1 Corinthians 13
OGC**Butler’s Comments
Chapter Thirteen THE PROBLEM OF MAINTAINING LOVE IN THE MIDST OF DIVERSITY (Miraculous Gifts)
IDEAS TO INVESTIGATE:**
Why does Paul assume some of the Corinthians might not have love?
What is love? Who has authority to define love?
Why would the miraculous gifts pass away?
To whom does the analogy of childhood and manhood apply?
Why is love greater than faith and hope?
APPLICATIONS:
If God said he would grant you one wish, either the supernatural power to predict the future, or the trials and tribulations that would help you love your enemies like David or Jesuswhich would you wish?
What do you think this chapter has to say to those today who insist the church, and Christians, need to have miraculous gifts of tongues, healing, prophecy, etc.?
Do you really believe that just plain, old, Christian love is the most important thing for Christ’s church today, or ever?
Do you think the church has it?
How do you think the church, or Christians, may get it?
Do you know people who believe that Christian love accepts all thingstrue and false, right and wrong?
Where do you think you might improve your agape-love-life?
Do you think the church today is more mature (less childlike) than the church of the first century? How?
Is love the most important virtue you wish to cultivate in your Christian experience?
May agape-love be cultivated? In what way?
APPREHENSIONS:
What is agape-love? How is it different from other aspects of love?
Why are all Christian gifts and Christian actions hollow without love?
May a Christian do an act of love without feeling like it?
What is kindness?
What does courtesy have to do with Christian love?
Why were miraculous gifts destined to pass away?
When did miraculous gifts pass away?
What is the perfect that was to come?
When did the church see in a mirror, dimly?
When did the church see face to face?
Special Study LOVE IS A MANY-SPLENDORED THING
LOVE is a many-splendored thing. So says a popular song title. But no popular song can really plumb the depths of love’s splendor.
But what is love? Love is not self-defining. This is the supreme fallacy of situation ethics, which says do the most loving thing in every situation. We must go to the Word of God for precept and example. And 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 is not the only Biblical definition of love.
Some will say, Love is concern, but how do you explain the many hungry people whom Jesus did not feed; the many lame He did not heal? Must a concerned love always be manifested according to our concept of concern? Some will say, Love is giving, but how do you explain Jesus-’ rebuke of Judas when he suggested that the precious ointment Mary had poured upon Jesus could have been sold and given to the poor? Must a giving love always be manifested in the way the world thinks? Some will say, Love is speaking pleasantly, but how do you explain the words Jesus spoke to the Pharisees, and sometimes to His disciples, which were harsh, demanding, and rebuking? Must love always be communicated in such a manner as to please the hearer? Love is many-faceted. There is more to love than often meets the spiritual eye. I hope to present you three oft-unseen facets of the brilliance of God-like love, agape love. Love is discerning, demanding, deliberate.
Love is discerningLove is discerning (discriminating; critical; judgmental; penetrating). In reality love is truth-oriented; truth-focused; truth-centered; love is something done but always in a truth frame-of-reference. Agape love makes every attempt to see things, issues, and persons as they are in reality for a purposea good purpose. Agape love could never reject truth in favor of falsehoodit could never be satisfied with only half-truth about issues or persons. Little children, let us not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth (1 John 3:18).
The Christian loves truth (Ephesians 4:15; 2 Thessalonians 2:10), but he never cruelly or unsympathetically uses the truth in order to hurt.. The Christian is never false to the truth, but he always remembers that love and truth must go hand in hand. Christian love does not shut its eyes to the faults of others. Love is not blind. It will use rebuke and discipline when these are needed. The love which shuts its eyes to all faults, and which evades the unpleasantness of all discipline, is not real at all, for in the end it does nothing but harm to the loved one (Barclay, Wm., More New Testament Words, Harper & Row, p. 22).
