]

Wake-up Call
Revelation 2:4 trumpets Christ’s wake-up call to all churches and Christian leaders. Jesus warns that we can work hard and have sound doctrine, but be defective in heartfelt love for Himself and on the verge of divine discipline.
This passage is critically important to all Christian leaders. It reveals the priority of heart-felt, fervent love for Christ and His people. Every Christian leader needs to know the fundamental importance of first love: what it is, how to maintain it, and what a deficiency of first love will mean to the local church.
In practical terms, this means you are to maintain and cultivate your own vital, fresh love relationship with Jesus Christ through daily communion with Him in prayer, confession of sin, feeding upon His Words in Scripture, singing His praises, meeting regularly with fellow believers, living obediently, and remembering Christ’s substitutionary death through the elements of the bread and cup. If you can’t care for your own relationship with Christ, you can’t help others with theirs.
Jesus’ well-known warning to Martha and commendation to her sister Mary applies to us today and to our present passage:

Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:41, 42).

The “only one thing” that is necessary is devoting one’s self to listening to Jesus’ words and spending time at His feet (also Phil. 3:13, 14).
Furthermore, you must guard the congregation against the all-to-common tendency to trust in external forms, rituals, traditions, and doctrinal correctness, but neglect the vital elements of love for Christ and one another. The Pharisees loved their religion and many scrupulous traditions, be neglected love for God (Luke 11:42).
Finally, at times you will need to lead the congregation in repentance and renewal of first love. In a sinful, cursed world, repentance and spiritual revitalization are continual tasks. So, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (Rev. 2:7).

[i] William Kelly, The Revelation (1901; reprint ed., Denver: Wilson Foundation, 1970), 43.
[ii] In the Old Testament, God had to remind Israel of her first love toward Him, a love, however, that had sadly disappeared: “I remember concerning you the devotion of your youth, the love of your betrothal, your following after me in the wilderness” (Jer. 2:2). In Jeremiah’s time Israel still had all her external religious forms and outward profession, but the true inner heart of love and obedience to Jehovah was gone. God likens His relationship with Israel to a marriage relationship. However, Israel’s original love evidenced by her faithfully following Jehovah in the wilderness was only a distant memory. Israel had become unfaithful. She no longer loved the Lord her God with all her heart, soul, and might (Deut. 6:5).
[iii] David Jones, “Love: The Impelling Motive of the Christian Life”, Presbyterion 12 (Fall, 1986): 65
[iv] William Newel, Revelation: Chapter By Chapter (1935; reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1994), 39.
[v] At the end of the Book of Revelation, we learn that the relationship between Christ and His Church is one of bride and Bridegroom (Rev. 19:7, 9; 21:9; 22:17). The intimate union between Christ and His bride is made the model for Christian marriage (Eph. 5:29-32). Christ loved the Church and He gave His life for her (Eph. 5:25). So the response of the bride is to be one of chaste, undivided devotion to Christ.
[vi] Christ’s coming could be His second advent (parousia) or a special, private visitation to this single church, or a combination of both. The removal of the lampstand could mean that the local congregation would cease to exist, or it may mean that the church will lose its public light-bearing power. Either way it is a most ominous warning.

Gifts Minus Love Equal Zero

“If I…do not have love, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2).


Among the New Testament apostles no one wrote more about love or provided more practical, leadership examples of love than Paul. Through the life-time ministry and letters of Paul, God has given His Church, and all its leaders and teachers, a model of loving church leadership.
It is universally agreed that Paul is the greatest pioneer missionary, greatest scholar, apologist, leader, teacher, evangelist, prayer warrior, servant, and hero of the faith. “The greatest man after Christ.”[i] Yet Paul knew that all his brilliance, multi-giftedness, and dedication meant nothing if not bathed fully in the Christlike spirit of love, the new commandment.
To drive home this point with unforgettable rhetorical force, Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 13, one of his most memorable, oft-quoted passages of Scripture.

The More Excellent Way of Love
Disruption arose in the church in the city of Corinth over spiritual gifts. To correct the church’s misguided views of spiritual gifts and its overall self-destructive way of thinking and behaving, Paul presents a “more excellent way” (1 Cor. 12:31).
The Greek word “way” is literally the word for “road” or “journey,” but here it is used figuratively of a way of thinking and behaving, of practical conduct, “an entire ‘way’ of life, an overarching, all-embracing style of life that utterly transcends in importance the claims of this or that charisma.”[ii] Gordon Fee writes, “The way they are going is basically destructive to the church as a community; the way they are being called to is one that seeks the good of others before oneself. It is the way of edifying the church (14:1-5), of seeking the common good (12:7).”[iii]
Paul wants the Corinthian believers to know that there is something far more important than spiritual gifts, something that transcends gifts, something that if absent will render all gifts harmful, and that something is love. Love is not a spiritual gift, but the proper disposition and power in which gifts are to be exercised. It is the first-fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22).
To silence any doubt that love is the “more excellent way” and to jolt the Corinthians’ wrong-headed thinking about spiritual gifts and themselves, Paul uses in verses 1 to 3 all his rhetorical skills to communicate with eloquence and force that love is the “more excellent way.” Or as one commentator puts it,“a royal road.”[iv] Here is a true master teacher and writer at work. “It is one of Paul’s finest moments.”[v]

The Most Extraordinary Gift of Ecstatic Speech Minus Love—A Loud, Annoying, Empty Sound

“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Cor. 13:1).

The Corinthians’ enthusiasm over tongues-speaking caused pride, division, and disorder in the congregational meetings. The original purpose of spiritual gifts was to build others up and unite the church; instead, the Corinthians’ use of spiritual gifts resulted in inflating their own egos, discrimination, and tearing the church apart.
So to make his point heard, Paul pictures himself hypothetically as “the world’s most gifted tongues-speaker,”[vi] being able to speak eloquently in “the tongues of men and of angels.” But then he adds, even if I had such heavenly giftedness and exalted experience, if I am not acting in love (as described in verses 4-7), “I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal,” that is, a loud, annoying, empty noise.
Paul isn’t merely saying that his tongue’s speaking is a clamorous noise, but that he himself is a hollow, annoying sound. He is not what he should be. He is seriously deficient in his Christian life. He is not living according to the “more excellent way.”
When expounding this passage, I like to use the following illustration. I first explain the passage. I then pull out from behind the pulpit a steel pot and a hammer and begin to beat hard on the pot while I am still explaining spiritual gifts and the need for love. At first, the people laugh. They think it’s a marvelous illustration. But I keep it up. While I am continually banging on the pot, I keep talking about spiritual gifts. By now, however, people aren’t laughing or smiling anymore; they’ve had enough; they’re annoyed; they’re getting more agitated by the moment, but I keep banging. When I think they can’t take it anymore, and I am about to be despised forever for my illustration, I stop and ask them, “Are you annoyed?” “Are you enjoying this?” “Does it please you?” “Do you find it edifying?” “Would you like me to continue this for the remainder of the message?” No one wants me to continue speaking and banging on the pot. Finally, I remind them, that’s this is what they are like to others and God if they use their gifts apart from love. They are “a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”

The Most Extraordinary Gift of Prophecy Minus Love—A Spiritual Zero

“If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge…but do not have love, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2).

