I.
This week we will focus on passages from two of the Pauline epistles, Romans and 1 Corinthians.

Both passages stress “love.”

After you read both passages, come back to the Romans passage and listen for how love “fulfilled the law.”

II.
Romans 13:8-10 (NRSVue)

Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; you shall not murder; you shall not steal; you shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

1 Corinthians 13:8-13 (NRSVue)

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part, but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see only a reflection, as in a mirror, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love.

III.
Paul tells us “the one who loves has fulfilled the law … love is the fulfilling of the law.”

What does love do that fulfills the law?

How does love take one beyond keeping the commandments?

Maybe we could even ask how love takes us beyond doing and on to being the person that loves.

Can you identify something you “owe” to another person? Can you think of how love can “pay-off” what you owe?

charles
{ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est}