Intro
Our text today is found in 1 Corinthians 13. After addressing the nine gifts of the Spirit in the first part of 1 Cor. 12, Paul introduced an analogy of the human body to teach these believers the importance of valuing and caring for one another. On the one hand, these Corinthians are doing a good thing. They are operating in the gifts of the Spirit and edifying one another. On the other hand, there are some serious problems with HOW they are doing that. The most fundamental problem has to do with their attitudes toward one another and the way they’re treating each other.
Look with me at the first chapter of this letter. After the greeting, the first thing Paul does is commend them for their zeal in spiritual gifts. 1 Corinthians 1:4-9 “I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus, 5 that you were enriched in everything by Him in all utterance and all knowledge, 6 even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, 7 so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8 who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”i There is nothing negative in those verses. Paul is clearly praising them for operating in the gifts of the Spirit.
He then follows that up by confronting a problem that must be addressed: their conflicts with one another. Verses 10-11: “Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. 11 For it has been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe's household, that there are contentions among you.”
So, on the positive side, these Corinthians were desiring and operating in the charismata, the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit. Paul commends them for that. On the other hand, their relationships with one another were messed up, and it was affecting the quality of their worship. Their attitudes and motives were not right.
So, as Paul addresses the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Cor. 12, he shares truths designed to correct their thinking about these manifestations. In 1 Cor 12:7 he tells them, “The manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all.” If God uses you in a gift, it’s not to exalt you; it is for the benefit of the congregation as a whole. Then, Paul uses the analogy of a human body to teach them to value and care for one another. Paul concludes chapter 12 by encouraging them to keep desiring spiritual gifts and by introducing the subject of love, the only acceptable motive for ministry. I like the way the NIV translates 1 Cor. 12:31: “But eagerly desire the greater gifts. And now I will show you the most excellent way.” That is Paul’s introduction to our text in 1 Cor. 13: “And now I will show you the most excellent way.”
I. First, he shows them the absolute NECESSITY OF LOVE.
First Corinthians 13:1-3: “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging 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, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.”
Paul chooses some activities that are highly esteemed by the Corinthians and by Paul himself to make his point. In each case, he uses the pinnacle of the activity. It’s not just understanding mysteries; it’s understanding “all mysteries and all knowledge.” It’s not just faith to remove a mountain; it’s faith to “remove mountains.” It’s bestowing “all” my goods to feed the poor. The ultimate sacrifice would be to give one’s “body to be burned.” It’s not just tongues of men but of angelsii as well.
Then, he makes a shocking point: All of these are worthless without love. Some people pull out the first activity, tongues, and set it against love, then conclude that tongues are just “sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.” But Paul’s purpose is not to show how useless these activities are. His intent is to show how useless they are WITHOUT LOVE.iii These are parallel statements. So, if I’m going to use these statements to say tongues is useless, then to be consistent, I have to conclude that prophecy and knowledge are useless, faith is useless, and benevolence is useless. Nobody would come to such an absurd conclusion. Paul is saying these highly esteemed activities have no value in the kingdom of God if they are not motivated by love. He wants these Corinthians to understand their spiritual attainments are invalidated when they are operating out of selfish, prideful motives.
Do you remember the story in Matthew 19 when Jesus had a conversation with a Rich Young Ruler about selling all his goods and following Jesus? The man turned the offer down and went away sad. Then, Jesus talked to the disciples about how hard it is for a rich person to enter into the kingdom. In Matt. 19:24, He told them, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." What was their response to that teaching? Verse 25 says, “They were greatly astonished, saying, ‘Who then can be saved?’"
That is a fair portrait of what I feel as I apply these verses to my own life. How much of my religious activity is genuinely motivated by love alone? How much of it has a selfish component in it? When we hold up the mirror of 1 Cor. 13, what do we see?
Does this explain the anemic condition of the Church today? Being in the ministry for many years, I have seen a lot of religious activity that is not motivated by love. The leaders may put that spin on it, but when the rubber meets the road, most people are taking care of number one. If they can help a few people along the way, fine, but they are, to a large extent, promoting themselves. Personal kingdom building can be seen in denominations. Personal kingdom building is evident in most local church organizations. If you don’t think that’s the case, go try to get something from them that has no potential for ultimately benefitting them.