Love. does not rejoice in wrong, but rejoices in the right. (1 Corinthians 13:6). Would Jesus have shown love to Judas by concealing from Judas the truth about himself? Would Paul have shown love to all the churches to whom he wrote the epistles had he concealed from them the truth about themselves? In that penetrating, piercing confrontation between Jesus and the Jews, Jesus seemed almost astounded that they would seek to kill Him because He told them the truth about themselves (John 8:39-47). He did it because He loved them.
Paul wrote the Christians in Galatia, Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth? (Galatians 4:16). When God’s Word pierces our facade of sham and discerns us as we are and deals with us realisticallyit is an expression of God’s love.
In relationships love is person-oriented; it deals with persons discerning, judging, estimating what they ought to be and can be with the help of God and Christian brethren. A person who, by experience and wisdom, knows something that would benefit me and keeps it from me does not love me. If I do not share with my children some truth that will help them, I do not love them. There are some of you here this morning living in the joy of being better than you were because your teachers have dealt with you on the basis of their judgment of what you could become! It seemed distasteful to you at firstyou disliked us and accused us of putting you downbut now you know we judged that you could be better than you were and we insisted on it. Love demands that those who have the advantage of experience and leadership relate to others on the basis of building upnot leaving others to go backward. or even to remain where they are!
In remedies, love is always seeking that which is practicalhelpful. That which is the most helpful in a situation, may not always be the most glorious or win the most applause. But love seeks the long-range remedy. Love is never satisfied with superficialities or stopgap measures. (Read Hebrews 12:11-12.)
In an old book given to me by Seth Wilson, I found some ageless principles stated as well as I have ever seen them stated. One of those principles is:
… If the moral powers (of man) are not employed on right objects and directed to a right end, there is not only perversion but deterioration. The more inactive they are the more they deteriorate. If, therefore, we would do the highest good to men we must seek, not only to perfect their powers, but to perfect the moral powers by directing them rightly. Our object must be to produce a change not merely in the condition, but in the state of men; and not merely in their intellectual state involving acquisitions and capacity, but in their moral state which involves, or rather which is, character (Hopkins, Mark, The Law of Love and Love As a Law, 1881, p. 199).
Loving, doing the highest good to men, means discernment!
Love is demandingLove restrains.
Our love to God is shown in the keeping of His commandments (Exodus 20:6; 1 John 5:3; 2 John 1:6). Love is more than a mere affection or sentiment; it is something that manifests itself, not only in obedience to known divine commands, but also in protecting and defense of them, and a seeking to know more and more of the will of God in order to express love for God in further obedience (compare Deuteronomy 10:12). Those who love God will hate evil and all forms of worldliness, as expressed in the avoidance of the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life (Psalms 97:10; 1 John 2:15-17). Whatever there may be in his surroundings that would draw the soul away from God and righteousness, that the child of God will avoid (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Vol. 3, p. 1933, article, Love).
Love does not indulge. Dr. James Dobson, in his book, Dare To Discipline, says,
Perhaps the most common parental error during the past twenty-five years has been related to the wide-spread belief that love is enough in raising children. the greatest social disaster of this century is the belief that abundant love makes discipline unnecessary.
A New York psychologist, Peter Blos, is quoted in Time, November 29, 1971:
… Parents should set limits, affirm their personal values, deny the calmor for grown-up status, and refuse to be intimidated by charges of authoritarianism.
Permissiveness, or indulgence, is no sign of love! Permissiveness can be the most unloving thing one person ever does to another! Jesus would not indulge Peter and the other disciples even in some actions that appeared correct (e.g., when they would forbid Him from going to Jerusalem and be killed, etc.). He would not indulge the rich young ruler to keep the riches which were strangling his loyalties. Love refuses. It sometimes has to say No!
When we understand what agape means, it amply meets the objection that a society based on this love would be a paradise for criminals, and that it means simply letting the evildoer have his own way. If we seek nothing but a man’s highest good, we may well have to do the hardest thing to himfor the good of his immortal soul.. In other words, agape means treating men as God treats themand that does not mean allowing them unchecked to do as they like (Barclay, More New Testament Words, p. 16).