Paul further speaks of himself as possessing the gift of prophecy in such full measure that he knows “all” mysteries and “all” knowledge. Such a person would have all the theological answers to all the mysteries we have always craved to understand. Such a person would be a spiritual Einstein of Bible knowledge, a walking, talking encyclopedia of Bible doctrine, a theological giant.
But again Paul says, if he had such all-encompassing knowledge, but apart from love, he would be “nothing.” That’s right. Paul says he himself would be a spiritual zero. The love that Paul is speaking about is primarily in this context love for fellow believers, neighbor love. But love for God cannot be excluded because love for neighbor and love for God are tied together in Christian thinking.
So Paul says a loveless prophet or a loveless teacher is nearly worthless to the proper education of God’s people. Knowledge without love can destroy people as witnessed in the assembly at Corinth (1 Cor. 8). History shows as John Short so lucidly writes, that,

Loveless faith and loveless prophecy account for some of the more tragic pages in the Christian story through the ages. It has burned so-called heretics, it has stultified the sincere quest for truth, it has often been contentious and embittered; and it has often issued in the denial of Christian brotherhood to fellow believers.[vii]

A loveless prophet or loveless teacher is not living according to the “more excellent way.”
George Sweeting, former president of Moody Bible Institute, makes this insightful observation: “I have been keenly disappointed to find people more concerned about hidden mysteries than about needy people…Too often Christians are concerned about hidden truth, but indifferent about loving difficult people.”[viii]

The Most Extraordinary Gift of Faith Minus Love—A Spiritual Zero

“And if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2b).

The third spiritual gift presented is faith (1 Cor. 12:9). Paul imagines himself as possessing the most excellent gift of faith imaginable, “so as to remove mountains.” Like Abraham, such a person would be able to believe God for the impossible and to actively trust Him to do miraculous works. This person would be a powerhouse of prayer, a spiritual risk taker, a virtual George Muller,[ix] thus greatly admired by all and sought by all. Such a person would be a courageous David racing out in battle to kill the Philistine giant Goliath (1 Sam. 17:32).
Yet, again Paul says, if I had such a powerful gift but “do not have love, I am nothing.” Paul means what he says, “I AM NOTHING.” I’m not a spiritual powerhouse; I’m a spiritual zero; I am spiritually fruitless. I’m on the wrong path of the Christian life; I’m not walking on the royal road of love, the “more excellent way.”

The Most Extraordinary Display of Philanthropy Minus Love—Spiritual Bankruptcy

“And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor…but do not have love, it profits me nothing” (1 Cor. 13:3).

Paul postulates giving away all his worldly possessions to feed the poor (Rom. 12:8), his home, property, furniture, savings, and most cherished possessions. He gives it all. He reduces himself to poverty to help others. Surely this is the ultimate in altruistic action and total self-sacrifice. Wouldn’t such giving be by definition love?
Here’s a highly instructive point to grasp: The most extraordinary, self-sacrificing action can be done without love. This fact is illustrated in the Book of Acts by the account of Ananias and Sapphira. This couple sold their property and gave money to the apostles for them to distribute to the poor (Acts 5:1-11). They gave and they sacrificed for the poor. However, they gave without love or integrity. They weren’t really concerned about the needs of the poor, but about themselves. They didn’t love God or neighbor. Like the trumpet-blowing Pharisees whom Jesus condemned in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 6:1-5), Ananias and Sapphira gave in order to enhance their personal prestige in the church and to receive the praise of men. Their love was hypocritical love, phony love (Rom. 12:9). In fact, they didn’t have love. They gave to the poor, but without the motivating power of love, so their giving profited them nothing. They were both spiritually bankrupt although they gave to the poor. God thus rejected their giving.
So Paul concludes that if he gave all he owned to the poor apart from love, it would be unproductive, useless, worthless, and of no eternal profit to himself. Even after such sacrifice he would be left a spiritual bankrupt man. He would not be living according to the “more excellent way.”

The Most Extraordinary Display of Self-sacrifice Minus Love—Spiritual Bankruptcy

“And if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing” (1 Cor. 13:3b).

Finally, Paul envisions himself as the ultimate hero of the faith. He surrenders his body to the painful flames of martyrdom for Christ. He gives his life, the supreme sacrifice. However, even the total offering up of his life without love amounts to nothing in God’s eyes. It is a worthless sacrifice, an empty religious show, a hollow performance. He would not be living according to the “more excellent way.”
This is how absolutely indispensable love is. Without love for neighbor and love for God our highest achievements and services are useless. Writes one commentator, “it is clear that nothing has any value for him unless it arises from love.”[x] Jonathan Edwards summarizes God’s perspective on love and self-sacrifice this way:

[God] delights in little things when they spring from sincere love to himself. A cup of cold water given to a disciple in sincere love, is worth more in God’s sight than all one’s goods given to feed the poor, yea, than the wealth of a kingdom given away, or a body offered up in the flames, without love.”[xi]

Divine Mathematics. D. A. Carson summarizes Paul’s presentation of these five extraordinary gifts and sacrifices by reminding us that “divine mathematics,’ works on this basis, “five minus one equals zero.”[xii] Or as George Sweeting concludes, “gifts, minus love, equals zero.”[xiii]
For a moment use your sanctified imagination and think of what the Corinthians must have thought when they first heard these words read in public. They probably couldn’t believe their ears. It was contrary to their way of thinking and behaving. They were deficient in love and they didn’t even know it. Their pride of wisdom and extraordinary gifts had deceived them. At the heart of all their relational problems was out right disobedience to the new commandment—to love one another as Christ loved.
Like the Corinthians we need an awakening to the indispensable nature of love to the discharge of our spiritual gifts and of all our service to others. Without love we are “a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”

To help drive home the point that love is indispensable to gifted leaders and teachers, I have paraphrased verses 1 to 3 in modern leadership language:

If I were the most gifted communicator to ever preach, so that millions of people were moved by my oratory, but didn’t have love, I would be an annoying, empty wind-bag before God and people.

