Love – the best gift of all
13
📚Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love 📖, I have become sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 2 📚And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. 13:2 Paul now speaks of greater gifts than that of tongues, the greater gifts he told believers to desire (1 Cor 12:31). But without love all of them together do not make a person anything of real worth. Love (and not some spiritual gift or other) is the greatest evidence that we are God’s people, and that we have been baptized in the Holy Spirit. Love is the one manifestation of the Spirit that should appear in every believer’s life.⚜
3 📚And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profits me nothing.
13:3 Is it possible without love to give away all one possesses or sacrifice oneself? Yes. One may do it thinking to gain merit with God, or from fear of hell, or from dedication to one’s religion or ideals. Many are deceived about all this. They think that by what they call good works or works of merit they can earn salvation. But it is all quite useless. In God’s eyes so-called good works done without divine love, without this unselfish love for God and man, are not good works at all, and may even be called, in one sense, bad works, because of bad motives.⚜
4 📚Love is patient 📖 and is kind 📖. Love does not envy 📖. Love does not promote itself 📖, is not puffed up 📖, 5 📚does not behave rudely 📖, is not self-seeking 📖, is not easily provoked, does not impute evil 📖, 6 📚does not rejoice in wickedness, but rejoices in the truth,
13:6 Love, divine love, is not weak, wishy-washy, or sentimental about wrongdoing. It does not compromise with evil. It cannot smile when wickedness appears. “Does not rejoice” suggests the opposite – love grieves at all wrongdoing. It’s greatest joy comes when truth triumphs. Love and truth are great companions. Here truth is put as the opposite of evil. Evil has to do with darkness, lies, deceit, and suppression of God’s truth (John 3:19-20; Rom 1:18; 2 Thess 2:10, 12). The truth Paul here speaks of has to do with light, with reality, with God. It is the truth of which Christ is the embodiment (John 14:6). If we do not rejoice in this truth we should not vainly imagine that we have the sort of love Paul describes. And without it what are we?⚜
7 📚bears 📖 all things, believes 📖 all things, hopes 📖 all things, endures 📖 all things.
13:4-7 What Paul gives us in words about the nature of love we can see perfectly lived out in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. God is love (1 John 4:8), and Christ is God incarnate and therefore love incarnate. In His life of love He is the great example for all believers.⚜
8 📚Love never fails. But if there are prophecies, they will fail; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will vanish away 📖. 9 📚For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. 10 📚But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be ended. 11 📚When I was a child I spoke like a child, I understood like a child, I thought like a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things.
13:11 Perhaps he means the whole life of believers on earth is like a childhood. Only after Christ’s return will they be fully mature. But there seems to be at least a hint that even now we should not act childishly in the matter of love and spiritual gifts – see 1 Cor 14:20.⚜
12 📚For now we see through a glass, darkly 📖, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know even as also I am known.
13:8-12 The meaning is that love, “agape”, will go on forever. God is love and only those who love will be with Him in eternity. Some other things which were good and useful as Paul wrote will pass away. By tongues, prophecies and knowledge he seems to be referring to the spiritual gifts seen in 1 Cor 12:8-10, but his meaning may possibly be wider.
Some scholars think he means those gifts will pass away at the completion of the New Testament (“that which is perfect”) – until then the gifts (the imperfect) were needed because the Church did not have God’s full revelation of truth. Afterwards the gifts were not needed and so passed away. They think the gifts were useful only during the childhood of the Church (v 11), but not now during the times of its maturity.
This interpretation seems unlikely to the author of these notes. Verse 12 seems to put the time of “what is perfect” at the end of this age, or when believers are face to face with Christ in heaven, and not at the completion of the New Testament. The time of “perfection” is a time when they shall “know” even as Christ now knows them. This did not take place at the completion of the New Testament.⚜
13 📚And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
13:13 These three are pre-eminent in the life of the Church and the individual believer – far more important than any spiritual gift. Is it surprising that Paul says love is greater than faith or hope? Faith is necessary for our very salvation (John 3:36). Hope is the expectation that God will fulfill His promises and it is a vital part of the Christian life (Rom 8:24-25).
How is love greater than these? Faith takes, love gives, and it is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35). Faith is like a hand that receives, love is the great thing it receives. Hope is similar to faith and expects good for oneself, love seeks the good of others. Faith and hope are means to an end, love is the end. That which does most for the common good is the greatest and best, and love does this (1 Cor 8:1). Love and love alone causes believers to do what Paul said they should do in 1 Cor 10:24; and 10:31.
After studying this chapter one important question remains – how do we get this “agape”, this unselfish love for God and people? See the answer in Gal 5:22; 1 John 4:7, 19; Rom 5:5. Though this love comes from God, believers must yield to it, obey it, and put it into practice (1 Cor 14:1).⚜