Love Covers All Things
13: 7a
This final staccato of verbs brings the present description to a summary and conclusion. In each case the verb is accompanied by the object all things. The key Greek word here is panta, which may be translated as all or always. Basically, it means that love has no limits. Stating the opposite best captures the idea: love never tires of support, never loses faith, never exhausts hope, never gives up. But these four qualities are hyperbole, exaggerations to make a point. Paul has made it clear that love rejects jealousy, bragging, arrogance, rudeness, selfishness, anger, keeping a record of wrongs, and unrighteousness. It does not bear, believe, hope or endure lies, false teaching or anything else that is not of God. By “all things,” Paul is speaking of all things acceptable to God’s righteousness and will, of everything within the Lord’s divine tolerance.419
Dear Heavenly Father, Praise You for Your love is like the most beautiful diamond, cut with many flawless and sparkling faces. Each aspect of Your love sparkles and glistens like a face of an exquisite diamond. There is nothing that could make the diamond of Your love more beautiful, for You are holy and totally perfect in all You have ever done or thought. Meditating on Your love is like constantly resting on an air mattress in a big pool on a sunny day. The sun shines bright and hot but the water splashes and refreshes us. There are sounds and noises all around but as we gaze into the blue sky we hear only the whisper of Your love. We see the fluffy white clouds and remember how You ascended into heaven. After saying all this – while they were watching – He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. What a comfort to know that You are in heaven preparing a home for us (John 14:1-3) and will someday soon return to take us home to heaven to be with You there for all eternity! Thank You that Your love covers all things. You are so loved! In Yeshua’s name and power of His resurrection. Amen
The four qualities listed in 13:7 are closely related and are given in ascending order to form a chiasm, the first (love covers all things) and the fourth (love endures all things) dealing with present circumstances, the second (love believes all things) and the third (love hopes all things) looking into the future. Thus, there is nothing love cannot face. So, too, the final verb, love never ends. Love has a tenacity in the present, buoyed by its absolute confidence in the future, that enables one to live in every kind of circumstance and continually to pour oneself out on behalf of others. Paul’s own ministry was a perfect example of such love.420
Paul continues to complete the golden chain of love; each jewel matches the next until the characterization is complete. Now he proceeds to teach us that love covers (Greek: stego, meaning to support, and therefore to protect) all things. Love covers all things by protecting others from exposure, ridicule or harm. Genuine love does not gossip or listen to gossip. Even when a sin is certain, love tries to correct it with the least possible hurt and harm to the guilty person.
Fallen human nature has the opposite inclination. There is wicked pleasure in exposing someone’s faults or failures. As already mentioned, that is what makes gossip appealing. The Corinthians cared little for the feelings or welfare of fellow believers. It was every person for themselves. Like the Pharisees, they paid little attention to others, except when those others were failing or sinning. Mankind’s depravity causes people to rejoice in the depravity of others. It is that depraved pleasure that sells magazines and newspapers that cater to exposes, “true confessions,” and the like. It is the same sort of pleasure that makes children tattle on their brothers and sisters. Whether to feel self-righteous by exposing another’s sin or to enjoy the sin vicariously, we all are tempted to take a certain kind of pleasure in the sins of others. Love had no part in that. It does not expose or exploit, gloat or condemn.
Hate stirs up disputes, but love covers all kinds of transgressions (Proverbs 10:12). On the one hand, we can measure our love for a person by how quick we are to cover their faults. On the other hand, love does not justify sin or compromise with falsehood. Love warns, corrects, exhorts, rebukes, and disciplines. But love does not expose or broadcast failures and wrongs. It covers and protects. Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887), an American Congregationalist clergyman, social reformer and speaker, known for his support of the abolition of slavery, emphasized God’s love when he is quoted as saying, “God pardons like a mother who kisses the offense into everlasting forgetfulness.”
The mercy seat, where the blood of atonement was sprinkled (see the commentary on Exodus, to see link click Fs – The Mercy Seat in the Most Holy Place: Christ at the Throne of Grace), was a place of covering. That covering prefigured the perfect and final covering of sin accomplished by Yeshua on the cross in His great atonement (see the commentary on Romans Ba – The Picture of Justification). In the cross, ADONAI threw the great mantle of His love over sin, forever covering it for those who trust in His Son. By nature, love redeems. It wants to buy back, to save, not to judge.
Love feels the pain of those and helps carry the burden of the hurt. True love is even willing to take the consequences of the sin of those it loves. Isaiah wrote of Yeshua Messiah, “It was our diseases He bore, our pains from which He suffered. Yet, we considered Him punished, stricken and afflicted by God. He, and no other, was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our sins. The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him (Isaiah 53:4-5 CJB). As Peter knew firsthand from Yeshua’s great patience and kindness: love covers a multitude of sins (First Peter 4:8).421
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