Today we are going to be talking about one of the most well known passages in the Bible that deals with love. 1 Corinthians 13:4-13, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled, where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfections comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in pat; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
This is such a beautiful passage but it is also so miss-understood. It’s one of those passages that we read a weddings, or like today when we’re getting ready to celebrate Valentine’s day. But this chapter is more than something nice to read at weddings, it is an argument against self-centered spirituality. See to understand this chapter you have to understand it’s context. The rule that we quote around here is that the text, without the context is a pretext.
Without the context this passage is a beautiful narrative on love, and it is eloquent enough to stand alone. But when you put it into the proper context, what you have is an even more beautiful passage that shows the true value of love. The first thing you have to do to understand this passage is to look back at 1 Corinthians 12. This chapter deals with the concept of Spiritual gifts and especially the gift of speaking in tongues. In that chapter Paul also writes about the church being a body and that all of us need each other. It is a celebration of our individuality because God made all of us different so that we could all accomplish the different tasks that God has for us. Where we are different we need to celebrate that God has made us so that we can accomplish many tasks for Him not just a few.
But you have to understand that there is a reason that Paul is writing this stuff to the church. The reason that he is writing is because the opposite is happening in the church. People aren’t taking their spiritual gifts and thanking God for them and using them for His glory. People also weren’t looking at others who were different from them and appreciating those differences, with all of the strengths and weaknesses that come from our uniqueness. The exact opposite was happening.
You had people in the church who were putting themselves ahead of others because of the spiritual gifts that they had. The most obvious one of these was tongues but there were others. So Paul begins to remind them that we all of spiritual gifts, if you are a follower of Christ then there are area’s that He is going to gift you in to serve Him with. Because the source is the same, so is the value of the gift. It’s not something that we should compare to other people, because the source is the same and we should use them to put the focus on him.
That is what Paul tries to do in the second part of chapter 12 to remind them of the purpose. You had people saying, my gift is superior to yours therefore you should be like me. By the way if this sounds familiar it’s because it is still happening today. It happens in all churches, you have those people who don’t mind telling you that the church would be better if simply everyone was like them. But that’s not how Paul saw it, and that’s not how God sees it. How do I know that? Simple, if He wanted us all to be the same, He would have made us all the same. He made us all unique and with Paul I will say that we should celebrate that uniqueness.
Then we come To the heart, literally and figuratively of the argument that he makes in chapter 13. The last line of chapter 12 reads, “And now I will show you the most excellent way.” What is that way? Chapter 13 verse 1, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”
Understand what the argument is, it’s that you can have every single spiritual gift, but if you don’t have love, it’s all worthless. To put it in the context, of the entire argument, those people who were worried about how superior they were because of their spiritual gifts. Those people who just knew that life would be easier if only everyone were like them, in the eyes of Paul their real problem wasn’t simply a lack of focus on God, it was a lack of love, and his message to them is that for a follower of Christ, love is the greatest thing we can have an show.
Then to show the superiority of love Paul begins to define what love is. We’re going to see that this explanation not only is beautiful but largely tailored to their issues.
Paul begins, “Love is patient, love is kind.” He begins with a passive and active description of love. Patience is the passive, it was what automatically happens when love is present. When we love someone we automatically give them the benefit of the doubt, we give allowances for their faults and weaknesses. What one person may find annoying another person may find endearing. The difference is love. When we love someone it changes how we act towards them. The greater truth here is that if we live a life of love this won’t be true just to a few select individuals, but it will mark our lives and the way that we treat the people around us. Then there is the matter of kindness. This is an active verb. Kindness is defined as a helpful act. In other words if we live a life of love it will show in the helpful things that we do for other people. So Paul starts by using two words to describe what love is.
Then Paul begins to describe what love is not. The first five things that Paul mentions love is not, are connected to things that he has already told them they need to stop. He begins, by saying that love, “does not envy.” This is a flashback to an earlier verse, 1 Corinthians 3:3 says, “You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Paul’s statement is that you’re still worldly, what does that mean, that their not following Christ. Jealousy is about desiring something for yourself but love is about putting others before yourself.
Then Paul says, “It does not boast.” Again this is ground that he has covered before, 1 Corinthians 4:7, “For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not? In the original argument Paul is saying to them that they don’t have anything to boast about because everything comes from God. But now he carries it a step further and says, beside if you love someone you don’t need to boast around them. Boasting is done to establish your position, but where there is love there is no need to establish your position because you are already secure with those that you love and who love you back. That is the greatest thing about Love it’s not earned so you don’t lose it. That’s why following this service we’re having a banquet of love. Love isn’t just about couples, but about the people of God caring for one another. Outside of God there can be love, but not true love because God is love, He is the purest example of love and only by following Him and seeking to allow Him to make us into His image can we truly love others.
The next thing that Paul tells us love is not, is that it is not “proud,” in the NIV but other translations say that it “is not puffed up.” You understand that pride an emotion and when it’s for a healthy reason it’s a healthy emotion. To Philippians 1, Paul writes, “So that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me.” There are other translations that say, “Your boasting in Christ Jesus, or what you can be proud of may increase.” So when Paul wrote to the Philippians he said, boast in the Lord be proud of what God has done. But then it comes to the Corinthians and in chapter 4 he’s addressing them on the subject of sin and says, and yet you’re proud. The implication is that in the face of their sin, they are proud, in fact so proud that they don’t think that they need to address their sin. And Paul is saying that love isn’t like that, it may be proud of what God does, it may be proud of righteousness but it’s not going to be so proud that it can’t take a look at itself.
