1 Corinthians 13--The Way of Love

1 Corinthians 13
English Standard Version

The Way of Love
13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

​13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

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Many of us think we are very familiar with this passage and would just read it quickly and assume like many when they read it on its own apart from the rest of the book of 1 Corinthians that this is talking about "love" as we think about it in marriage and romance.  While that kind of personal relationship is part of what we are talking about here, that is not primarily how this passage should be read as then the single person would think "well, I'm not married, so this passage doesn't apply to me."  No, this passage is talking about "the law of love" that we see in the Greatest Commandments--"Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength, and.....love your neighbor as yourself."  We also see Christ say "If you love me, you will keep my commandments," and "By this all men will know you are my disciples, if you love one another."  We also see the converse of this in the epistle of 1 John where we are told that if we say that we love God, but hate our brother that we are a liar and the truth and light are not in us.  (See 1 John chapters 3 and 4 in particular, but also the rest of the book talks about this as a main theme).

Read this chapter now with fresh eyes and see how it deals with the root issues to the problems of sin that are at work in the church in Corinth.  They are selfish, divisive, contentious, resentful, and all the other things that Paul tells them that love is not.  Likewise they are none of the things that God through Paul tells them that love is.  So how is it that these people that call themselves children of God that are supposed to be marked by one supreme character trait of love according to Christ look nothing like the image bearers of God that they are supposed to be?  Simply put, it is quite likely that they are lying to themselves and that the truth and light are not really in them.  If we love God, we will love His people, and we will even love our enemies.  We will love them because God loves them as people that belong to Him or as people that He died for so that they could belong to Him.  We will have mercy and forgiveness to the point of being taken advantage of and abused because that is what Christ did for us and we are to love in the way that we have been loved and in the way in which we want God to love us and to have the kind of grace and mercy for others that we want to be extended to us.

We see the ideas of love and obedience to the Law of God closely connected in both the Old Testament and the New Testament.  As we remember who God is and what He has done for us, it drives us to love Him and to love others (See Exodus 19 and 20 to see how the Law was all about the gospel).

Now we have just talked much about the gifts of the Holy Spirt, and Paul comes back to say that even if he had the giftings that people most desired of tongues and prophecy because they are flashy and he didn't have love, that his words would be as meaningless as the sound of gong or a cymbal used in pagan worship services.  Then Paul says that children are childish and selfish but eventually grow up and become adults and put away childish things as they become mature, and that the church in Corinth (and we too) need to put away selfishness and the flesh and live according to the Spirit which will always be a life full of love--a covenantal love that is sacrificial called agape love.  This is not the love of family or friendship or even husband and wife, but is the love of God that is demonstrated through the gospel of Jesus Christ and it is only through us being made into the very likeness of Christ through the gospel that we are able to love God and love others with this kind of love as the Spirt of God (the Holy Spirit) live in and through us and produces this fruit--the first fruit that we see in the list of the fruit of the Spirit.

Paul says that this kind of love is to be desired far above any worldly wisdom or wealth or power, and it is even more desirable than faith or hope.  It is the defining characteristic of anyone who belongs to God and those who claim to belong to God and show contempt for other people, especially the people of God, are liars for if they belonged to God, then they would reflect His nature and invisible attributes, one of which we know to be this kind of love being described here.

Read this passage again with fresh eyes and see this like the Beatitudes as something that none of us in our own power can be, that only Christ can fulfill fully, and that we can only become by God making us new and letting the Spirit of God live in and through us.  We will one day see God and His perfect love fact to face when we get to heaven, but for the time being we are be reflectors (even if we are imperfect reflectors) of the love of God and we are not to allow ourselves to serve the flesh any more, but as we walk in the love of God (not the world's definition of love), we will naturally become the people that God has called us to be and do those things that God has called us to do.  If we love God, we will love His Law, and will keep His commandments because that will be our nature.  We will walk as Jesus walked as we walk in the Spirit.  So then the answer to all the issues of the Corinthian church are solved by these verses in this one chapter--love God and love others as God has commanded, and everything else should naturally follow, but if you have never been born again, it will be impossible to love God as we love Him because He first loved us and it is because of His love that we are able to love others--even those who are our enemies.