If I had the most charismatic personality, so that everyone was drawn to me like a powerful magnet, but didn’t have Christlike love, I would be a phony, a dud.

If I were the greatest visionary leader the church has ever heard, but didn’t have love, I would be misguided and lost.

If I were the best selling author on theology and church growth, but didn’t have love, I would be an empty headed failure.

If I sacrificially gave all my waking hours to disciplining future leaders, but didn’t have love, I am a false guide and model.

So, “Let all you do be done in love” (1 Cor. 16:14).
[i] Clarence E. Macartney, Paul the Man (Westwood: Revell, 1961), 9.
[ii] D.A. Carson, Showing the Spirit: A Theological Exposition of 1Corinthians 12-14 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987), 56, 57.
[iii] Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 625.
[iv] Jean Hering, The First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians (London: Epworth, 1962), 134.
[v] Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 625.
[vi] Gregory J. Lockwood, 1 Corinthians, Concordia Commentary (Saint Louis: Concordia, 2000), 458.
[vii]John Short, “ ??,“ in The Interpreter’s Bible, ed. George A. Buttrick (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1951-57), 10:170.
[viii] George Sweeting, Love is the Greatest: The Power of Christian Love, 40.
[ix] George Muller founder and directed of the Ashley Down orphanage in Bristol, England. 122,683 orphans pass through his orphanage.
[x] Ceslaus Spicq, Agape in the New Testament (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1965), 2:178.
[xi] Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits, 61, 62.
[xii] Carson, Showing the Spirit, 60.
[xiii] Sweeting, Love is the Greatest,117.

The Amazing Teaching of Christ’s Apostles on Love

“The greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13).

What “Jesus began to do and to teach” He continued after His ascension into heaven by the Holy Spirit through His apostles (Acts 1:1).
What the apostles Paul, John, Peter, and James write about love expands on what Jesus had taught. And what they teach is every bit as amazing as Jesus’ teaching. This chapter is meant to be only a brief overview of the apostles’ principle teachings on love.
I assure you that you will find the study of the doctrine of Christian love to be personally life-changing, as countless others have. Dwight L. Moody, the Billy Graham of the 19th century, tells the moving story of his own life-transforming encounter with the doctrine of love.
A young British evangelist named Henry Moorhouse preached at Moody’s church for nearly a week. To everyone’s surprise, Moorhouse preached seven straight messages on John 3:16. Moorhouse covered the Bible from Genesis to Revelation demonstrating “the drawing power of the love of God.” Moody confessed he couldn’t hold back the tears as Moorhouse preach on the love of God in sending His only begotten Son for undeserving, rebellious sinners. Moody wrote that Moorhouse’s sermons were life-changing messages:

For six nights he had preached on this one text. The seventh night came, and he went into the pulpit. Every eye was upon him. He said, ‘Beloved friends, I have been hunting all day for a new text, but I cannot find anything so good as the old one; so we will go back to the third chapter of John and the sixteenth verse,’ and he preached the seventh sermon from those wonderful words, ‘God so loved the world.’ I remember the end of that sermon: ‘My friends,’ he said, ‘for a whole week I have been trying to tell you how much God loves you, but I cannot do it with this poor stammering tongue. If I could borrow Jacob’s ladder and climb up into heaven and ask Gabriel, who stands in the presence of the Almighty, to tell me how much love the Father has for the world, all he could say would be: “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”’[i]

Moody also confessed,

I never knew up to that time that God loved us so much. This heart of mine began to thaw out; I could not keep back the tears. It was like news from a far country: I just drank it in. So did the crowded congregation. I tell you there is one thing that draws above everything else in the world, and that is love. [ii]

As a result of Moorhouse’s influence, Moody began to study the doctrine of love. This further changed his life and preaching. He recorded the following testimony:

I took up that word ‘Love,’ and I do not know how many weeks I spent in studying the passages in which it occurs, till at last I could not help loving people! I had been feeding on Love so long that I was anxious to do everybody good I came in contact with. I got full of it. It ran out my fingers. You take up the subject of love in the Bible! You will get so full of it that all you have got to do is to open your lips, and a flood of the Love of God flows out upon the meeting. There is no use trying to do church work without love. A doctor, a lawyer, may do good work without love, but God’s work cannot be done without love.[iii]

May you also have the same life-changing experience as you study this thrilling topic of love. May Christlike love flow out of your mouth, hands, and feet to all those around you.
Now for a quick overview of the apostles’ teaching on love.

God Is Love.
“God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). Our God is not Aristotle’s “unmoved mover” or some impersonal force of nature, or a man made idol of wood. The God of the Bible is a personal being who can speak, hear, choose, feel, love, and have a reciprocal relationship with other personal beings. The fact is there would be no love if a personal God did not exist and if He did not love. And God loves because “God is love.”

God Demonstrated His Love in Christ.
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). “He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). The apostles constantly marvel at the incredible depths and extent of God’s love for His people: He “demonstrated His love” by giving His only begotten Son to die as an atoning sacrifice on a criminal’s cross for undeserving sinners. This is love, and no greater display of love is conceivable or possible. (see Appendix 1: The Gospel of God’s Amazing Love)

Knowing God’s Love in Christ
Paul prays that God would enable all believers to grasp the vast, incomprehensible nature of Christ’s love: “that you…may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge (Eph. 3:17-19). We are to know Christ’s love intellectually, personally, and experientially, although it “surpasses knowledge.”
Knowing Christ’s love provides the child of God the greatest assurance and comfort in the face of disappointment, bodily suffering, persecution, and death. Paul assures us that absolutely nothing in this entire universe can “separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:35, 37-39).

The Holy Spirit Pours Out God’s Love.
The first-fruit the Holy Spirit is “love” (Gal. 5:22). God’s love has been abundantly “poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 5:5). There is no Christian love without the Holy Spirit.

Loving God
The apostles refer to believers as people “who love God” and “who love our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 8:28; Eph. 6:24). To not love the Lord Jesus Christ means that a person is not a Christian (1 Cor. 16:22). The response of every true believer to Christ’s substitutionary death is love. Two principle ways in which we express love for God is by simple obedience to Him (1 John 5:3) and loving His people (1 John 4:21).