Curtis Dickinson, in the Christian Standard, January 25, 1958, Love’s Constraining Power, wrote,
It is easy to camouflage weakness and conformity under the disguise of love.. It is just because God loves you that He cannot overlook you.. It is precisely because we love our children that we cannot let them escape punishment. How ridiculous, if we said of a child, I love her so much that no matter what she does I will consider it all right.
God said No to the perfect man in Eden, because He loved Adam! God said No to one of the greatest saints of all. Three times God said No to Paul, because God loved Paul! For a good mental and moral exercise why don-’t you personally run through your mind all the great men of the Old Testament to whom God said No! Now list mentally all the churches and people to whom the apostles wrote letters stating many emphatic No’S! Add them all together! Those whom the Holy Spirit has made overseers in the Lord’s church are bound by their love for the Lord, for His church, and for its people, sometimes to say No! It is not something in which they take selfish, prideful pleasureit is something for which they feel an obligation, and consider a privilege, because it gives them an opportunity to love for real! Love reiterates and reinforces. Love does not give up with the first discernment or demand. Love repeats and repeats and repeats (read The Hound of Heaven, by Francis Thompson). Love hounds, stalks, trails. The immature tend to classify discerning, demanding love as nagging or harping, or nit-picking. Does the discerning, demanding love of God give us cause to accuse Him of nagging or harping? Were the Old Testament prophets nit-picking when they repeated and repeated God’s message?
Continued reminders to you students to keep your dormitory room clean and orderly, continued reminders to pay your accounts, continued reminders to dress modestly, continued reminders to drive like a Christian, continued reminders to conduct your man-woman relationship with decorumthese are not nagging, nit-pickingthese are fundamental issues of life and Christian witness. and the reminders are reiterations of love! It never ceases to amaze me that athletes and choir members, can so graciously accept all the repetition of practices and dress-alike uniformity; and then get all upset and accuse their deans of nagging and nit-picking when they reiterate and reinforce moral and spiritual values.
Love is deliberateIt is real. Agape love is sincere, genuine. J. B. Phillips translated Romans 12:9, Let us have no imitation Christian love. Let us have a genuine break with evil and real devotion to good. Agape love will not stand for sham, superficiality, or unstable emotionalism. (Note: I said emotionalism. Love is part emotion but not all emotion.) Agape love is not the silly, selfish sentimentalism so often portrayed by the world.
This agape, this Christian love, is not merely an emotional experience which comes to us unbidden and unsought; it is a deliberate principle of the mind, and a deliberate conquest and achievement of the will. It is in fact the power to love the unlovable, to love people whom we do not like (Barclay).
Agape has to do with the mind: it is not simply an emotion which sweeps over us at intervals when we are in the right mood. It is a principle by which we deliberately live, every day, no matter what
mood we-’re in or how we feel. It is a conquest, a victory, an achievement. No one ever naturally loved his enemies. Agape love demands the whole man; mind, will, and heart. There may be some of you students I know more intimately than others. But it does not mean that my agape love for any of you is any more or less than the other. A gape love does not depend upon circumstances! It is a real love! Many is the time we have been tempted to love some of you only according to how we feel, or by emotions alone, but that is not real love!
Love is reliable. It is decisive, dependable, firm, stable, consistent. Dennis Vath wrote in Christian Standard, November 5, 1966:
Jesus loved consistently. True agape love is consistent. It does not always compliment. It is not always manifested in a pat on the back, for this is not always in our best interests. Agape love does not always agree. Scripture tells us that the one God loves is the one He chastens. Agape on the human level does not allow itself to be dominated or abused, because it is not in a person’s best interests to allow him to take advantage of anyone.