In recent years, I have been tested on this personally. There is a mutual relationship between a pastor and a congregation. The pastor feeds and cares for the congregation, and the congregation supports the pastor. That is a mutually beneficial relationship. During the last four or five years, there have been a number of people calling on me for help who attend and support other churches. It is a one-way relationship. They receive counseling and prayer from me and give nothing to this ministry. My temptation is to say, “Get your pastor to do these things for you.” But my heart says that is not love. Love gives simply because it cares for the wellbeing of the other person. Love does not ask, “What’s in it for me?” Love is its own reward. Love rejoices in the victory it brings to the person in need.
As I have considered the latter half of 1 Cor. 12 and 1 Cor. 13, I realize the importance of what Paul said in Gal 6:10: “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.” Are you doing good to others, even when there is absolutely nothing in it for you?
The fact that I have struggled with these things tells me something painful to admit. I have a long way to go in my spiritual development. This is what Paul wanted the Corinthians to see. They were operating in spiritual gifts. That’s good, but that’s not the ultimate. It’s not a matter of spiritual gifts or love. It should be spiritual gifts operated in love.
II. Then Paul shows them the NATURE OF LOVE.
First Corinthians 13:4-7: “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
Paul does not give an abstract definition of love, as we might expect him to. Instead, he uses 15 verbs to describe what love does and does not do. That in itself says something profound about love. Love is not about what I feel. It is not about how sentimental I am. It is all about what I choose to do! James makes a similar point about faith in his epistle. James 2:18: “But someone will say, ‘You have faith, and I have works.’ Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” Our text is essentially saying: “Show me your love without your works, and I will show you my love by my works.” James 2:20: “But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?”
Talk is cheap. Sentimental emotion is cheap. Action is the name of the game when it comes to faith and when it comes to love.
We know what love is by watching what God does. John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” There was positive action expressed in God’s love for the world. He did not just sit back in heaven and have tender feelings about mankind. God so loved that He “gave.” Giving is the fundamental activity of love. Taking is the fundamental activity of the flesh. Are you a giver or a taker? Some people have such an entitlement mentality that taking is a way of life. They never think about how they can give to others. And they are upset if people don’t give to them according to their expectations. If this were only in the world, it would be understandable. But it is soundly in the Church as well.
Paul starts out talking about TWO THINGS LOVE DOES.
First, love “suffers long.” It takes wrong graciously. It keeps on enduring things others would not tolerate—not because it is afraid to do anything about it, but because it chooses not to retaliate. I’m not talking about the consequences that we deserve. I’m talking about wrongful treatment we don’t deserve. First Peter 2:20: “For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God.” He goes on to talk about Jesus’s behavior,:“who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously.” Love “suffers long.”
Paul is now talking about the fruit of the Spirit. He has addressed the gifts, but the gifts must be accompanied by fruit. Not fruit, instead of gifts, but gifts operating in ways that bear the fruit of the Spirit: spiritual character, as well as spiritual manifestations. Galatians 5:22-23: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control.” All the words Paul uses in those verses are just different aspects of the one fruit, love.
Secondly, love “is kind.” Love is not passive toward others. Have you ever wanted to retreat from the Church and from society and just take care of yourself? That is not love. Love actively seeks ways to help others. Phillips translation says, “it looks for a way to be constructive.” It finds practical ways to make life better for someone else. Love expresses its kindness regardless of the way the other person is responding. Love is not dependent upon the response. Rom. 12:20: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; If he is thirsty, give him a drink.”
Then Paul lists EIGHT THINGS LOVE DOES NOT DO. What is Paul doing here? He is addressing Corinthian behaviors that need to change. There is a contrast here between what is and what ought to be. Do any of these suggest needed changes in your life?
(1) Love does “not envy.” Envy is a cruel condition. According to Prov. 14:30, it can literally make you sick. Instead of rejoicing with those who rejoice, envy grieves over others' success. It wants what they have and wants them to not have it.
