START WITH SCRIPTURE:
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
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OBSERVE:
The “Love Chapter” of 1 Corinthians is a lyrical interlude between Paul’s discussion of the Body of Christ and the gifts of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12), and his more detailed directions on how some of the spiritual gifts (prophecy, tongues, discernment of tongues) are applied in the church (1Corinthians 14).
He is underscoring the vital truth that love is the unsurpassable spiritual gift, above all others. He has ended his list of the spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12 by saying this:
But strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way (1 Corinthians 12:31).
Paul’s celebration of the gift of love is divided into three sections:
- Love is the essential, non-negotiable characteristic of Christianity (verses 1-3)
- The defining characteristics of love (verses 4-7)
- The enduring and unsurpassable nature of love (verses 8-13)
For the sake of context, we remember that Paul is writing to a church that was still “opening” their spiritual gifts, so to speak. And, like the children in the faith that they were, some of them were beginning to feel a sense of competition and superiority. Some felt that they were more elite as Christians because they had certain gifts that others did not (see 1 Corinthians 4:6-8).
So, Paul is insistent that love is the vital gift that trumps all others, and makes all others work together for the good of all.
In verses 1-3, Paul compares great feats of spiritual gifts, knowledge and sacrifice with the power of love, and concludes that without love these accomplishments are nothing.
In the second section, verses 4-7, Paul defines love not as a dictionary might define it, but according to its characteristics in action:
Love is patient; love is kind.
But he also defines love by what it is not:
love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
He ends this section with soaring rhetoric that stresses the universal, transcendent power of love:
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Finally, in verses 8-13, Paul focuses on the enduring, even eternal, nature of love:
Love never ends.
Without exception, all of the spiritual gifts will eventually become obsolete, because they will not be needed — except for love.
Some of the gifts are for the purposes of strengthening the church right now, in this interim time — prophecies, tongues, even knowledge. But:
when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.
Paul compares these gifts to the developmental process of growing up:
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.
And then, in one of the most profound verses in this passage, he says:
For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
Knowledge and faith and hope — undeniably important gifts — are only provisional. They are needed now among Christians and in the church. But when the End of the Age has arrived, knowledge will be perfected, faith will become sight, and hope will be fulfilled.
Knowledge and faith and hope are like looking in a mirror. What is seen in the mirror is not reality, but is a copy of reality. Seeing face to face is the perspective of one who has turned to face reality.
Of the three great Christian virtues, love is supreme:
And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
APPLY:
No doubt this passage is one that is frequently chosen for weddings, even by couples who may otherwise be unacquainted with the Bible. This can be a good thing, reminding these couples about the centrality of love in their relationships.
However, this “Love Chapter” has almost nothing to do with romantic love, and everything to do with the kind of sacrificial love that is modeled most dramatically in Christ.
This passage is inspiring, but it is also daunting. Who can love so purely and sacrificially that all other gifts and accomplishments are completely eclipsed?
Who can love with such abandon that there is no ego or self-assertion?
As an example, try this exercise. Substitute your own name for each blank below, and ask yourself whether it is truly accurate of you:
_____is patient; _____ is kind; _____ is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. _____ does not insist on ______ own way; _____is not irritable or resentful; ______ does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. _____ bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
If this little exercise doesn’t bring conviction by the Holy Spirit, the reader is either not entirely honest, not terribly self-aware, or a candidate for immediate canonization!
But we can take comfort. It is not up to us to love in this way in our own power. This kind of love is empowered by God’s love working in us:
I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love (Ephesians3:16-17).
The source of the love described in “The Love Chapter” derives from the indwelling power of God’s Spirit through Christ.
RESPOND:
There is an aspect of this passage that reaches me even beyond the obvious eloquence about the supremacy of love.
As one who reads about, studies on, and broods over mysterious theological questions on a daily basis, I often find myself simply perplexed and overwhelmed .
I find great peace in this verse:
For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
The now is obviously the temporal present world in which we live, with all of its labyrinthine confusion. And then is the eternity that it is to come. This is what Martin Luther meant when he said he had two dates on his calendar — today and THAT day.
The imagery of the mirror reminds me of Plato’s famous allegory of the cave, where the men are chained to a wall in a cave and can only see the shadows from the light outside the cave. The shadows reflect the Reality of the Forms that are outside the cave.
The mirror in 1 Corinthians 13 reflects imperfectly the Reality of God’s Kingdom, because the mirror represents our own insufficient understanding and experience. But when God’s Reality is made manifest, then:
we will see face to face.
And how wonderful, how marvelous, that we will know God’s love fully, even as God’s love has fully known us!
That’s when all the questions will be answered, and all our shallow answers questioned. As C.S. Lewis is alleged to have said,
The most commonly heard word in heaven will be “Oh!”
Lord, I confess that the only way that I can even remotely approach the kind of love that you ask of me is if you love through me. I haven’t the capacity in myself. But I love because you first loved me. Amen.
PHOTO:
I took this photo during one of my daily walks on the bike trail in Searcy, Arkansas.
SOAR Lectionary Bible Study 