One mark of love often overlooked is that characteristic of being able to make a decision, a consistent decision, a stabilizing decision and then to stand firm in that decision. Could you honestly say you believed the leadership of this college loved you if it could not make a decision, consistently, and stand firm? Love is risky. Agape love will never let a man be selfishly-safe. Agape love insists upon self-sacrifice. Eugene Nida writes in God’s Word in Man’s Language:
The Conob Indians of northern Guatemala. describes love as my soul dies. A man who loves God according to the Conob idiom would say, My soul dies for God. This not only describes the powerful emotion felt by the one who loves, but it should imply a related truthnamely, that in true love there is no room for self.. True love is of all emotions the most unselfish, for it does not look out for self but for others. False love seeks to possess; true love seeks to be possessed. False love leads to cancerous jealousy; true love leads to a life-giving ministry.
The person who will not risk being hurt or thought badly ofthe person who is afraid to do what is best for another because he is afraid of that person’s displeasure with himthat person does not know how to love! Beloved, it may seem to you that we deliberately set out at times to court your displeasure with us! We do! Because we want to love you with a real love, we are not primarily concerned with what you feel toward us at first. Because we know that almost always you will someday understand the love behind our counsel and love us in return! Any parent who so fears to risk his child’s temporary displeasure that he fails to enforce some genuine, loving restraint, is not worthy to be a parent. And this applies in the family of God!
ConclusionLove is a many-splendored thing. Love is like a many-faceted jewel; there are many sides to it and they all reflect the glory of God. I have tried in these moments to catch your spiritual eye with three of the more brilliant facets of this superb gem. I would invite you to take up the Word of God and make your own study of the nature of God, finding still other facets and reflections as you hold it in your gaze.
Our love for you is an attempt to reproduce in you this splendored thing. We are going to love you discerningly, demandingly, deliberately, We are going to love you with our mind and our will as well as our emotions. You may not be pleased with us always, but we are not going to let our love be directed by that. C. S. Lewis writes in The Four Loves:
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one.. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket of your selfishness. But in that casketsafe, dark, motionless, airlessit will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.
To you, my beloved brother or sister, I am vulnerable. I cannot lock myself up. Break my heart if you will, I will still love you discerningly, demandingly, deliberately. To appropriate a phrase from Isaiah, Behold, I have graven you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.
**Special Study
THE CHRISTIAN SYNDROME (John 15:1-17)**
If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my life; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full (John 15:10-11).
The word syndrome is a technical word used in the field of psychology, applied to a group of symptoms or signs that occur together and characterize a mental or physical state. The word syndrome is from two Greek words syn and dramein and literally means run together. There are three fundamental elements (symptoms) which run together and form the joyful Christian syndrome. If any of these elements is missing, the syndromatic cycle is broken and the Christian life is unstable. Interestingly enough, all three elements in the Christian syndrome were present in man’s experience in the Garden of Eden before man sinned. And the thrust of the redemptive plan of God through Christ is to restabilize man in this cycle of joy.
LibertyBefore a person can have joy, he must be free. The real hindrances to true freedom are not rules and regulations, but guilt, fear, and selfishness. The man who is free of guilt, fear, and himself is a truly liberated man no matter what his circumstances. Guilt, fear, and selfishness are the elements the devil uses to keep men in bondage (compare Hebrews 2:5-18; John 8:31-36). Psychiatrists tell us that guilt and fear and selfishness are probably the most mentally and spiritually enslaving, unbalancing elements affecting men.
The real and only cure for this bondagethe only way to be set freeis simple, complete, unreserved faith in the substitutionary, atoning death of Christ. There is no way in this world or the next for man to punish himself enough, or do enough good works, or sacrifice enough to get rid of his guilt, fear, and selfishness. There is no way for man to psyche himself into good and positive feelings each day to get rid of his bondage. The only way for man to be absolutely certain he is not guilty is to believe God. God has said in His Word that Jesus Christ died your death for you. He suffered your guilt for you. Many Christians today bring themselves into bondage by refusing to accept God’s offer of liberty, gratis. They insist on atoning for their own guilt or trying to earn their own righteousness by competing, even in the Christian ministry, for success according to a carnal or worldly standard. Before the Christian life-style or ministry can ever become a joy the Christian must be freed of the guilt that comes from a sense of failing to meet worldly standards of success.
