First Letter to the Corinthians

The First Letter to the Corinthians 13:4–8 (NABRE) contains Paul’s familiar description of love that is heard at weddings around the world.The passage begins with a Greek word for love, ἀγάπη (agape), followed by a number of different verbs, laying out a list of characteristics of love that show what the Christian life is meant to look like—love in action.

There’s a significant grammatical difference between the Greek in this passage and the English translation, and this difference has a noticeable impact on the meaning. In the English translation, the statements Paul makes about love fall into a consistent grammatical structure that begins with a noun (love), contains a linking verb (is), and concludes with one of a number of different predicate adjectives (patient, kind, etc.). The implied result of this grammatical structure is that the passage describes a state of being that comprises love.

While the structure used in the English translation also is possible in Greek, the Greek passage uses a different grammatical structure consisting of two parts, a subject (love) and an intransitive verb. An intransitive verb is an action that doesn’t have a direct object. “I lie,” “I sleep,” and “I sit” are a few examples of structure using intransitive verbs. There unfortunately are no English equivalents for the intransitive verbs used by Paul in the First Letter to the Corinthians 13:4–8 (NABRE), so offering a better translation is not possible.

It’s important, however, for the reader to keep in mind that Paul’s list is not a list of different attributes that can be assigned to love but rather a list of actions that love performs. Paul, then, understands love as a matter of action and not of something that is passively possessed.

related topics: agape; First Letter of John; mercy; philia & agape; you are my friends

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