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added Christian Commentators section
I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me.
I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me.
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== Christian Commentators ==
*Barnes & Murphy: There were contentions and strifes among [the Corinthians]; there were of course suspicions, and jealousies, and heart-burnings; there would be unkind judging, the imputation of improper motives, and selfishness; there were envy, and pride, and boasting, all of which were inconsistent with love; and Paul therefore evidently designed to correct these evils, and to produce a different state of things by showing them what would be produced by the exercise of love.
*Joseph Beet: Whereas gifts without love are worthless, love even without gifts retains its value undiminished. No stronger proof of the value of love can be given. ... It is a principle of action prompting us to use our powers and opportunities for the good of others, and to draw them to us that we may share, and thus remove, their sorrow, and that they may share our good. This principle appears, more or less perfect and intelligent, in all true human love. It is the mainspring of the entire activity of God. And so far as it rules our conduct are we like God.
*E.W. Bullinger: These two words are not used indiscriminately. Agapaô, never means to kiss; fileô, never means to acquiesce or cherish with reverence. Fileô denotes the sense or passion of love, but in agapaô is implied the cause of fileô. Agapaô is to make much of a thing, to admire for some good and sufficient reason, but fileô denotes the love which springs naturally from the thing loved, even where no just cause of love exists. Agapaô is never used of an improper love; fileô is. Hence, in the N.T. fileô is never used of man's love to God, but agapaô always.
*Stephen J. Cole: Paul enumerates 15 characteristics of love to show how love acts or what it looks like in everyday life. A New Testament definition of agape is “a caring, self-sacrificing commitment which shows itself in seeking the highest good of the one loved.”
*Lee Gatiss: This is the sort of love which, if universally practiced, would put an end to all the divisions in the Church.
*Matthew Henry: How good-natured and amiable is Christian charity! How excellent would Christianity appear to the world, if those who profess it were more under this Divine principle, and paid due regard to the command on which its blessed Author laid the chief stress! Let us ask whether this Divine love dwells in our hearts.
*W. Robertson Nicoll: The loftiest human faculties of man are seen to be frustrate without love; by its aid alone are they brought to their proper excellence and just use.
== Atheism and its inability to explain love ==
== Atheism and its inability to explain love ==