Love One Another
Peter, John, Paul, and James all speak with one united voice in their many appeals to love one another. They are all preachers and practitioners of the “new commandment.”
Peter writes, “Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another” (1 Peter 4:8). The little phrase “above all…indicates the supreme importance of love as the controlling factor in all relationships in the church.”[iv]
A major theme of John’s letters is love for one another. John even makes the practice of loving one another a criterion for testing whether one is a genuine believer.[v]
Paul calls love a debt we owe that can never be fully repaid: “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another” (Rom. 13:8; NIV). “Love is a permanent obligation,” writes Leon Morris, “a debt impossible to discharge.”[vi] Doug Moo also captures the thought of this remarkable text: “We will never be in a position to claim that we have ‘loved enough.”[vii]

Love as Brothers and Sisters.
Christians are also to love one another with a special brotherly and sisterly love. This kind of love is a tender, intimate, unbreakable “family love.” Paul writes, “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love” (Rom. 12:10). Peter writes “love the brotherhood” (1 Pet. 2:17). As to the importance of brotherly love in the church, James Moffatt remarks that “no church has any prospect of stability or chance of existence in the sight of God if it neglects brotherly love.”[viii]

Love in Marriage and the Home
Paul charges Christian husbands to take the initiative to love their wives “just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25). The standard of love God sets for Christian husbands is Christ’s total self-giving love. Christian wives also are commanded to love their husbands (Titus 2:4). Christian marriage and the home should be supremely marked by Christ’s love.

Love All People.
Christians are called to love all people, not just Christians. This is Paul’s pray: “And may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another, and for all people” (1 Thess. 3:12).[ix] Christian people are to be loving people like their Lord.

Pursue Love.
“Pursue love” is Paul’s charge to the independent-minded, selfish Corinthian believers (1 Cor. 14:1). And to Timothy, a church leader, he also says “pursue…love” (1 Tim. 6:11; 2 Tim. 2:22). We are to actively and continuously “pursue love” because we naturally pursue our own selfish interests and comforts over others.

Do Everything in Love.
“Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Cor. 16:14). Love is to be the all-encompassing characteristic of all that we do, say, and think.

Live a Life of Love.
“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you” (Eph. 5:1, 2). Christians are to imitate God. This is a remarkable statement. But what Paul means specifically is explained in the next statement: “walk in love, just as Christ also loved you.” D. M. Lloyd-Jones is perfectly right when he says, “the Christian life must always be thought of in these terms. Love! There is the great first principle.”[x]

Let Love Be Genuine.
“Let love be without hypocrisy” (Rom. 12:9). Paul declares that his whole ministry was characterized by “genuine love” (2 Cor. 6:6). Love can be an outward show, not an inward reality. There can be play-acting love and Sunday-morning-only love. That is why John warns, “Let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth” (1 John 3:18).

Speaking Truth with Love
In stark contrast with those who use falsehood and deceitful methods when teaching, Paul urges “speaking the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15). Whether defending or proclaiming the truth it must be done by means of love. Truth and love should never be separated. “Take love from truth,” states James M. Boice, “The result is bitter orthodoxy. Truth remains but it is proclaimed in such an unpleasant, harsh manner that it fails to win anybody.”[xi]

Love Builds Up.
“Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies [builds up]” (1 Cor. 8:1). The nature of love is to build people up, not tear down. Love is in the construction business, not the destruction business. A fundamental principle of church life is that everything is to be done for the “edification” of the church (1 Cor. 14:26). So as Nathaniel Vincent comments, “The more love abounds among the members of the church, the more the whole body will be edified.”[xii]

Love Covers.
“Keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). Fervent love for one another is absolutely necessary in the church because “love covers a multitude of sins.” Love covers all kinds of offenses, injuries, wrongs, and sins that we experience at the hands of others. Without love covering we could never live and work together.

Love Disciplines and Restores.
“Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline” (Rev. 3:19). Love has both a stern and tender side. Love “abhor[s] what is evil” (Rom. 12:9) because evil of any kind destroys people and dishonors God. It is the nature of love to protect, warn, rebuke, and discipline loved one. But love’s nature also forgives, restores, and heals broken relationships (2 Cor. 2:4-11).

Love Grows.
Paul prays, “may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another, and for all people” (1 Thess. 3:12) and “that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment” (Phil. 1:9). The wonderful truth about love is that it can increase and overflow all human boundaries. There are no limits to our growth in Christlike love.

Love Unites.
Christian people have “been knit together in love” (Col. 2:2). The New Testament issues many pleas for church unity. But without love, viable unity is an impossible dream. Love is what unites Christians so that they can together move toward the common goal of maturity in Christ: “Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity [or completeness]” (Col. 3:14).

Love Is the Sum of the Law.
Love is the one, all-embracing command that fulfills, summarizes, and puts into practice the law: “For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Gal. 5:14). “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law” (Rom. 13:10).

Love Is the More Excellent Way.
“And I show you a still more excellent way” (1 Cor. 12:31). The greatest spiritual gifts imaginable and the most extraordinary services rendered to others are nothing if love is absent: “And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor…but do not have love, it profits me nothing” (1 Cor. 13:3).

Love Never Fails.
“Love never fails” (1 Cor. 13:8). All spiritual gifts will someday cease (1 Cor. 13:8). But love is permanent; it is for now and eternity. Jonathan Edwards describes heaven as “a world of holy love”[xiii] and “the paradise of love.”[xiv]

Love Is the Greatest.
“But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13). Every Christian is to be marked by faith, hope, and love. This blessed triad of virtues is foundational to vital Christian living and to a maturing local church. Yet, even among the three cardinal virtues, Paul can say, “the greatest of these is love.”
So there you have it, a quick bird’s eye view of Jesus’ and the apostles’ principle teaching on love. We will now turn in the next chapter to the classic passage that demonstrates that love is indispensable to Christian leadership, 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

[i] W. R. Moody, The Life of Dwight L. Moody (1985 reprint ed., Westwood: Barbour and Company, n.d.), 128.
[ii] Moody, The Life of Dwight L. Moody, 127.
[iii] Richard Ellsworth Day, Bush Aglow quoted in George Sweeting, Love is the Greatest (Chicago: Moody, 1974), 40.
[iv] I. Howard Marshall, 1 Peter, IVPNTCS (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1991), 143.
[v] 1 John 2:3-6; 3:10-18; 4:7-21
[vi] Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 467, 468.
[vii] Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 810.
[viii] James Moffatt, Love in the New Testament (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1929),???
[ix] Also Rom. 12:17; 13:8; 1 Thess. 5:15; Gal. 6:10; 1 Peter 2:17).
[x] D. M. Lloyd-Jones, Romans: An Exposition of Chapter 12, Christian Conduct (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2000), 336.
[xi] James Montgomery Boice, The Epistles of John (Grand Rapids: Zondervan), ?.
[xii] Nathaniel Vincent, A Discourse Concerning Love (1684; reprint ed., Morgan: Soli Deo Gloria, 1998), 3.
[xiii] Jonathan Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits (1852; reprint ed., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1978), 325.
[xiv] Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits, 351.

