This series on the Bible from Greek perspective is based off my written notes, which I took as I attended a church conference on this topic in Apr 2025.

Speaker: Ps Memos

• 1 Cor 13 is a passage about love
• Some thoughts about love: Love hurts, love cares, and love costs a lot, love demands transparency
• Sometimes we love because we want to be loved
• But when that doesn’t happen, things get difficult in our hearts and our spirit
• 1 Cor 13:13: Faith, hope, love, but the greatest is love
• We get very impressed with the gifts of the Spirit, and we want to see miracles
• But true love can be very strong, and at the same time very painful
• John 3:16: For God so loved the world
• “So loved”, can mean the quantity of loved, how he loved us he suffered, and the magnitude of love
• This is the love, we need to have as we live in this world
• God expects us to love the world like he did
• But when you love, it can get bruised very easily
• Love brings pain to our hearts, and we thus try to protect our hearts
• God gives us a strong muscle the heart, he expects us to be both strong and sensitive at the same time
• But as a Christian how do you react when someone hurts you?
• God expects us to be both strong and vulnerable at the same time
• Although we can refuse love
• Ps Memos’ father died 60 plus years old, and he loved his father a lot
• So the pain in his heart was very intense, that he decided to numb his loving heart
• Unconsciously he stopped sowing love to his wife, kids, and family, for 8mths
• I was doing everything a father should be doing, but there was no love showed to them, as I did not want to feel the same pain again
• Many Christians do the same thing today, we involve in ministries, but avoid love because we don’t want to feel hurt
• If we do this, we fail to accomplish his ministry
• See grief is a price we pay, about love
• Many people who love, will thus come to a point of grief
• But do I have a freedom not to love? To close and protect my heart, to avoid anything that brings pain to my heart?
• John 13:35: Jesus said to his disciples, if you have love for one another, people shall know you are my disciples
• 2 Cor 5:14: For the love of Christ controls and compels us
• Luke 8:45: Peter said, Master the people are crowding and pressing against you
• We are linked by each other’s love like holding hands with one another, creating a link, we are so close, that if one falls we can help, and we are still together
• So we are all united by his love, so close, that nothing can break the body of Christ, this is God’s love it compels us together
• Today we have wars and keep fighting, because we don’t love, somebody have to break the chains
• Rev 9:11, the angel of the bottomless pit name is ‘Apollyon’
• Apollo was god of light, but also was god of punishment and plagues
• He was identical with Antichrist preaching about salvation, but goes to destruction
• So the Corinthians were worshipping these personalities, as they were swept away with signs and wonders, just like how many in the last days will be swept away by signs and wonders
• Like in Egypt, the magicians performed a lot of miracles, so don’t be deceived
• How then do we operate the gifts?
• We have to love the people, we pray for, opening our hearts to possible hurts we may face, and become vulnerable
• God is our protection, he is going to protect us, and we draw strength from Him
• Luke 5:10: The fishing net is made of many ropes and nots tied together
• If you want to catch big fishes, you need many ropes
• In order to have a net, every life and person, have to be connected to one another, tied up so close to each other, that we become so compelled and bound together
• Some parts of this net might break, but we can lift one another up with our love for each other
• It’s not just feelings, but love
• How many times our Lord Jesus had pain in his hearts when people reject him?
• So the body of Christ needs to form a very strong net of agape love, to win the lost world
• Let’s continue to mediate on 1 Cor 13, love is not puffed up, doesn’t envy, doesn’t boast, is not self-seeking, is long-suffering and endures all things