What Is Love?

What Is Love? offers a concise, accessible study of 1 Corinthians 13, exploring what the Bible teaches about the nature, priority, and practice of love in the Christian life.

Dr. R.C. Sproul guides readers through the Apostle Paul’s teaching on love, beginning with its supreme importance among spiritual gifts and virtues and then examining each attribute of love that Paul describes. Sproul sets the passage in its original context—an admonition to the Corinthian church, where believers were elevating spectacular spiritual gifts above the deeper virtue of love—and draws out its implications for Christians today.

Across fourteen chapters, Sproul addresses love’s patience, kindness, humility, selflessness, truthfulness, endurance, and permanence, showing how each attribute reflects the perfect love of God Himself. He contrasts the biblical vision of love with sentimental or cultural substitutes and calls readers to honest self-examination. The booklet concludes by connecting love to Christian maturity, urging believers to move beyond spiritual childishness and to pursue the fruit of the Spirit as the mark of genuine growth.

This booklet is part of the Crucial Questions series published by Ligonier Ministries.

Key Themes

• The priority of love over spiritual gifts in the life of the church
• The attributes of love as described in 1 Corinthians 13
• God as the source and standard of perfect love
• The connection between love, humility, and Christian maturity
• The permanence of love among the abiding virtues of faith, hope, and love

Featured Quotes

“We are far too easily satisfied with a sentimental, maudlin, romantic, or superficial understanding of love.”

“It’s because God is eminently trustworthy that we can believe everything He says.”