…It Keeps No Record Of Wrongs

…it keeps no record of wrongs.
1 Corinthians 13.5, NIV

My first line of commentators for years now have been the Early Church Fathers (EC). However, with the sources at my fingertips, the EC is silent on this particular phrase. If the EC points me in a direction, I usually let it guide my hermeneutics. However, since the EC is silent, I will tentatively proceed with hermeneutics.

What is “it”?

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
1 Corinthians 13.4-5

Love keeps no record of wrongs.

This is “The Love Chapter” after all. Paul is describing perfect love. He is referring to agape love, the very love associated with God. This is more than just unconditional love. We often think of unconditional love, but that focuses more on the receiver than on the Giver, and is therefore somewhat selfish.

The word agape was often translated as charity and can actually be translated as benevolence. This certainly does imply that there is a Giver. It is a commitment, a committed love, committed to the well being of others, even when they don’t have the means to reciprocate.

Certainly there are people we love who have no capacity to love us back, yet we are committed to them. It is a form of charity.

no record

The word record stems from the Greek word logizomai. It is also translated “it does not take into account.”

The thought “no record” literally means no account, no reckoning, no weighing the reasons, no deliberation, no inventory, etc.

The word logizomai is commonly translated in the King James Version as think, impute, reckon, count, and account.

Paul says there is none of this with love. We do not even keep tally marks of the times someone has done us wrong.

Love keeps no record of wrongs.

The word “wrongs” is also translated “wrong suffered.”

This word for “wrongs” is really wrong. In the Greek we see evil and wicked. Bad things happen. However, there are times when people make bad things happen, intentionally.

We find intentionality especially difficult to dismiss. After all, everyone can see that it was so-and-so’s intention. If a person intends to commit evil, that person should face some sort of punishment.

The Apostle Paul says no, even with intentional evil.
Somehow we are to leave it in God’s hands.
We don’t even keep a tally of the times they did it.

application

In 2005 I faced almost a year of being sidelined. I participated in very little. I served in ministry. There was no full-time post.

I read, journaled, attended to my family and myself.

There were times I had kept a diary, a day-by-day history, so to speak. However, I chose not to in 2005. I chose to keep track of the Spirit’s movements in my life through a journal.

During that year, I read this very passage and was so struck. Paul changed the way I journaled. I made it a rule to keep no record of wrongs. For the most part, I succeeded.

Who wants to look back over the years and drink the bitter gall of unresolved wrongs committed?

I have kept this one rule. I have seen it play out in other areas of my life.