Every local church and ministry needs to remember that it is by this great qualification—love—that God assesses all our giftedness and service. It is no exaggeration to say that without these characteristics, a church will drift away from its mission and may even disintegrate. So while we can be known for any number of things, let us be known always as people who seriously, humbly, and realistically ask the Spirit of God to make our hearts and minds so full of love that it will overflow into the church and the world.

Though 1 Corinthians 13 is largely regarded as a cozy part of the Bible, a closer look reveals that these “feel-good” verses confront us, humble us, and begin to show us that the things we think matter most are not what matter most to God.
The church in Corinth faced circumstances from within that threatened its existence. So, in 1 Corinthians 13, Paul showed the church “a still more excellent way” (1 Cor. 12:31)—that is, the way of love, of agapē, rooted in the very character of God and revealed in the life of Jesus Christ. It is only by growing in Christlike love that the Corinthians could grow in Christian maturity and effectively handle such difficult situations.
Paul describes the beauty of God’s love with fifteen characteristics, like the facets of a diamond. His emphasis here is not so much upon what love is as what love does. Love behaves itself in a certain way. It is not only felt but acted on. And these actions and attitudes are to be habitual in the lives of those who love as God does.
Each facet of this Christlike love is worth taking a moment to meditate on. In a previous article, we considered the first eight. In this article, we consider the latter seven.
Love Keeps No Record of Wrong
Think of how the Lord Jesus has treated us:
Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,and whose sins are covered;blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. (Rom. 4:7–8)
The Lord will not count forgiven sin! When we enter His presence, He’s not going to run the video and show it to us all over again. And when we try to play it back ourselves, the Lord essentially says, “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
One of the great skills in life is learning what to forget. When people come to confess sin to us, we need to remember the grace God has shown us in response to the enormity of our offenses. Surely, then, we ought to forgive and do our best to forget the offenses done against us. When love invades a life, harboring a record of wrongs received ceases. Love knows there are greater truths worth remembering.
Love Does Not Rejoice in Evil
Human nature is intrigued by evil. To a certain extent, people seem even to enjoy witnessing evil, especially in others. The covers of newspapers and magazines are filled with adultery, indecency, cheating, lies, corruption, and filth because men and women have an appetite for it. But such hunger is inconsistent with godly love.
One of the primary ways Christians fall into the trap of delighting in the murky and sordid is in gossip—often even under the cover of prayer. When we gossip in this way, we violate agapē love by gloating over the sins and shortcomings of others.
Paul says that when the transforming love of Christ marks a fellowship, it’s going to make us the kind of people who do not rejoice when evil is exalted but turn their attention to better things: “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Phil. 4:8). The challenge is clear: we ought to gauge our reading, viewing, speaking, and listening habits by this measure.
Love Rejoices with the Truth
J. B. Phillips gives us a wonderful paraphrase of verse 6b: love, he says, “is glad with all good men when truth prevails.” Love cannot rejoice when truth is denied. Love and righteousness cannot be separated. There is no love that is indifferent to moral considerations.
This is one of the ways cultural ideas of love fall short.
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Our culture was built by straight wealthy men of European descent, and it therefore worked best for them. That, according to the Cultural Marxist, identifies them the oppressor class. Privilege is their doctrine of sin and, just like any other religion, the Neo-marxists are happy to offer the penitent hope. The call it getting “woke.”

A religion’s doctrine of sin seeks to explain what went wrong, or what is wrong, with the world. The Christian believes that sin began in the Garden of Eden and consisted in Adam’s disobedience to the revealed will of God. Sin then, all men are born in sin (i.e., inheriting the guilt of original sin and also being infected by the corruption of it).
The Cultural Marxist also has a doctrine of original or inherited sin, and it is summed up in the single word: Privilege.
This is easily understood if you remember Marx’s fundamental view of the world. Essential to it was the conflict between the oppressed and the oppressor. This is one of the main tenets of Marxism that has not been revised. Those who are born with privilege are the oppressor class and those born without it, are the oppressed. Further, since “privilege” can be defined differently in different cultures, we see, once again, the perfect adaptability of Neo-marxism.
For example, if you were born to the chief in some undiscovered tribe in the Amazon forest, your privilege would be based on kinship. Everyone else would be inferior, and feel inferior, to you because your father was the chief. Simple enough, but we don’t live in the Amazon, so let us consider how privilege works here in America.
Historically speaking, the most basic privilege in our society has been being born male rather than female. For the first century of our nation’s existence, simply being a man afforded a person inequal enjoyment of both opportunity and income in America. Hence, the Neo-marxist revolution of Feminism.
According to Marxist theory, there is something even more oppressive than being a man in America and that is being a white man. Again, historically speaking, men of European descent have enjoyed inequality of both opportunity and income in America. Hence, the Neo-marxist revolution of Civil Rights.
Today, we have yet another level of oppression that apparently needs to be addressed because the only thing more evil than being a white man in America is being a straight white man (the Marxists call it cis for some reason). Hence, the current Neo-marxist revolution of LGBTQ Rights.
Do you see how it works? Our culture was built by straight wealthy men of European descent, and it therefore worked best for them. That, according to the Cultural Marxist, identifies them the oppressor class. Privilege is their doctrine of sin and, just like any other religion, the Neo-marxists are happy to offer the penitent hope. The call it getting “woke” and we will explore this strange doctrine in the next article.
Christian McShaffrey is a Minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and is Pastor of Five Solas Church (OPC) in Reedsburg, Wis.