God’s standard is faithfulness. We are going to be surprised when we get to heavenJesus says so in Matthew 25:31-46. God does not count success as the world does. He keeps a different set of statistics from those of worldly-minded, success-oriented, guilt-ridden men.
God has punished my guilt in Jesus Christ. His Word says it. I believe it. That settles it. I-’m free. I don-’t have to earn my own absolution or succeed as the world measures success. I don-’t have to get rid of my own guiltI couldn-’t if I tried! When Christ died, the guilty me died.
LoveBecause God has objectively, judicially, and propositionally freed me, I love Him. Loving Him is not something I can produce without an adequate cause. We love because he first loved us (1 John 4:19). Jesus commanded His disciples to love others as He had loved them. Perfect love has its origin in the divine Lover. Our love is a rebounda reactiona response.
God motivates love in us. Love in us is the motivating factor in the syndrome. This is where the system of situation ethics falls into a fundamental fallacy. It makes love the standard rather than the motivation of Christian conduct.
Love can never of itself be a standard to determine what is right or wrong. I might love my country with all my heart but that love itself does not tell me how to express my feelings for my country. There must be laws to tell me what taxes to pay as my share in government and what rights and privileges my neighbor and I have in relation to each other. Without such laws it is obvious that anarchy would prevail (Donald A. Nash, Situation Ethics or Social Ethics, Christian Standard, March 8, 1969).
Love moves me to want to do something. Love demands and insists that I seek an acceptable expression of the urge to do. Just doing will not satisfy lovedoing what is pleasing is the only acceptable expression of love. Who is to say what is pleasing and edifying? Ultimately God alone can say!
LawThis is where law becomes a necessity in the syndrome of joy. Law defines love. Even before man sinned, God defined how Adam was to love his Creator. God gave Adam the command that he should not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God also gave Adam the command to till the Garden of Eden. As long as Adam believed God and remained free of the bondage of selfishness, guilt, and fear, Adam loved God. But Adam’s love did not of itself tell him how to love God. God told Adam how, by giving Adam commandments.
FIRST CORINTHIANS
We do not even know how to love our fellowman properly without the divine commandments of God. Love does not indulgeit edifies. But who knows what is edifying for his fellowman? Who even knows what is edifying for himself? God, the master psychologist, knows. He made man. In Him man subsists (lives) and consists (holds together). Without Him, man comes apart. Once for all, keeping the commandments of God is not legalism! Nor is the keeping of the rules and regulations of man necessarily legalism. Legalism is an attitude. If the laws are made, or kept, with the intent that in so doing one is justified before God in the keepingthis is legalism. If, on the other hand, the commandments are made in love and kept from a motivation of lovethis is where true liberty is found!
If commandments are given from a motivation of love they will be given only to assist the one obeying to reach the fullest potential for which he was created. If commandments are obeyed from a motivation of love they will become a way, a method, a tool both pleasing and profitable (certainly, not grievous) to reach toward that highest potential for which the obeyer was created. This is truly liberating, maturing, perfecting. Now whether we make laws or keep laws in love depends on whether we are truly liberated in the grace of God. The syndrome of Christian joyliberty, love, lawone follows the other and they all run together in a never ending cycle.
**Applebury’s Comments
CHAPTER THIRTEEN**
Analysis
A.
In a series of conditional statements with their conclusions, Paul argues for the necessity of following the most excellent way of love as a means of avoiding schism over spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
He assumes the possibility of using the gifts of tonguesthe ability to communicate in foreign languages or even to use language that is on the angelic levelwithout being controlled by love; as a result, he says, I have become echoing brass or a noisy cymbal.