Next love is not rude but a better translation is does not shamefully or disgracefully. In other words when you love someone, you won’t do things to shame them or put them down. But in addition when you live a life of love you won’t treat other people that way. In this letter Paul has already discuss the how some Ladies were dressing for worship because it was being done to draw attention to them. He also has discussed how some people were acting when they served communion because those that were affluent had basically taken over serving communion and were using the time, the time when everyone is supposed to be remembering Christ’s sacrifice for us, they were using that time to make those who had little feel bad or inferior. This behavior was not only unacceptable, it was rude, and it was happening in the church and Paul called them out on it. And now here as he’s coming to the end of the letter he says you know what that behavior happens because you don’t have love. You know what’s interesting is that each of these terms shows not just a lack of love, but a lack of security. It’s funny some people say that love is a risk, but if you live without love there is definitely a cost to you and the people around you.
Which brings us to the next term that Paul says love is not, “It is not self seeking.” This is the same term he gave them in 1 Corinthians 10:24, “Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.” Once again he is listing something that love is not, but he has already called them on doing it. The secret of this passage is that this there was nothing wrong with this church that couldn’t be fixed if people would live with love. You know what there’s nothing wrong with this world that can’t be fixed if people will live with love. The issue is that the only way that people can ever really learn to love, and how to live with love is from God the source of love.
Paul tells us two things that love is, five things that it is not, that he has already wrote about them doing, and now he lists two more verbs that are universally excluded as well. In other words Paul is saying, that even though you guys haven’t blatantly done these yet, don’t think about it because their a bad idea too. The first is that it is not easily angered. This is similar to love is patient but a bit more pointed it means that a person who lives with love is not easily provoked to anger. You’ve heard the term “you’re pushing my buttons.’ When love is present a lot of buttons have to be pushed before someone who loves gets angry.
The next term is that ‘it keeps no record of wrongs.” In other words love doesn’t keep score of negative things. This is something that keeps coming up in our passages lately. When someone does something harmful to us, we’re supposed to let it go. Here Paul says, it’s the loving thing to do, but it’s also for our good. I’ll say it again when you relive what someone has done that hurt you in the past you’re inviting that pain right back in to your life as if it just happened. For the sake of love, so that you can live a life of love, let it go.
The next clause is a balanced statement. “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth.” I say this is balanced because they are related, because one is true then the other is true. In fact I think you could understand the statement really well if you replace the “but” with “because”. Love does not delight in evil because it rejoices in the truth. And if you understand this clause you come a long way towards understanding part of the nature of God. So many people can’t understand the gospel and can’t understand Christianity because they don’t get the meaning of this clause. They picture God as the judge up in the sky trying to determine if we’re good enough. We’re not good enough, and that’s okay God already knew that and He sacrificed Himself as payment for our short comings. Why did He do that, because He loves us and in His love this statement is true. God doesn’t delight in the evil that we do but rejoices in the truth, in the things that we do that are with His character. Why does He do that for us, because He loves us, and that is what love does.
After giving us that insight into the character of God, then Paul tells us four things that love always does. Look at them quickly, “love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” These are things that love always does, these are the things that we should do for each other and the way that we should treat each other and best of all these are the things that God does for us. These are the does and don’ts of love. The things that love is and love is not.
Then we have this transitional paragraph that compares love to the spiritual gifts and in Paul’s mind love is greater. That is the opening statement, verse 8, love never fails. It doesn’t mean that there won’t be problems or difficulties, it does mean that those things won’t destroy love. No matter what happens love will stay.
Then he gets really personal. Remember he’s just gotten done talking to them about spiritual gifts, it’s something that they are proud of and then he hits them with, “But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.” In other words you guys have been so proud of you spiritual gifts, but their temporary. At some point they will fade away. It may be with time, it may be with the fading of this life, but everything that we get here on this earth is for a season. But not love, love comes from God and it will remain. Love should be the focus. Because of this, love is the deepest expression of our spiritual relationship with Christ because it is what endures. The motivation for Jesus entire mission here on earth was love. Everything He did was motivated and marked by love. Think of the power He had at His disposal to deal with issues here on earth but He endured for us. Even those who constantly harassed Him, He had the patience to deal with them rather than any of the other options, even on the cross when He asked for God to forgive them, it was out of love.
Then Paul closes with this well known verse, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. But now that we’ve read the context we can fully appreciate the message of these words. The Corinthians wanted to know what was the greatest and most important, and Paul has been answering, his first answer was for us as Christians to understand that our mission is to work together.
And now for the conclusion he tells them that love is the greatest good but only after setting up the reason why. That love fulfills the rest. Because of love faith will be fulfilled. Look at verse 12, “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face.” Today we have faith
in God, we hope in the promises that He has given us, including the ultimate one that one day we will go to be with Him. But because of love one day that promise will be fulfilled, we will no longer believe in what one day will be, because it will be fulfilled.
Because of love hope will become knowledge. Verse 12b, “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” Today we have an idea of what He is like because of what His Word tells us and the way that the Spirit moves in our lives. But one day because of love we will go to live with Him and all will be revealed. We won’t hope that God is all that He says He is because we will truly know Him, and find that He is.
When that day comes, the love of God, which fulfills all, will be what remains. Isn’t it good to know, that at the end of life, at the end of time, at the end of everything love will remain. The love that God has for us, and the love that we have for each other. Have you accepted the love of God into your life? Are you letting God teach you how to love others? If so at the end of life, you will go to be with Him. But love is a gift we have to receive it. If you’ve never invited God to be a part of your life will you let Him in today?