The Amazing Teaching of Jesus Christ on Love

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you” (John 13:34).


One of the top Beatles’ songs of 1967 was about love. It’s entitled: “All You Need Is Love.” The song sold million of copies and is still played today on the radio. The chorus goes,

All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need
Love, love, love
Love, love, love
Love, love, love

The word love is repeated thirty nine times throughout the song and the phrase “all you need is love” 12 times. The song is catchy, and they certainly made their point: “all you need is love.” The problem, however, is they didn’t tell us what love is. But Jesus Christ does, and it isn’t an empty, fluffy word.
The greatest leader in all of history was the Lord Jesus Christ, and He was the most loving man to ever walk upon this earth. He is divine love in the flesh, and what He taught about love is unmatched by any teacher or leader on the pages of human history.
Below are ten examples of Jesus’ teaching on love. They are foundational to the rest of this book and demonstrate that love is positively indispensable to Christian leadership and all Christian service.

God Is Love.
Jesus makes the most astonishing claim: He declared that He has been “loved” by God the Father from “before the foundation of the world,” that is, before the universe was created He was loved (John 17:24).[i] Thus, Jesus teaches that love has existed before the creation of the world, that God the Father is the source of this love, that He Himself has been the eternal object of love, and that this relationship is the supreme model of all love relationships.

God’s Love for His People
Jesus makes the amazing declaration that God loves us “even as” He loves His Son: “So that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me” (John 17:23; italics added). The comparison Jesus uses is “breathtakingly extravagant.”[ii] The “very same love he reserves for His Son,” writes D. A. Carson, He reserves for us.[iii]

Jesus’ Love for His People
Jesus also makes the same declaration of His own love for us: “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you” (John 15:9; italics added). “The Son’s love for men is so great,” writes James Moffatt, “that he can only compare it to the Father’s love for himself.”[iv] Jesus states that, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Jesus displayed the greatest love possible when He laid down His live for His friends. The cross is Jesus holding His arms out wide saying, “I love you this much.”

God’s Love Dwelling in His People
In His final prayer for His disciples, Jesus prays that the very love with which the Father loved Him would be in and among His disciples: “And I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:26; italics added). To fulfill this amazing prayer request, Jesus promises the indwelling Holy Spirit who produces in every believer a new supernatural capacity to love with God’s love. In the words of R. S. Candlish, “We have now a divine faculty of loving; we love with the love which is of God; which is God’s very nature.”[v] So here is an important starting point for our study, you must have God’s love in you through the Holy Spirit or you are not a Christian leader; in fact, you’re not a Christian!

Loving God--The Greatest Commandment
Answering the question which is the greatest commandment in the law, Jesus states without hesitation that “the great and foremost commandment” is to love God with one’s whole being—with all one’s heart, with all one’s emotion, and with all one’s mind (Matt. 22:35-40). The sum of all God’s commandments and all religious service is love God. So the first commandment and the greatest commandment is to love God with one’s whole being. All the law of Moses and the words of the prophets depend on this first commandment.

Loving Jesus--The Preeminent Love Relationship
As no other person can do, Jesus demands the preeminent place among all our love relationships: “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me” (Matt. 10:37, 38). Jesus’ demands of discipleship require dying to self and loving Him above all others. All other relationships become idolatrous when He is not loved first and foremost. “No one can serve two masters,” Jesus insists (Matt. 6:24).

Love Expressed in Obedience
Jesus teaches that obedience is one of the primary ways we express our love for God. He Himself is the best example of this important truth: “But so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me” (John 14:31). Jesus displayed His love for His Father by His perfect obedience. So we too display our love for Christ in exactly the same way, by obedience to His commands. “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15). Obedience is also evidence of our love for Christ: “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me” (John 14:21).

Neighbor Love and the Good Samaritan
Jesus states that love for God is “the great and foremost commandment,” but then immediately adds that the second commandment (“love your neighbor as yourself”) is “like” the first.
Jesus further states that, “On these two commandments depends the whole Law and the prophets” (Matt. 22:39, 40), and “There is no other commandment greater than these [love God; love neighbor]” (Mark 12:31). Jesus brilliantly summarizes the heart of true religion and all ethics by this simple double-command—Love God and love neighbor.
This bold, new declaration elevates neighbor love to the same category as love for God, making them “inseparable companion[s]”[vi] yet still maintains the priority of love for God. This will mean that Christ’s followers will be marked not only by total devotion to God but sacrificial service to their neighbor.
Since Jesus elevated the commandment to love one’s neighbor, the inevitable question is, “Who exactly is my neighbor?” Jesus answers this question with the unforgettable story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37). The story goes: A man from the country of Samaria was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho when he found a person robbed and nearly beaten to death. Although the Samaritan didn’t personally know the victim, he stopped and cared for his needs. So our Lord teaches that “One’s ‘neighbor’ is anyone in need that one encounters, and ‘love’ is putting oneself out to meet those needs.”[vii]
But how exactly did the Samaritan display love to his neighbor as himself? Take special note: He cared for the man’s needs in practical ways without any promise of reward. He stopped his journey, bandaged the beaten man’s wounds, took him to an inn to recuperate, and provided money for his food and lodging. He cared for the dying man as he would have cared for himself. This is costly, self-sacrificing neighbor love. It also expresses kindness, compassion, patience, tenderness, and generosity. This is neighbor love as defined by the Lord Jesus Christ.
When you think of loving others, think of this story. Then you’ll understand what our Lord requires of those professing to love as He loves. But also think of the religious priest and Levite who walked by the dying man and did absolutely nothing for him.

Love for One’s Enemy
Not only did Jesus teach the high priority of neighbor love, He taught love for one’s enemy. In one of His most radical statements on love, Jesus proclaims “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:44, 45), “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you” (Luke 6:27, 28).

New Love Commandment
Hours before His death, Jesus gave “a new commandment:”

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:34, 35).

