Bible Verses About Love

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

The most familiar verse in the Bible roots love in God's initiative. He gives before we ask, and what He gives is not a thing but His Son.

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

Paul refuses to leave love as a warm feeling. He spells it out in verbs: it is patient, it bears, it hopes, it endures. Love is something you do.

Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

The list of threats is deliberately exhaustive so the conclusion lands with full weight: nothing in all creation can cut you off from the love of God in Christ.

Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

John does not say God is loving but that God is love. Love is not one of His moods; it is His nature, so to know Him is to be drawn into it.

We love him, because he first loved us.

Our love is always an echo, never the original. We love because He loved first, which takes the pressure off us to manufacture what only He can supply.

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Jesus defines the ceiling of love as laying down your life for your friends, and then He goes and does exactly that for us.

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

Husbands are given Christ's self-giving as the pattern for marriage: love that serves and sacrifices rather than demands.

But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

The timing is the point. God proved His love not after we cleaned ourselves up but while we were still sinners.

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.

Here love is sung rather than argued. It is strong as death and cannot be bought, a poetry that dignifies human love within God's design.

Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.

And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.

Jesus gathers the whole law into two commands. Love God with everything, love your neighbour as yourself, and everything else follows.

And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.