Let Love Lead Series

SPIRITUAL GROWTH ENHANCERS

REF: 013

1 Corinthians 13:13, CSB: "Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love--but the greatest of these is love."

LET LOVE LEAD

Christianity is built on three strong characters. These great characters form the basis of the Christian ministry. Without faith, hope and love, Christianity is bogus and absurd.

There is no way Christianity will make any reasonable sense without the foundation of these three strong characters.

In this passage, Paul responds to the Corinthians' over-emphasis on certain spiritual gifts by showing them that all gifts are worthless and senseless if not practised through godly love.

The apostle Paul insists that love is greater even than these two bedrock virtues. Any reason to that? Continue reading with me as we look at this critical textual analysis constructively.

With this phrase, Paul wraps up this section explaining why godly, self-sacrificing agape love is required to fully express spiritual gifts.

Love is the foundation for healthy Church growth and the hallmark for the practice of our spiritual gifts. The absence of love is hatred and hatred breeds the division that stampedes the growth of the local church.

The King James Version (KJV) of Proverbs 10:12 reads, "Hatred stirreth up strifes: But love covereth all sins".

Let us explore the various versions to ascertain a fuller understanding.

Proverbs 10:12 — The New International Version (NIV) "Hatred stirs up conflict, but love covers over all wrongs".

Proverbs 10:12 — New Living Translation (NLT) "Hatred stirs up quarrels, but love makes up for all offenses".

Proverbs 10:12 — New Century Version (NCV) "Hatred stirs up trouble, but love forgives all wrongs".

Proverbs 10:12 — GOD’S WORD Translation (GW) "Hate starts quarrels, but love covers every wrong".

Proverbs 10:12 — The Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) "Hatred stirs up conflicts, but love covers all offenses".

Proverbs 10:12 — New International Reader’s Version (NIrV) "Hate stirs up fights. But love erases all sins by forgiving them".

We all sin, we all go wrong, we all make mistakes, we all steps on the toes of others — it happens. However, love wins in the battle of hatred, sin, wrong and evil, so in everything you do, let love lead. Act with love!

To err is human, to forgive is divine. So they say and beautiful and sweet is the phrase. It refreshingly travels across the tongue like a river when mentioning it. But without the virtue of love in operation you cannot forgive your brother's sins.

This is because forgiveness is divine and so is love. God is loving and forgiving, always loving us and forgiving our sins. Love and forgiveness is God's own very nature. The Bible tells us that our God is a Spirit. That means He's divine. Therefore forgiveness and loving as God's very own nature are an acts of divinity.

Loving your brothers and sisters in Christ will help you to live a gracious and faithful life. Nothing can come between you and the love of God. When times get tough, remember that. His love is available to you always.

To reciprocate this unending love of God, you must continue to let love lead in your day to day confrontation of all persons.

The Lord is the ultimate form of love and loyalty. He forgives and cares about His people even when they make mistakes. His love should be modeled towards everyone in your life.

The Bible warns a lot about those who breed hatred, division and strife in the Lord's Church. A Church is unhealthy when its members are full of hatred for themselves.

Such a Church will never please God. Hatred fuels bitterness, gossips and lies. The end results of these unhealthy fruits breeds troubles, uncertainties and divisions in the Christian Church.

Paul's bottom line in this chapter is that, of course, faith and hope are great and essential tools for Christianity. But love is greater even than faith and hope.

Undoubtedly, spiritual gifts are essential for the church to grow, but the thing is, the Corinthians had put too much emphasis on them as evidence of personal glory or achievement.

The gifts must be applied with love, or they become meaningless, hypocritical or even destructive.

Does this suggest that faith and hope are less important of a value in Christianity? That's a very brilliant but dicey question.

The transliteration and translation of this phrase by Paul has been misconstrued and turned into a grotesque subject leading some Christians to conclude that faith and hope is of less value in Christianity. Let me quickly rush in to correct the misconceptions surrounding these textual glib.

A baker will tell you that the critical elements of bread are yeast, water, flour, and salt.

A cosmetic scientist will also tell you that the critical elements of good quality soap are base, salt, colorant, parfum and water. But among these five, water is the most essential element. In the same way, a baker will say that the critical ingredients of bread are yeast, flour, salt and water. But water is the most crucial of all.