"Giving Paul the benefit of the doubt, should we not rather say there is a kind of gain that is wrong to be motivated by (hence, “Love seeks not its own”), as well as a kind of gain that is right to be motivated by (hence, “If I do not have love, I gain nothing”)? Edwards says the proper gain to be motivated by is the happiness one gets in the act of love itself or in the good achieved by it. CAN DISINTERESTED LOVE REJOICE IN THE TRUTH? The second clue that Edwards is on the right track is verse 6: “[Love] does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.” Love is not a bare choice or mere act. It involves the affections. It does not just do the truth. Nor does it just choose the right. It rejoices in the way of truth. So Micah 6:8 is not a strained parallel at all: We must “love kindness”! But if love rejoices in the choices it makes, it cannot be disinterested. It cannot be indifferent to its own joy! To rejoice in an act is to get joy from it. And this joy is “gain.” It may be that there is much more gain than this, or that this joy is in fact the firstfruits of an indestructible and eternal joy. At this point, though, the least we can say is that Paul does not think the moral value of an act of love is ruined when we are motivated to do it by the anticipation of our own joy in it and from it. If it were, then a bad man who hated the prospect of loving could engage in pure love, since he would take no joy in it; while a good man who delighted in the prospect of loving could not love, since he would “gain” joy from it and thus ruin it. Therefore, 1 Corinthians 13:5 (“Love seeks not its own”) does not stand in the way of the thesis that the pursuit of pleasure is an essential motive for every good deed. In fact, surprisingly, the context supports it by saying that “love rejoices with the truth” and by implying that one should be vigilant in love so as not to lose one’s “gain”—the gain of joy that comes in being a loving person, both now and forever."


Piper, John (2011-01-18). Desiring God, Revised Edition: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist (pp. 114-115). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

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