The new commandment super-saturates the New Testament. It flows through all the veins and arteries of the New Testament letters. You simply cannot understand Christian living, ethics, and witness, or life together in the local church, or Christian leadership without grasping the new commandment. “The new commandment,” writes Carl Hoch, “is the sine qua non of the Christian life.”[viii] (See Appendixes 2: “The New Commandment.”) Loving one another as Jesus loved is not an option or a suggestion, it’s a command.
The love required of the new commandment is defined by reference to Jesus Christ and His cross. Jesus sets His own example of love before His disciples as the new pattern of love. In love, He desired only their highest welfare; He served them and gave His life for them on the cross. Note how the Bible states this:

· “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16).
· “who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Gal. 2:20).
· “just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us” (Eph. 5:2).
· “Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood” (Rev. 2:5).
· “who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age” (Gal. 1:4).
· “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).

The love Jesus demonstrated and calls us to imitate

is an imitation of God’s love in Christ.
is a love that desires and seeks the good of others.
is a love for both unlovely and undeserving objects, as well as worthy objects.
is a caring, serving love. Jesus made Himself a humble servant for us.
is a love that acts in total self-giving. Jesus gave Himself.

John best explains the full implication of imitating Jesus’ love when he writes: “and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 John 3:16). B. B. Warfield puts the whole matter succinctly and rightly in perspective when he writes: “Self-sacrificing love is thus made the essence of the Christian life.”[ix]

New Commandment Leaders
The new commandment applies to all Christians, not just leaders and teachers. “Every Christian is employed in the business of sharing love,” rightly claims Funderburk.[x] But since leaders are to be examples to the God’s flock, they above all others must obey the new commandment and do everything in love (1 Cor. 16:14).


“Self-sacrificing love is thus made the essence of the Christian life.”
B.B. Warfield


Therefore, everything you do as a Christian leader should be shaped by the new commandment, whether it is teaching, leading, correcting, protecting, speaking, motivating, organizing, planning, visiting, counseling, praying, or helping. You are to love as Jesus loved and thus give your life for those you lead. “The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep” (John 10:11).
Two friends of mine planted their first new church. Months after the church had been established they organized a question and answer meeting for the new congregation. During the meeting a young lady, who had only recently become a Christian, asked them this heart-searching question: “Would you be willing to die for me?”
Her question caught them off guard leaving them for a moment totally speechless. Not wanting to respond lightly to her sincere question, they answered her wisely. They told her they first needed to examine their own hearts privately to see if they really loved her that much. After examining their motives before God, then they would answer her question. What a thoroughly biblical question the young lady asked these two new shepherds. How would you answer the young woman’s question?

[i] Other texts that affirm the Father’s love for the Son: John 3:35; 5:20; 10:17; 15:9; 17:23, 24, 26. Jesus also boldly declared His love for the Father: “I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me” (John 14:31).
[ii] D.A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 569.
[iii] Carson, The Gospel According to John, 569.
[iv] James Moffatt, Love in the New Testament (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1929), 258.
[v] R.S. Candlish, The First Epistle of John, 2d ed. (1869; reprint ed.Grand Rapids: Zondervan, n.d.), 422, 423.
[vi] David C. Jones, “Love: The Impelling Motive of the Christian Life” in Presbyterion 12 (Fall, 1986), 67.
[vii] Allen P. Ross, Holiness to the Lord (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), 362.
[viii] Carl B. Hoch, Jr., All Things New: The Significance of Newness for Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995), 145. Sine qua non (SIH-neh kwah nohn) is a Latin phrase meaning, “without which nothing.” The new commandment is an absolutely vital, essential element of the Christian life. To neglect or eliminate the new commandment would render the Christian life, shall we say, as nothing, as not Christian.
[ix] B. B. Warfield, “The Emotional Life of Our Lord,” in The Person and Work of Christ (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1950), 64.
[x] G. B. Funderburk, “Love,” in The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975), 3: 996.

Love's Way to Lead

Reasons for this Book


What the Bible says about love is absolutely breath-taking. Among the world’s religions Christianity is unmatched in its teaching about God’s love and the demands of love for Christian believers. It is no exaggeration to say that the Bible is a book of love. The story of the Bible is the greatest love story ever told: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son” (John 3:16).
Although the biblical demands of love are incumbent upon all true believers, I have chosen to apply this subject to Christian leaders and teachers for several reasons.
First, little has been written about the connection between love and leadership. Few Christian leaders think of love when they think or talk about leadership. They know love is important, but they don’t know how it applies to their character or work as leaders. This is surprising since the New Testament is crystal clear that love is absolutely indispensable to spiritual gifts and all Christian service[i]. In the unforgettable words of Paul, the apostle, leading and teaching apart from love is “a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Cor. 13:1).

Second, to lead a church effectively for Christ requires love for God and love for people. The only leadership that pleases God and is most effective spiritually is that which is motivated by love for God, the first and greatest commandment (Matt. 22:38). Oswald Chambers, author of the well-known devotional My Utmost for His Highest, expresses this point forcefully:

The work of feeding and tending sheep is hard work, arduous work, and love for the sheep alone will not do it; you must have a consuming love for the Great Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ. Then He will flow through you in a passion of love and draw men to Himself.[ii]

Only when we lead people out of love for Christ will we serve them sacrificially and joyously, be rightly motivated, last longer, and please God. You can’t lead people spiritually if you don’t love God and love people. And people know instinctively if you love them and love God, or just serve as a hireling for pay.

Third, leaders have the power to create a more loving atmosphere within the local church. This is vitally important because love is “the life-breath of the church,”[iii] essential to its evangelistic witness and its own spiritual up-building (Eph. 4:16). Failure to love creates a whole spectrum of evils as witnessed by the church in Corinth.
Therefore, since leaders set the spiritual tone for the church, we need to start with them. If they are loving, the people will be loving; and they will reproduce other loving leaders. That is why the New Testament charges leaders and teachers to be examples to others of Christian love (1 Tim. 4:12; 2 Tim. 3:10). If, however, leaders are self-centered, highly critical, proud, angry, and impersonal, the people will adopt these same ugly dispositions.

Fourth, most of church work is done in group settings: elders’ and deacons’ meetings, staff meetings, board meetings, committee and council meetings, and all-church meetings. Jesus chose twelve men and trained them as a group and expected them to work harmoniously as a group. The New Testament letters are mostly written in the plural to all believers within the congregation. So in the church, people must work closely together to make decisions and to accomplish tasks. Understanding the New Testament principles of love will significantly enhance group leadership, group meetings, and congregational life as a whole.

Fifth, there are many false ideas about love that need correction. I heard a senior, evangelical theologian and well-known Bible expositor publicly state his reluctance to use the word love because of its many distorted usages. In the name of love, Christians can abandon their families, commit every sort of sexual sin, refuse to practice church discipline, and redefine God and salvation according to contemporary sentimental notions of love. Instead of love being “the fulfillment of the law” it has been made the enemy of it (Rom. 13:8-10). Instead of love abhorring “what is evil,” it justifies evil (Rom 12:9).