He assumes the possibility of using the gift of prophecy, and having knowledge of all mysteries, and having the gift of knowledge without love as the controlling factor; as a result, he says, I am nothing.
He assumes that he might go so far as to dole out all his goods to feed the poor or even suffer martyrdom and still not have love; as a result, he says, I gain nothing.
B.
Paul explains what love does and what it does not do (1 Corinthians 13:3-7).
He mentions two things that it does:
a)
Love suffers long.
b)
Love is kind.
He lists a series of things that love does not do:
a)
It doesn-’t cause one to be filled with jealousy.
b)
It doesn-’t cause one to brag.
c)
It isn-’t puffed up with arrogance and pride.
d)
It doesn-’t behave unbecomingly.
e)
It doesn-’t seek its own things.
f)
It doesn-’t become irritated.
g)
It doesn-’t count evil.
h)
It doesn-’t rejoice over wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
He indicates what love does in relation to all things:
a)
It covers all things.
b)
It believes all things.
c)
It hopes all things.
d)
It endures all things.
C.
Paul points out the enduring quality of lovethe most excellent wayin contrast to the transitory nature of the spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 13:8-12).
He declares that love never fails, but the gifts which are transitory will pass away.
a)
Whether these gifts be prophecies, tongues or knowledge, they will pass away.
b)
He shows why this must be: We know in part and we prophesy in part.
c)
These transitory gifts that are in part will pass away when the perfect (completed) thing comes.
He illustrates the meaning of this contrast.
a)
He does so by referring to the time when he was a child and to the time when he had become a man.
(1)
When he was a child, he spoke, felt, and thought as a child. This corresponds to the time when the church had spiritual giftstongues, prophecy, and knowledge.
(2)
After he had become a man, he put away things that belonged to childhood. This corresponds to the transitory spiritual gifts that were abolished when the perfect revelation came.
b)
He does so by referring to the contrast between seeing in a mirror and seeing face to face.
(1)
The gifts correspond to the imperfect reflection in a mirror. Now refers to the time when the church had these gifts.
(2)
The completed thing (the Bible) corresponds to seeing face to face. Then refers to the time when the completed revelation had come.
D.
He sums up this important lesson on the most excellent way of love (1 Corinthians 13:13).
He mentions the three things that abide now: faith, hope, love.
He declares that of these three love is the greatest.
He urges them to follow after love.
Questions
How does Paul show the connection between this chapter and what he had written in chapter twelve?
How does he indicate that the thought of both Chapter s is completed in chapter fourteen?
What is the first point that he makes in this chapter?
Why was it necessary to begin at this point?
What is meant by tongues of men?
What is the purpose of language?
What is there to indicate that Paul is speaking about foreign languages in this section of the epistle?
What is a possible meaning of tongues of angels?
What suggestions does Paul give to help explain this phrase?
Why can we say that he was not referring to the gift of tongues when he mentioned tongues of angels?
Why can we say that the pagan pretense at communication with their gods was not the tongues of angels?
Where do we find the message that was delivered through the apostles when they spoke in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance? What is the content of that message?
Why was it unnecessary to translate that message?
What are the three conditional statements by which Paul argues for the necessity of following the most excellent way of love?
What is the result of failing to be motivated by love in each of the assumed situations?
What is the nature of love as Paul uses it in this chapter?
Give an example of Jesus-’ use of this same term and show how it is possible to obey His command.
Why was it necessary to translate the message spoken in a tongue in the church at Corinth?
What is faith to remove mountains?
Why do we say that it does not mean mountains of trouble?
How does it differ from the trust in the Lord that makes for a victorious Christian life?
How would love in action which is longsuffering and kindness put an end to the problem at Corinth?
How would love put an end to the sin of jealousy in the church at Corinth?
Why did Paul say, Love vaunteth not itself?
