Love is . . .

The last three evenings our congregation has been having meetings with Mr. David Meengs, a missionary/teacher in India. He spoke mostly on conflict resolution, which is his field in India, where he counsels in churches and colleges. His organization, Biblical Counselling Trust of India, publishes a small magazine, the Biblical Counsellor, every ten days. He writes the English, and then his staff translates it into the various Indian languages.
He is a fascinating man doing fascinating work. Absolutely not your typical learned missionary.
Anyway, we have had several interesting evenings of his teaching. On Thursday, his topic was evangelism and Biblical hope, on Friday, repentance, anger, and forgiveness, and tonight, he spoke on 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, the passage on love.
One of the things that struck me most this evening was what he said on the part, "Love is kind." His definition of kindness was so broad, it's really opened my eyes. I'll try to reconstruct a bit from my notes.
Kindness is being sweet and gentle to others in the face of adversity and personal trouble. It is showing respect and honour for our neighbours. Kindness is being nice, the opposite of being nasty. The respect we must show to be kind is on a level with love itself (i.e. Eph. 5:33: "Each of you must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband"). Kindness is protecting others from outward danger, and rebuking them with love in private. Kindness is following the example of Jesus, who "will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets" (Is. 42:2).