“Love is the most attractive quality in the world. And it lies at the heart of Christianity.”
Michael Green


I firmly believe that if our church leaders and teachers truly understood what the Bible says about love, it would significantly improve their relationship skills with people, enhance their effectiveness in ministry, diminish much senseless conflict and division, produce more spiritually healthy churches, and improve their witness to the unbelieving world. As Michael Green so beautifully reminds us, “Love is the most attractive quality in the world. And it lies at the heart of Christianity.”[iv]

I have written this book for leaders and teachers at every level of leadership within the local church--Sunday school teachers, youth workers, women’s and men’s ministry leaders, Bible study leaders, administrators, music directors, elders, deacons, pastors, missionaries, and evangelists. If you lead or teach people, this topic is essential to you because God wants you to lead and teach with love. Indeed, God says, “Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Cor. 16:14).

This book is a New Testament study on love as applied to Christian leaders and teachers. It is only by Scripture that we even know what Christian love is and what this love demands of us. Too many Christians have only a superficial, if not a wrong, understanding of what the Scripture teaches about love. If there is to be a true revival of love in your personal life or in your local church, it must begin with God’s Word and be built on God’s Word.
I have organized the book into four major parts:

Part One: Love Is Indispensable to Christian Leadership
Part Two: The Character and Behavior of a Loving Leader
Part Three: The Works of a Loving Leader
Part Four: The Motivating Power of Love

My heartfelt desire is that the Lord would use this book to “cause you to increase and abound in love for one another, and for all people” and that He would “direct your hearts into the love of God” (1 Thess. 3:12; 2 Thess. 3:5).
[i] Rom. 12:3-21; 1 Cor. 13:1-13; Eph. 4:1-16.
[ii] Oswald Chambers, The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers, (Grand Rapids: Discovery, 2000), 1361.
[iii] William Kelly, Notes on the First Epistle to the Corinthians (n.d; reprint ed., Denver: Wilson Foundation, n.d.), 220.
[iv] Michael Green, Evangelism Through the Local Church (Nashville: Thomas Nelson), 97.

Loving Leaders Are not Jealous or Braggarts.

“Love is not jealous; love does not brag” (1 Cor. 13:4).


After stating the two precious qualities of patience and kindness, Paul switches to eight negative statements describing what love does not do. What it is not.

Love is not
1. Jealous
2. Boastful
3. Arrogant
4. Rude
5. Selfish
6. Easily Angered
7. Unforgiving
8. Joyful over evil…. But rejoices with the truth

These eight vices are totally incompatible with love and the cross of Christ. In brief, they all express the self-centered, sinful life. These self-oriented patterns of behavior tear down human relationships, divide churches, split elderships and deaconships, and spoil the loveliness that should characterize the community of the new commandment.
The good news is that love is not this way. The Lord Jesus Christ did not act this way. And Christian leaders should not behave this way. So we have an objective standard before us to help us correct our loveless behavior and to guide us on the road called the “more excellent way.”

Love is Not Jealous.
Paul tops the negative list with a poisonous vice that has wrecked countless relationships and divided many churches--jealousy and envy. The Bible says jealousy is “demonic” (James 3:14, 15), a work of the flesh (Gal. 5:20), “an evil eye” (Matt. 20:15), “rottenness to the bones” (Prov. 14:30), and a fearsome emotional power: “Wrath is fierce and anger is a flood, But who can stand before jealousy” (Prov. 27:4)? Nathanial Vincent pointedly expresses the tormenting, petty, hateful spirit of jealousy:

How much of hell is there in the temper of an envious man! The happiness of another is his misery, the good of another is his affliction. He looks upon the virtue of another with an evil eye, and is as sorry at the praise of another as if that praise were taken away from himself. Envy makes him a hater of his neighbor, and his own tormentor.”[i]

Love, however, “does not burn with envy.”[ii] “Love never boils with jealousy.”[iii] It’s not resentful of others’ good fortune or accomplishments. It’s not suspicious or distrustful of another’s advancements or popularity. It is not covetous of others’ possessions or position. It doesn’t desire to pull others down or their misfortune. Jealousy is totally incompatible with love because it divides and tears down people, whereas love units and builds-up people. Jealousy divided the church at Corinth and contradicted their empty boast of being spiritual people: “For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men?” (1 Cor. 3:3).

A Jealous King. The classic Old Testament story of the jealous leader and a gifted servant is Saul and David. Almost immediately after David’s stunning victory over the giant Goliath, King Saul became jealous of him.
Of course there was much to envy about David. He was young, handsome, strong, brilliant, multi-talented, popular with the people, a successful warrior, and abundantly blessed by God in all that he did. “So his name was highly esteemed” (1 Sam. 18:30).
David was so popular and successful that the women sang, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands” (1Sam 18:7). This comparison of Saul’s victories with David’s greater achievements enraged Saul and stirred up the vilest passions of jealousy, so that he hated David and opposed him at every turn and spoke evil against him at every opportunity. He thought only of David’s downfall.
Rather then repent of his jealousy and seek God’s help and acknowledge David as God’s gift to the people, Saul gave full vent to his jealousy. Saul’s jealousy led to hatred, paranoia, personal misery, and murderous schemes.

A Common Temptation. None of us are immune from petty, self-centered jealousy. The most committed missionaries and devout servants of the Lord have struggled with the sin of jealousy. Among the first team of missionaries to sail for China with the newly formed China Inland Mission, jealousy became epidemic. Hudson Taylor, founder and director of the China Inland Mission,[iv] writes,

The feeling among us appears to have been worse than I could have formed any conception of. One was jealous because another had too many dresses, another because someone else had more attention. Some were wounded because of unkind controversial discussions, and so on.[v]

George Muller, the founder of the Ashley Down orphanage in Bristol, England, and man of extraordinary faith and prayer, confessed his own jealous feelings towards his close friend and co-worker, Henry Craik. While co-pastoring with Craik at a church in Bristol, Muller saw that people enjoyed Mr. Craik’s teaching more than his own. Craik was not only an excellent teacher and preacher, he was a first rate classical and Hebrew scholar. To this jealous spirit, Mr. Muller responded:

When in the year 1832, I saw how some preferred my beloved friend’s ministry to my own, I determined, in the strength of God, to rejoice in this, instead of envying him. I said, with John the Baptist, “A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven” (John 3:27). This resisting the devil, hindered separation of heart. [vi]

Muller’s and Craik’s friendship and labors together lasted for thirty-six years, until Craik died.[vii] Although both were strong, multi-gifted men with quite different personalities, their thirty-six-year relationship was a public testimony to the power and beauty of Christian love. Mr. Muller was well-known for his many life-long friendships with people like Hudson Taylor, Charles Spurgeon, D. L. Moody, Robert Chapman, and many others. Jealous people, unfortunately, have few real friends and many conflicts.
Be aware that jealousy is a common sin among the Lord’s people and among Christian leaders. Pastors can go to bizarre extremes to eliminate gifted people from the church who threaten them. Churches can envy other churches that are larger and growing rapidly; missionaries can burn with envy towards other missionaries who are more fruitful and better supported. Small group Bible study leaders can envy more popular Bible study leaders; singers can envy other singers who get to sing more and receive louder applause; elders can envy fellow elders who shine brighter in leadership ability, knowledge, and wisdom; deacons can envy fellow deacons who are more dedicated.