What is meant by not puffed up?
Of what unseemly conduct was the church at Corinth guilty?
How would the principle of love overcome this problem?
Why did they need love that is not provoked?
What is meant by taketh not account of evil?
In what way were they guilty of rejoicing over unrighteousness?
What is meant by beareth all things?
How was this to meet the problem at Corinth?
What is the difference between gullibility and love that believeth all things?
What was the situation of the unconverted Gentiles so far as hope was concerned?
What is the basis of Christian hope?
Why is love the way to defeat schism in the church?
Why did Paul say, Love never fails?
How does this statement introduce the thought of the transitory nature of spiritual gifts?
In speaking of the transitory nature of spiritual gifts, why did Paul mention only three?
In what sense were the gifts in part?
What is meant by that which is perfect?
What does the word translated perfect mean when it refers to things?
How had Paul used the same term to refer to persons?
How does Paul show that the possession of spiritual gifts is not a mark of spiritual maturity, but something that belonged to the childhood period of the church?
To what does Paul refer when he says now we see in a mirror darkly?
What evidence is there to show that this is not a contrast between time and eternity?
What was to take place that was like seeing face to face?
To what period did he refer when he said, now I know in part?
When was he to know fully?
Why did he speak of the three things that abide?
What is the meaning of faith in this context?
Why can it not be faith to remove mountains?
What is the basis of Christian hope?
Why did Paul say that the greatest of these is love?
For Discussion
What is to be said about division in the church today that possesses the completed revelation of God’s will, the Bible?
What place should the most excellent way have in the work of evangelizing the world?
1 Corinthians 13:1-3
**Butler’s Comments
SECTION 1
Giftedness Without Love **(1 Corinthians 13:1-3)
13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
1 Corinthians 13:1 Is Heedless: 1 Corinthians 12:31 b of chapter 12 should be 1 Corinthians 13:1 of chapter 13. There the Greek word huperbole (English hyperbole) is translated more excellent. Literally, the Greek word means a throwing beyonda surpassing. Paul is going to show (in chapter 13) a way to unity in diversity that surpasses all other ways, and that way is agape-love. There are four words in the Greek language for lovestorge, affection (e.g. familial love); phileo, friendship (e.g. fraternal); eros, passion, desire (e.g. sexual love); and agape, self-sacrificing, caring (God-like love). Only phileo and agape appear in the New Testament. Paul uses only agape in this chapter.
Agape-love is not only commanded, but motivated by God and Christ. We love, because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19; see also 1 John 4:10). God created man with an intellect, a will and emotions, Man has the ability or faculties to love. God demonstrated love in Christ and commands us to love, but he will not force us to love.
Love is the only thing man really has to give. Agape-love is a deliberate choice of the will. It is the absorption of every part of our being (intellect, will and emotions) in an obsession to care. It is definitely not physical or circumstantial. It is love which deliberately, by an act of will, chooses its object, and through all circumstances or in spite of them, goes on loving continually. C. S. Lewis, in The Four Loves, says it is a love that enables man to love what is not naturally lovable; lepers, criminals, enemies, morons, the sulky, the superior and the sneering. It is a love that demands complete self-denial. It is always used when the will is involved. It is the word Jesus used when he commanded, Thou shalt love thine enemy.. Agape-love is the one thing that is completely indestructible; while other things pass away, love lasts. It is not dependent on anything outside itself; it is not affected by the worthiness or unworthiness of the one to be loved. If this love really grips our whole being, our Christian experience will be utterly revolutionized.
Professor Donald Nash, in the Kentucky Christian College bulletin’s Word Pictures, has written this definition of Love:
Almost every Christian with a cursory knowledge of the Bible is cognizant of the fact that there are two Greek words for love in the New Testament, but few know their basic connotations. Valuable insights can be gained by delineating between them.
