Let all things ye do be done in love.
Paul ends a long letter of correction with four short commands, then adds one more that governs them all. Commentators keep asking why love comes last, right after the call to be strong — and how wide the word "all" really reaches.
The Link With the Verse Before It
Verse 14 is not a fresh subject. It hangs on the call to act like men and be strong. Commentators warn that splitting the two ruins both.
1 Corinthians 16 gives a lovely, practical illustration. Verse 13 says, "Act like men, be strong." Here we have one fine feature of the Christian character — that manly strength which is so desirable. But strength on its own can turn into a rough, rude, bullying way of treating others. That is the opposite of what we see in our divine example. So the Spirit in the apostle joins to this manly strength another feature that is just as needed — love. "Let all that you do be done in love." Most precious combination! Strength and love. Love and strength. Break that tie and you get one of two things. You may turn proud, harsh and thoughtless. Or you may turn soft and weak, giving up everything for a quiet life.
Written for Corinth's Actual Faults
Each command answers something that had gone wrong in that church, and the last one reaches deepest.
Carelessness had marked them as a company, and so they were now called to vigilance. They had let their own theories loose on the most basic truths God had revealed, so they needed to stand firm in the faith they had been given. They had been living in a merely human way. They had backed away from shame and suffering because they feared what the world thought. So Paul calls them to act like men and to be strong. They had need also, and above all, that whatever they did might be done lovingly. It is the final application of what 1 Corinthians 13 had opened up — the blessed energy of the divine nature, which lives and delights in the good of others.
The Question of Motive
The command covers what is done. So it exposes actions that look right on the outside but come from a wrong motive.
Spiritual strength shows itself in love, so Paul adds, "Let all that you do be done in love." Sadly, people may do many things in the church that are perfectly right, and yet do them from a wrong motive, because love is missing.
This does not cancel the other qualities Paul has just named. It puts them under love, and without love they are useless.
Paul sets the more excellent way before them again. What is true of the special gifts and powers of the Spirit is true, or should be, of the believer's moral qualities too. Watchfulness, steadfastness, vigour and decision all rank below love in the make-up of a believer approved in Christ. Love is the first and last virtue of the new man. Unless it is at work day by day, none of the others will bear fruit God can accept.
How Far "All" Reaches
The word "all" is taken at full strength — including the hardest thing this letter had asked the church to do, the putting away of the man in chapter 5.
There are no exceptions to this rule, for all our things are to be done in love. We are no more at liberty to sacrifice love in the display of strength in church matters than in our ordinary and private affairs. The letter itself shows this, since among the all things to be done in love was the removal of the erring brother, as directed in 1 Corinthians 5. If anything, we have even less liberty there. In church matters we act in the name of the Lord, at least by our own claim. We act as His representatives.
Kelly notes where this demand presses hardest and what hangs on it:
Nowhere else is it demanded so continually, and in such varied forms. Without love souls there make quick and complete shipwreck; with it the sorest trials turn into the happiest testimony to the grace of Christ.
Love Does Not Cancel Firmness
The verse is sometimes quoted on its own to silence firmness. One writer answers that directly by reading verses 13 and 14 together, in that order.
Have you ever heard someone cry out, "Let all that you do be done in love"? We ought to be tolerant, so we are told. And 1 Corinthians 16:14 does say it. Correct. But 1 Corinthians 16:13 says, "Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong." We don't hear that side quite so often. Tolerance, love — yes — but faithfulness, standing by the scriptural presentation of Christ, cost what it may, this is the divine order.
Summary
- Linked — Verse 14 is tied to verse 13. Strength on its own turns harsh. Love on its own turns spineless.
- Diagnosed — Corinth was careless, unsettled about the faith, and afraid of what the world thought. Each command answers one of those faults. Love answers the deepest.
- Motive — The test is not whether an action is right but whether love drove it; a right deed done without love fails.
- All — The word admits no exceptions, and reaches even to church discipline, where we act as the Lord's representatives.
- Balanced — Love never cancels faithfulness; the divine order keeps both, in Paul's own sequence.