The Bible speaks not of a marketplace but of a kingdom. We seem to have assumed and be practising a false paradigm. Is it true that the day of the ordinary local church is coming to an end? Or is the problem that the majority of Christians are running with an idea which is from the world not the Word of God?

The marketplace mentality is working against ordinary congregations.
A man walked into an auction and there he saw something he had always wanted. It was a parrot. He decided to bid for it. The price escalated. He would make a bid and then someone else in the room would top him. Eventually he secured the bird for £100. Then suddenly he realised he had not found out the most important thing. ‘Does the parrot talk?’ he asked the auctioneer. The man replied, ‘Who do you think has been bidding against you all this time?’
That silly story reminds us that a most widely held and influential picture of the modern world is that of a marketplace. Our contemporaries tend to see the world generally in terms of commerce. The whole of consumer society is predicated upon marketplace ideas. Shops have their sales. The internet has its offers. The workplace thinks in terms of a ‘jobs market’. The name of the game is competition in the context of personal choice.
The Marketplace of Churches
The truth is that there is now a marketplace of churches. This marketplace stretches across denominations and church ‘brands’. People are quite willing to switch and travel long distances. Churches are in competition for members.
Market forces are in play and that being the case, sadly, it seems that a number of those forces are working towards the destruction of local churches—churches where people live in fairly close proximity, where the congregation is intentionally aiming at being a family, and where every member has a responsible part to play in the life of the church. Such churches are finding things increasingly difficult to attract members. Many are fragile and dwindling. Thankfully that is not the case everywhere. But it is happening.
As I have contact with pastors around the country, repeatedly I hear the story of visitors who look at a church but don’t return, or of those who decide to come fairly regularly but hang loose and won’t get too involved. It would be wrong and foolish to dismiss churches where this happens as ‘bad churches’. In NT terms, many of them are in good spiritual health in terms of faith and love. But it seems that is not good enough. ‘I can’t find people who will take up responsibilities.’ ‘We need workers. At present we can’t really do any outreach.’ Those are just two recent cries from good gospel men.
So, what is going on? The answer is that the market and the market mindset is against them. The cards which make for the choices of Christian people are stacked against the ordinary local church.
The Christian Consumer
Think about the wider UK landscape. We live in an affluent society where there are many options for people. We can buy an amazing variety of goods and services from houses to hotdogs, from haircuts to holidays and more. The heart of consumer culture, which distinguishes it from say a communist society, is personal choice. With almost boundless scope, we can have precisely what we want (so long as we can pay). The dominant thought in people’s minds is, ‘where can I get the best deal for myself?’ Unconsciously that same mindset of personal choice has infiltrated the picking and choosing of many Christians regarding churches.
When it comes to preferences, what influences the choices of today’s people? Years ago, Francis Schaeffer explained that the direction of the secular consumer society is towards personal peace and prosperity. The whole of our technology is geared towards making things easier for us. The line of least resistance beckons powerfully to our contemporaries.
Does this same attitude express itself when it comes down to choice of church? Many of the population, including Christians, are under a great deal of pressure at work. They are likely to have a large mortgage to pay and a family to feed. They have to put in long hours during the week. So, when it comes to the weekend and to church what are they looking for? They are looking for an easy option. They are looking not so much to be challenged as to be uplifted and looked after.
I know I’m simplifying here, but that often boils down to four things. They are looking for: 1. A fun Sunday School which will mean that they won’t have to fight their kids to get them to church; 2. A gifted music group which gives splendid and uplifting performances; 3. A preacher who expounds a passage of Scripture in a lively and entertaining way, reassuring them of the love of God and not expecting too much by way of sacrifice; 4. A congregation with people similar to themselves where they can find a comfortable friendship group. This quartet meets their needs.
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