“Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;” (1 Corinthians 13:5 KJV)
“…Thinketh no evil…” literally to take an inventory or estimate. The NIV says “it keeps no record of wrongs.” Why would love not keep a running tab of how it has been wronged? Why would it not put an estimate together of what needs to be done to reconcile something? Is love just gullible and unable to learn from past history? Or has it in fact seen history with a greater clarity and better understands both it’s small stature in it and has come to realize that our own track record has left longer skid marks than the other person’s has? Maybe neither. Could it be that love by it’s very nature has no use for an inventory or an estimate of evil? What could provoke us better than an itemized recollection of evil? What would cause us to seek our own and become more self centered; rather than less? Thinking on evil, past or present, binds us. It takes movable living flesh and turns it into hard stone. Instead of a statue coming to life, it is a life turning into a statue.
It begs an interesting concept. In Revelation 20:12 the books are opened. It’s that final judgement at which all the dead, great and small, are held accountable. For all the works that people are ultimately judged for, it didn’t really matter. What matters is if your name is found in the book of life. It gets in that book by a trust in Jesus. The very essence of love.
“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” (1 Corinthians 13:11 KJV)