1 Corinthians 13:6 “[Love] does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.”
Paul continues on in describing what love is not, but simultaneously gives us an antonym to better understand what love is. Here in verse 6, not only is it beneficial to understand what “wrongdoing” means in Greek, it would also behoove us to take a look at the word “truth” as well since Paul directly compares the two words.
Why context is king
When it comes to interpreting Scripture, it is all about context. I know I’ve belabored this point a lot in the last few posts, but I wanted to give one last example of its importance. One of the lectures from a professor at The Master’s college (in the Acts series) demonstrates the value in understanding the authorial intent.
The sun is shining and here is a vampire, standing over a dead person with a sword, who is bleeding. What is the purpose of the sun in the picture?
Why is the sun shining? (By the way, this is why I majored in Bible, not art).
A. The simple, “literal reading”: The sun just happened to be shining that day. This is rather obvious and, in this cause, somewhat pointless in solving the issue.
B. The sun is shining to show that the vampire has evolved to have superhuman (perhaps super-vampire?) strength to resist the sun.
C. The sun is shining to show the futility of man. Although everything should be going well, since no vampire should be out in broad daylight, the man dies anyway. So the sun is a symbol of the futility of man.
D. The sun is shining, but you can notice that there is a strange uniformity of the sun. So the sun is trying to show that there is no such thing as sunshine, it is a complete illusion meant only to deceive man. There is something called the sun, it is shining and there are happy days and happy days are associated with the sunshine. However, it is completely a figment of your imagination. (While this is intentionally extreme, there are commentators who do things like this at times).
How can you quantify really which is right or wrong without knowing the author’s intent? Unless you were to do some kind of exegetical work, it would be impossible to understand the purpose of the sun.
By the way, what’s the answer? E. The professor intended the sun to be there to demonstrate the absolute “cynical-ness” of his nature.
Wrongdoing and truth in the original language
So, if we wish to understand what Paul is communicating, we must understand not only what these words mean in Greek, we should also be careful to discern what they mean in context.
Looking at the word “wrongdoing” (ἀδικία – adikia), we would learn that it is either 1) an act that violates standards of right conduct (or unrighteousness) or 2) the quality of injustice. I (and other commentators) would argue, then, that the word “wrongdoing” has too weak and broad of a meaning here than either the two definitions I present – evils committed by theological unrighteousness or moral injustice.
From context of this verse, we learn that if we genuinely love someone, we should not take pleasure at the conduct which gives us the opportunity to lecture or rebuke someone. In examining other instances Paul uses the word adikia, we can also see that love should not suppress the truth (Rom. 1:18), exchange the truth for a lie (Rom. 1:25; 2 Thes 2:10, 12), will not show partiality in justice (Rom. 9:14), do anything against the truth (2 Cor. 13:8), will abide in faithfulness in the fulfillment of what is promised (Rom. 3:5, see Rom. 3:3), will seek truth by seeking God’s glory (John 7:18), or will become upset when faced with the truth (Gal. 4:16).
The question then becomes, what are we doing that promotes unrighteousness or injustice?
There are many things which I could go on to list here, but in particular, I wanted to highlight one possible way in which we are suppressing the truth. It is interesting to note that the suppression of the truth (Rom. 1:18) and exchanging it for a lie (Rom. 1:25) closely follows Paul’s exhortation to not be ashamed of the Gospel (Rom. 1:16).
Although the suppression of the truth comes in many forms, perhaps the greatest error comes in suppressing the Truth of the Gospel message. This correlation is seen even stronger in 2 Thessalonians 2:10, “…and with all wicked (adikia) deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.”
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Are you aware if you are rejoicing in wrongdoing? is a post from: Looking Toward The Future