What does it mean that love always hopes (1 Corinthians 13:7)?

Its acts, therefore, are of a kind suitable to this. "It doth not behave itself unseemly." Love is the bond of perfectness, and puts every detail, even of common behavior, right. The world imitates it, as far as may be, because it sees its comeliness. It will give the highest manners to one who may be otherwise the lowest clown. Wherever it is, it reigns. It is the governing spirit. It brings other things into subjection to itself; but then, again, it seeketh not its own. This is its grand characteristic, although expressed in the negative, as so much of this is; for, as with regard to heaven itself; we learn it so much by its contradiction to what we find around, — what we find, alas, so much in ourselves too. Love "seeketh not its own." Its activities must of necessity go forth to others. It is not, therefore, quickly provoked. It is not sensitive of that which touches oneself; yet assuredly, it may be provoked into anger. It was love in Christ when He looked around upon them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts. It was the desire of His heart for them which made their condition so serious in His eyes; but this anger is not nursed into malice. It subsides under the check of pity, the realization of what evil of necessity produces in the soul. This evil it does not impute; it does not reckon it to be there when there is not positive evidence. It has no pleasure in finding it. What it finds there is no question about imputing, in the sense in which this is said. If it be found, then, as far as may be, love covereth sin. It does not bring it out except there be positive requirement of divine righteousness or holiness that it should be brought out. It does not, therefore, rejoice in unrighteousness. How much, alas, of that which seems to be but the display of righteousness (as in Satan's accusation even of the saints) is a mere joy in unrighteousness, the very opposite, therefore, of righteousness itself! On the contrary, love "rejoiceth with the truth." Truth is the basis of all holiness, nay, of all good. There can be nothing apart from it. Love is not, therefore, blind. It has not the character which we may impute, perhaps, to human love. On the contrary, nothing is, quicker or more penetrating in its view of things; but then, again, it "beareth all things." That is, as we saw at the beginning, it can patiently endure, it can suffer long. It "believeth all things" too; that is, it gives ready and unsuspicious credence. It does not suspect. As a consequence of all this, it hopeth all things." It looks upon the good side rather than upon the evil, and, above all, God, in whom love is, who is always present to it, therefore always a cause of hope. After all, good reigns and not evil. Everything is in the hands of perfect goodness, little as at times this may appear outwardly, but thus there is no pessimism in love; it is optimistic in the highest way; but its ground of confidence is not in man, but in God. Hope, then, gives it energy or endurance. It "endureth all things." If we have not hope, there will soon be no strength to endure. Let discouragement be utter and complete, there is the end of all activity, there is the end of all service. There will be no power to serve where there is no hope in service.

Further positive features follow. Four are mentioned in verse 7. Love bears, or covers, all things. It never condones unrighteousness of course, yet it never finds its pleasure in publishing other people's misdeeds. It rather believes all that it can discover of the truth; it hopes that all that may be lacking will be supplied in due course; it endures meanwhile every deficiency that may exist. It is evident that the expression, "all things," four times repeated, must be understood as limited by its context. For instance, he who believes "all things," in an unlimited way, would simply be landed into a morass of uncertainties and deceptions.

I believe this to be a most important exhortation, and one of the most solemn of all in this verse 8. It is not unlike the one before it: Whatsoever things are lovely, or loveable. Oh, that we might have our minds occupied with such things! Oh, that we might meditate on the gracious, winsome things in the saints, and in others about us! Oh, that we might put the most favourable construction on every report we hear. Love thinketh no evil. Love believeth all things: not the evil things, but the good ones: and where it cannot actually believe all the good it would like, it at least hopeth all things: it hopes the good report is true, and the evil one false.

(3) Love “hopes all things”. The flesh is ever ready to presume evil and believe the worst. Love looks upon the good rather than the evil and hopes for the best, in spite of much that may appear hopeless.

(4) Love “endures all things”. The flesh, assuming the worst, has no hope, and when hope is gone there is no power to endure. Love, hoping all things, strengthens its possessor to endure in the presence of opposition and discouragement.

