Love is not arrogant (v.4)

“Love is not arrogant.” 1 Corinthians 13:4

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Once again Paul tells us what love is not, in order to clarify what it is. Arrogance is having an over-inflated view of our own importance, which invariably looks down on other people. The church at Corinth were “puffed up in favour of one against another” (1 Cor.4:6). They each had their preferred apostles and they valued some people’s spiritual gifts over others.

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The remedy to this arrogance is the recognition that whatever gifts we each have all come from the same Lord. There is no room for any sense of superiority in any of us. All spiritual gifts are gifts of grace from Jesus, for the benefit of the whole church.

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Jesus, in his incarnation, models this. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” (2 Cor.8:9). The Christian life is about grace from beginning to end. We are not only saved by grace, we live on the same basis. Because we owe all that we are to God’s grace, there is no place for arrogance but only for humility and love.