1 Corinthians 13:5 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Doth not behave itself unseemly— This is the sixth character, and implies that love is not rude, or willingly offensive to any. It renders to all their due; fear to whom fear, honour to whom honour; courtesy, civility, humanity, to all the world, in their several degrees honouring all men. Good breeding, nay, the highest degree of it, politeness, is defined to be "a continual desire to please, appearing in all the behaviour;" If so, there is none so well-bred as the Christian,—a lover ofall mankind; for he cannot but desire to please all men for their good to edification: and these desires cannot be hid; they will necessarily appear in all his intercourse with man; for his love is without dissimulation: it will shew itself in his whole conversation and actions; yea, and will constrain him, though without guile, to become all things to all men, if by any means he may save some. And in the becoming all things to all men, love, 7thly, Seeketh not its own: In striving to please all men, the lover of mankind has no immediate eye to his own temporal advantage: he covets no man's silver, or gold, or apparel; he desires nothing but the salvation of their souls; nay, he may be said not to seek his own spiritual any more than temporal advantage; for while he is on the full stretch to save their souls from death, he, as it were, forgets himself, he does not think of himself, so long as that zeal for the glory of God swallows him up. See Exodus 32:31-32.Romans 9:3. No wonder that such love, 8thly, is not provoked;— ου παροξυνεται,— The word easily is not in the original. St Paul's words are absolute, love it not provoked; it is not provoked to unkindness towards any one. Occasions indeed will frequently occur, outward provocations of various kinds; but love does not yield to provocation; it triumphs over all, never exasperated and thrown into bitter and implacable resentments: in all trials it looks unto Jesus, its great exemplar, and is more than conqueror in his love. And it prevents a thousand provocations, which would otherwise arise, because, 9thly, it thinketh no evil. Indeed the merciful mancannot avoid knowing many things that are evil; he cannot but see them with his own eyes, and hear them with his own ears; for love does not put out his eyes, so that it is impossible for him not to see that such things are done; neither does it take away his understanding any more than his senses; but ου λογιζεται το κακον, it does not infer evil, where it does not appear; or reason out, or suppose what it has neither seen nor heard. This is what true love absolutely destroys; it tears up root and branch,—all imagining of what we have not known; it casts out all jealousies, all evil surmises, all readiness to believe evil; it is frank, open, unsuspicious; and as it cannot design, so neither does it fear evil.