Song 35

Love’s Excelling Way

(1 Corinthians 13)

1. God is love and therefore bids us

Walk in love’s excelling way,

Letting love of God and neighbor

Prompt all things we do and say.

E’en though we had faith and knowledge,

Gifts of tongues and prophecy,

Yet if love itself were lacking,

We would simply nothing be.

2. We may spend much time in preaching,

Persecution too endure;

Yet what profit would it bring us

If our motives were not pure?

Love is gentle, kind, long-suff’ring;

Not ill-mannered does it act,

Does not brag and is not jealous,

Uses theocratic tact.

3. Love is never hard, resentful,

In what’s bad takes no delight.

It is strong, all things enduring,

And takes joy in what is right.

Faith and hope and love continue

As we serve our God above;

But the way that’s most excelling

Is the godlike way of love.