(2) “Love does not parade itself.” NIV says, “does not boast.” I wonder how much of this was going on in the exercise of the gifts at Corinth. Ministers showing off their gifting, rather than seeking to genuinely meet the needs of others. Jesus said the Pharisees did what they did “to be seen of men.”iv Are we overly concerned about what others think? How much of our religious activity is for appearance's sake? Why we do something is more important than what we do. Paul’s description of love punches holes in superficial religion.
(3) “Is not puffed up.” Pride is the root sin behind all other sins. It began in the heart of Lucifer and has infected the human race. Phillips translates this: “Nor does it cherish inflated ideas about its own importance.” Remember Paul’s teaching in the last chapter about members in the Body . “The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you….”v It’s an inflated idea of its own importance that would cause the eye to say that. That statement smacks of self-sufficiency. Yet every member is dependent on the other members for its proper functioning. Romans 12:3: “For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.”
(4) “Does not behave rudely.” Is mannerly and considerate of others. The Greek word means “to act disgracefully or shamefully.”vi The KJV gets close to that. Paul is moving toward correcting some rude behavior in the next chapter. There, he will teach them not to hog the show and defer to one another. In 1 Cor. 14:27, he will teach: “If anyone speaks in a tongue, let it be by two or at the most by three, each in turn, and let one interpret.” Then in verse 31: “But if anything is revealed to another who sits by, let the first keep silent.” Paul is laying a foundation for issuing these corrections.
(5) “Does not seek its own.” The NIV is a little clearer: “is not self-seeking.” This is really the heart of the matter. The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is selfishness. A good definition of love is that it seeks the highest good for all.vii It’s not just concerned with its own desires. It is just as concerned for the needs of others. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”viii
The wonderful thing about God is that He is not selfish. In the Trinity, God exists as three persons going out in love toward each other. That love has also gone out to you and me. Love identifies with and seeks the best for the other person.
In Philippians 2, Paul presents Jesus as the example of how we ought to think and behave. He talks about how Jesus humbled Himself, became a man, and continued to humble Himself even to the death of the cross. Love motivated Him to do that. Love empowered Him to seek our welfare even at great personal cost. In Phil. 2:2-4, we have Paul’s exhortation leading up to that example: ”Fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. 3 Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. 4 Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.” When people are operating through selfish ambition and conceit, there will be conflicts. That was happening in Corinth. When people walk in humility and seek not just their own interests but the interests of others as well, then there can be unity and accord. Jeremiah gave some good advice to Baruch: “And do you seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them….” (45:5).
Most of the American Church understands forensic theology. They understand the legal standing we have in Christ. The Reformation has passed that wonderful teaching down. However, most do not understand what Paul is teaching in our text. Salvation is not just a legal judgment declared in heaven. It is a deliverance from selfishness into love. I have known Christians who were prominent in church and just as selfish at the core as any unbeliever. They are very religious. Like the Corinthians, they even operate in spiritual gifts. They know all the religious jargon. “We just need to pray about that;” “Praise the Lord;” “God bless you, brother,” but where the rubber meets the road, they are totally about their own self-interest. They will lie, cheat, steal, whatever it takes to come out on top. On the surface, it looks good. But there is something quite rotten underneath that surface. It is selfishness rather than love. And Paul is saying that it is just religious junk. If it has not changed your core way of relating to other people, your religion is vain. Salvation is not just a legal transaction; it is also deliverance from self-absorption.
(6) “Is not provoked.” NIV says, “is not easily angered.” Phillips translates it: “is not touchy.” How thick is your skin? What does it take to upset you? A good measure of spiritual maturity is what it takes to offend you.” I’ve known people who stopped going to church because somebody said something that hurt their feelings—touchy, easily angered, easily offended. When we’ve been trained in humility, we simply say to ourselves, “They don’t know the half of it. If they knew all the shortcomings in me that God knows about, then they would really have something to talk about.” Pride says, “How dare you say that about me?”
(7) “Thinks no evil.” Does not keep a record of wrongs done to it. Is able to forgive and let it go. 1 Peter 4:8: “And above all things have fervent love for one another, for ‘love will cover a multitude of sins.’”
