What’s the Score?

[Love] does not act unbecomingly, it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 1 Corinthians 13:5  NASB

Does not take into account – Ou logizetai to kakon [Love] does not take into account a wrong suffered.  The literal translation is “does not count (to itself) evil.”  Here we have two important words.  The first is logizetai, from the verb that means “to reason, account, reckon, impute.”  In the passive, this indicates an action that is turned upon someone, namely, “to count something to somebody, to put to someone’s account.”  In our vernacular, it has the sense of keeping score of someone’s deeds.  This is the same expression that is used as a description of God’s act of imputing righteousness to sinners in the act of forgiveness.  Since we know that this list of predicates of love are the essential characteristics of God Himself, we may gain some appreciation of the power of this term by noting that it is God who first decides not to keep score of wrongs against Him and His holy law.

There is no indication here that any action on the part of God (or of the one displaying God’s love) is motivated by a change in heart, behavior or response of the one forgiven.  The verb is passive.  It is an act turned in upon the subject and has absolutely nothing to do with the status of the one forgiven.  Love demonstrates itself by forgiving the unforgiven prior to any acknowledgment of sin by the other person and without any expectation of repentance by the one who is forgiving.  John captured the entire action of this movement of love when he said, “We love because He first loved us.”  In other words, our demonstration of love is on the same plane when we exercise the choice not to count other’s wrongs simply and only because this is the way that God has chosen to treat us.

Kittel makes it clear that the use of this expression in Pauline literature is pregnant with meaning from the LXX background in contrast with the normal Greek understanding.[1] The distinction is this:  in normal Greek usage, logizetai would have been understood as a principle of enlightened reason worked out in the concrete form of a life action.  But Paul brings to this term the religious sense of judgment and emotional valuation from the Hebrew translation of the LXX.  To this he adds the definitive place of the death and resurrection of Christ, not as a principle of reasonable action but as an absolute judgment of historical fact, a judgment of such profound implications that every other action in life is to be measured by its conformity to this fact.

Because the Greek world viewed the context of logizetai within the realm of pure reason, no Greek would have ever considered appropriate the primary importance Paul places on its pragmatic application here in this passage.  But the Hebrew background finds a natural place for the unfolding of this concept within the context of an event of monumental significance.  Paul takes a Greek word that is properly at home in the realm of highest reason and transports it into a declaration about the foundation of all subsequent events, making it not a lofty ideal held up as a banner for men to seek to emulate but rather a call to action based on the proclamation of God’s judgment on every act as a result of God’s own decision not to hold our evil acts against us.

Love does not keep score, says God.  And who are we to say otherwise.  How many times have we said to someone we claimed to love, “You did this” or “You were wrong” or “You made me do this”?  How many times have we kept track of the personal affronts, the indiscretions, the unsympathetic acts?  A record of wrongs.  Yet God says that love does not count a wrong suffered.  Love is first forgiving before the wrong occurs.  And if God forgives us, how can we allow our love to be tainted by pluses and minuses?  Emotional bank accounts are not found in the institution of love.

Topical Index:  love, score, logizetai, to keep score, 1 Corinthians 13:6