"Believeth all things" is not being suspicious: one believes readily. It "hopeth all things"; it does not mean ill, it does not think of evil. Evil tends to depress the soul, but God is above all that. I find constantly the danger of thinking the evil is greater than the good; but if I bring in God, He is greater than all opposed. Christ was here in the world with no thought of suspicion, and that is the spirit in which we are to walk through the world. If you are always suspecting people, who will trust you? I feel the great difficulty in seeing the evil, which is apt to get the upper hand of your mind; though it is no good deluding oneself that it is not there, because it is there. But love will go on in heaven when there is no evil to think about; prophecies will fail, tongues cease, and knowledge vanish away. "When that which is perfect is come" (v. 10) means the time of glory, when everything is perfect, and these partial things will have ceased. Knowledge now is in degree, "we know in part"; all that kind of learning will pass away. Learning is a proof of ignorance, and this will not be then. Even in divine things we learn, and all that is testimony to ignorance. It gives a great idea of the littleness of man in that way. All these partial instruments of communicating will be done with when I know as I am known: which is, I believe, God's way of knowing; it is not knowing in part; it is not so much the measure as the manner of God's knowing. God can create ideas. I know so far as things are knowable to be known. Now we see "darkly" what we do not see clearly. It is just as I see through a window, instead of seeing the object at once. It is an extraordinary expression; we do not see clearly, but in a mystery, not like plain open things. It is an enigma, though I do not like that word, because it does not suit divine things.

"Hopes all things." As love's desires are to Godward, so all its expectations are from Him. Seeking good only, it looks for the fulfilment of its wishes to Him who is able to do abundantly above what we can either ask or think. It does not limit God, and therefore is not daunted by the most unpromising appearances. The love of Paul to the Corinthians made him hope largely from them, though remotely. Their faith must first be increased, and for its increase he had hope in God.5 The love which God is proves itself upon a disappointed hope. As the Creator, He had just claims on his own workmanship; but the time soon came when it repented Him that He had made man upon the earth.6 Again, as the God of a covenanted people, He had righteous expectations; but they came to nought. The vineyard which He planted only bore wild grapes.7 If He nourished and brought up children, they rebelled against Him.8 His debtors mocked His claims, His sworn subjects treated His majesty with scorn. He said at last, "They will reverence my Son;" but this last hope of patient goodness also failed.9 But if Love lived and laboured here in vain,1 coming to its own to be rejected by its own, and receiving at last its bitter death wound in the house of its friends,2 it was yet animated by an expectation worthy of its strength. Death, instead of quenching it, should bring it to its wish. The flesh of Immanuel rested in the grave in hope.3 He died that He might cease to live alone. He took His life again that He might share it and its blessings with His friends. But His friends are those of His own choosing, and were God's natural enemies until reconciled to Him by the death of His own Son.4 If God's expectations from the creature were frustrated, it was that our hope in Him might be assured.

Hence love does not rejoice over unrighteousness, as malice does, too glad to cover its own evil by that of others; the joy, the sympathies, of love are with the truth, which is personified here as elsewhere. Thus love bears all vexations, believes all possible good (cf. Acts 9:27; Acts 11:22-26), hopes all, in spite of evil manifest enough at present, endures all things, persecutions or afflictions, knowing that we are set for this. God being seen in Christ raises the heart above the depressing power of evil or even suspicion.

(1) Love “bears all things”. The flesh can bear very little without showing its resentment. Love can bear all things, and oftentimes in silence.

Love “rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears ALL things, believes ALL things, hopes ALL things, endures ALL things.” How comprehensive are these “ALLs.” Let us sit down and ponder over them. How far short we come in all these things.

May we as well, in difficult circumstances, exercise the patience of Ezra, the patience of God, toward our brothers, lest they be discouraged. It might have seemed to those who were "a remnant that [was] escaped" who had not participated in this iniquity, that an immediate separation, even an instantaneous separation, from evil was necessary in spite of "pouring rain". Brotherly love does not calculate in this way; brotherly love knows that these words: "we are many that have transgressed in this thing", are not empty words. Love endures all things, believes all things, and hopes all things just because it is love.