I. "Love envieth not." Envy is the shadow of jealousy, apes its form and mimics its movements, but is constructed out of more airy material and clothed in darker garb. The jealous man grudges another advantages which he claims for his own; the envious man, advantages which he never dreams of as his own. Jealousy would do harm for self's sake; envy, for mere harm's sake. So the jealousy is the more selfish and human; envy, the more abandoned and diabolical. Christian love envieth not.
II. "Love vaunteth not itself." This quality is expressed in the original by a rare and remarkable word, the exact meaning of which it is somewhat difficult to assign. "Displayeth not itself" would be nearer the point. He who would love must be self-renouncing. All true love is a self-sacrifice where love is general; self-seeking cannot be general also. But with those who love display, self-seeking is general and unfailing. Self is ever before them as an object to be served, and to be surrounded by a halo of the good opinions of others. Love neither claims honour to self where others interfere, nor is solicitous for that honour in general.
III. Love is not puffed up, not only does not exhibit self, but has not any high thoughts of self at all. If we would possess this first Christian grace, we must study and strive and pray that the all-powerful force of God's spirit may dwell and rule in our hearts, and obliterate that vanity and self-regard from which we are never safe under the influence of merely this world's benevolence.
IV. "Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own." Christian love is on all occasions mindful of apparently slight proprieties of tone and manner and behaviour. There is no self-display, there is no self-merit, there is no unseemly behaviour, just because there is no self-seeking in the character.
H. Alford, Sermons,vol. vii., p. 130.
References: 1 Corinthians 13:4-6. S. Pearson, Christian World Pulpit,vol. viii., p. 1; Homiletic Quarterly,vol. iv., p. 318.