(8) “Does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth.” These two statements complement one another and help explain the other. This statement anchors love in truth. We are plagued with a false idea of love that we got from the world rather than God. The world equates love with tolerance. If you confront my sin, you are not being loving. If you are not tolerant of my wickedness, you don’t have the love of God. The world’s definition of love totally ignores truth, as revealed in Scripture. The Bible says, “God is love.” This defines God’s way of being. It also says, “God is light.” Light in Scripture is equated with moral purity. “God is light” also defines God’s way of being. Neither negates the other.ix Each amplifies our understanding of God. God’s love seeks the wellbeing of everyone. But it does not compromise the holy nature of God. It does not disregard moral uprightness.
God is longsuffering, but He is not tolerant. He was longsuffering toward Sodom, but He was not tolerant of Sodom. Biblical love is not indulgent toward sin. It is redemptive. It is rooted and grounded in truth. Jesus is commended because He loved righteousness and hated iniquity (Heb. 1:9). Love “does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth.” Paul Hamar wrote, “Even love cannot rejoice when truth is denied.”x In 1 Cor. 5, these Corinthians had rejoiced in their tolerance of iniquity. Paul corrected their tolerance of iniquity. Paul was redemptive in that situation but not tolerant.
Paul concludes his description of love in verse 7: Love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” NIV says it “always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres.” It never loses hope in a person or in a circumstance, no matter how bad it may look. I have dealt with several young couples who came to a place where at least one of them said, “I have fallen out of love with my spouse.” If it’s this kind of love, you don’t fall out of it. It perseveres. Most of the time, the problem is that it was not love to begin with. It was “I like what I get from you.” Then when I no longer get from you what I want, I move on. Yet that was called love. It does not fit the description Paul gives here.
So, Paul defines love using 15 verbs in the present tense. The present tense in Greek depicts a continuous action. Paul is talking about lifestyle, not occasional acts of benevolence. Spirituality without love loses its value. Benevolence without love, is nothing in the eyes of God. Even martyrdom is worthless if it is not motivated by love. Paul is correcting some of the unloving behavior these Corinthians are indulging in. To benefit from Paul’s teaching, we too must take his instruction to heart. Our religious activities are counted as nothing if they are not motivated by love. There may be some big surprises at the Judgement Seat of Christ. Based on the first three verses of this chapter, there may be more wood, hay, and stubblex burned up at the Judgement Seat of Christ than we once thought. One way we can apply these verses to our own lives is to substitute our own name where Paul uses the word love, and then let the Holy Spirit speak to our hearts out of that. I want to close by doing that. I will read my name, but you read your name.
“Though Richard speaks with the tongues of men and of angels, but has not love, Richard has become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though Richard has the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though Richard has all faith, so that he could remove mountains, but has not love, he is nothing. 3 And though Richard bestows all his goods to feed the poor, and though he gives his body to be burned, but has not love, it profits him nothing.”
4 “Richard suffers long and is kind; Richard does not envy; Richard does not parade himself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek his own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
ENDNOTES:
i All Scripture quotes are in the New King James Version unless indicated otherwise.
ii Although Paul is expressing the pinnacle of each activity, he is using real activities in each of the three conditional clauses. For an explanation of why the Corinthians, and probably Paul, thought tongues of angels was a reality, and not just hyperbole, see Gordon Fee, The New International Commentary of the New Testament: The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987) p. 630.
iii David E. Garland, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: 1 Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003 ) p. 609.
iv Matthew 6:5
v 1 Cor. 12:21
vi Godon D.Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 638.
vii My first exposure to this definition was in Charles Finney’s writings concerning the benevolence of God. I have found it very helpful in making practical decisions.
viii Matthew 22:39. Rom 13:10, “Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”
ix For an exposition of this, see Richard W. Tow, Authentic Christianity: Studies in 1 John (Bloomington, IN: WestBow Press, 2019), 248-262.
x Paul A. Hamar, The Radiant Commentary of the New Testament: The Book of First Corinthians (Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing, 1950) p. 116.
xi 1 Cor. 3:12-15; 2 Cor. 5:9-11