Love Delights in the Successes and Talents of Others. Love is large hearted, other-oriented, and full of good will towards others. It delights in other’s prosperity, indeed, it seeks to promote others. “When love sees someone who is popular, successful, beautiful, or talented, it is glad for them and never jealous or envious.”[viii]
The loving Barnabas, Paul’s friend and co-worker, rejoiced over Paul’s giftedness and invited him into significant ministry opportunities with himself as a co-worker teaching in the church at Antioch (Acts 11:19-26). The loving Jonathan, King Saul’s son, rejoiced over David’s giftedness and sought to protect and advance David’s leadership, jeopardizing his own future position as king (1 Sam. 23:16, 17). How different he was from his jealous father.
So consciously practice love that rejoices at the successes and talents of others, that seeks to advance others’ ministry opportunities, and that treats the prosperity and giftedness of others as if it were one’s own (1 Cor. 12:25, 26). You will be happier for it. You will be content and blessed, and God will be pleased.
Love is not jealous, the Lord Jesus Christ was not jealous, and you should not be a jealous leader.

Love Does Not Brag.
Like the sin of jealousy, bragging is a sinful preoccupation with one’s self; specifically it is a craving for attention for one’s self. Braggarts want others to envy them for their abilities, education, knowledge, or successes. Because they want to be noticed and praised, they speak too highly and too much of themselves.
The trumpet-blowing Pharisees shamelessly craved attention. Jesus said they love the front seats in the synagogue, respectful greetings on the street, and to parade their religious deeds in public in order to be seen by people and be praised for their religious piety. In the church at Corinth believers bragged about their superior wisdom, their favorite teachers’ speaking skills, their spiritual giftedness, and their triumphant spiritual experiences. They were full of themselves, not love. Pride of self, not concern for others, compelled them to brag of themselves.
A missionary evangelist came to my home, along with others, for dinner. For three hours he never stopped talking about himself, and all his ministries and success, and how hard he worked, how much he traveled, and how blessed he was of God. Not once, however, during the long evening meal did he inquire about others at the table. But that’s not surprising, self-oriented people aren’t really interested in others. That’s why they don’t ask questions or inquire about other people’s lives. It’s of no concern to them. Their interest is in others’ recognizing them.
I was at a church conference that had hundreds of book and ministry exhibits. Our exhibit booth was next to a ministry booth with an internationally known pastor and author. The entire time he was at his booth he talked non-stop about himself. Since we were no more than 10 feet away we couldn’t help but hear him praise himself hour on end for two days. He told every person he talked to how large his church was, how many people were on his staff, and how large the church budget was. He was especially good at dropping the names of the famous people he knew and places he had preached.
He was a braggart, in love with his own talents and achievements, showing little interest in the lives of those who visited him. Braggarts build themselves up, jealous people tear others down, but only loving people build other people up.

Love Promotes and Praises Others. Those possessed of Christ’s love delight in focusing attention on others, pushing others to center stage, or sharing the spotlight of attention with others. Love lifts up others. It’s other oriented, not self-oriented. It shies from speaking of itself. Furthermore, loving, sensitive people don’t brag because they know that people can be easily provoked to jealousy, and they don’t want to cause others to be jealous or sin.
This, however, doesn’t imply that you never talk about yourself or allow others to inquire about your interests or ministries. Like Paul and Barnabas, missionaries need to report of God’s work through their labors to those who love and support them (Acts 14:27; 15:3). Skillful teachers often use illustrations taken from their personal experiences to communicate effectively (Gal. 2:1-14). There’s a difference, however, between speaking about your self in a non-boastful way and bragging in a self-centered, self-exalting way. The braggart uses people as an audience to show off and to receive personal praise.
A missionary friend of mine told me this story about the young Billy Graham. On the way back to Africa in the early 50’s, he found himself on board ship with Billy Graham. Graham was on his way to the London Crusade. The two men spent time talking and praying together. But here is what touched my missionary friend deeply. During their times together, Graham asked many questions about his life and ministry in Africa. He was genuinely interested in his work. He particularly observed that Billy Graham rarely spoke about himself or his phenomenal experiences as a world evangelist. At the end of their voyage, the missionary asked Graham how he could pray for him. Billy answered, “Pray that I will be a humble man.” Humble people are not braggarts.
Love does not brag, the Lord Jesus Christ did not brag, and you shouldn’t brag about yourself.
[i] Nathaniel Vincent, A Discourse Concerning Love (1684; reprint, ed., Morgan: Soli Deo Gloria, 1998), 82.
[ii] Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 1048.
[iii] Charles B. Williams, The New testament (1937; Chicago: Moody, 1954), 383.
[iv] The China Inland Mission became in 19?? The Overseas Missionary Fellowship.
[v] A.J. Broomhall, Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, 6 vols., vol. 4: Survivor’s Pact (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1984), 182.
[vi] W. Elfe Tayler, Passages from the Diary and Letters of Henry Craik of Bristol (London: Paternoster, n.d.), xiii.
[vii] His biographer notes: “No feature of Mr. Craik’s character was more conspicuous than that of love. It beamed forth in his countenance, it betrayed itself in the very tones of his voice, and his life was a practical comment on that word, ‘Do good to all.’ Hence his earnestness of manner in preaching; hence his acute sensibility in contemplating the prospects of humanity; hence his intense sympathy with the sorrows of others, and his extreme affection towards his friends, and especially the members of his family. Surely a more loving, sympathizing spirit has rarely left this world.” (Tayler, Passages from the Diary and Letters of Henry Craik of Bristol, 307).
[viii] John MacArthur, 1 Corinthians (Chicago: Moody, 1984), 340.