Agape is a love called out by a realization of the value of the object loved. It is not an emotion or passion, since it can be and is commanded in the scriptures. It has been defined as intelligent good will toward all men. Christianity took the word from pagan uses and enlarged, ennobled and inspired it. Because it is used of the love God had for the world in Christ it has something of the idea of sacrificial devotion to others in which self is forgotten.
Phileo is a love called out by an appreciation or pleasure in the object loved. This is an emotion. It suggests friendship and affection. It cannot be commanded and is not in the scriptures since it is spontaneous. It needs intercommunication between the lover and the object loved. It suggests love between two people with common interests.
So, I am as a Christian to love all men with agape love, for I realize the intrinsic soul’s value of everyone as God’s creation. I should be willing to make sacrifices of personal desires and interests for all. But I am not commanded to love everyone phileo, since this is impossible. It comes from a common bond of fellowship.
For this reason Jesus is said to love the whole world agape. He recognized the worth of all and died for all (John 3:16). But he loves only Christians phileo (John 16:27), since only between Christians and the Father is the mutual bond of a common interest in righteousness, the common bond of prayer, and same spirit of friendship.
Sometimes it is said that agape is divine love and phileo human love; that agape is the higher love and phileo the lower. This is not exactly the case. God loves both ways, so one could not be human and the other divine. Phileo is actually the love of close, intimate relationship, and so Peter sought for Jesus to affirm this in him (John 21:15-19). I love the world agape, but my family and close friends *phileo.
Agape* is the higher, divine love only in the sense it calls for the type of sacrifice Christ manifested on the cross. It can only be truly produced in us by surrender to Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22). It is demonstrated in those great virtues so beautifully and powerfully portrayed by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, which only the true Christian possesses in the Biblical sense.
The Corinthians were gauging holiness by possession of miraculous gifts (especially by possession of the more spectacular gifts such as speaking in languages), and not by the love expressed in practical living. No matter what gifts (miraculous or non-miraculous) a Christian has, the fruit of the Spirit lived out in his lifei.e., his spiritual characteris the real yardstick by which to measure his holiness. There is a directs relationship between one’s sanctification and the love he expresses. There is no relation whatsoever between sanctification and the possession of miraculous or non-miraculous gifts. The proof is in these Corinthians! They had all the miraculous gifts available (1 Corinthians 1:7), but still they ended up as the most carnal church described in the New Testament. Gifts serve their purpose only when they are governed by agape-love.
It is character, not charisma that counts. It is goodness, not giftedness that really matters. God supplies gifts, talents, blessings to all men and women (even to pagan unbelievers), but God has so made his creatures that they may give or withhold their love. Giftedness without love shrivels character and thwarts God’s will for the possessor of such giftedness. God gives gifts to men for the building of character through the expression of love. But in the ultimate analysis, men are free to love God or despise him, and, in this sense, therefore, responsible for their own character. When time ends and Jesus comes again, men will go right on being in character what they have chosen to be, as John wrote in Revelation, Let the evildoer still do evil. and the righteous still do right. (Revelation 22:10-11).
Even if a Christian had supernatural power to talk in the language of angels, predict the future, know and understand everything there is to know, have miraculous power to remove all obstacles, give away all his earthly goods and become a martyr, but did not have agape-love, what would he be? He would be only a noise (Gr. chalkos echone kumbalon alalazon, brass sounding or cymbal tinkling). Eloquence, erudition and oratory may command admiration, but only love really communicates to the heart. Men with miraculous gifts but without love will embitter the lives of other people because without love there is the inevitable self-centeredness which produces exploitation, cruelty, envy, hatred, and fighting. Love is the tie that binds all other virtues of the human personality together in harmony and stability. The loveless person is a spiritually unbalanced person. The church at Ephesus (about 100 A.D.) was a shocking picture of busyness, patience, discernment, toil, endurance, but absolutely without the one thing that mattersagape love, (Revelation 2:2-4). Regardless of everything else the Ephesian church was, she was without the power to meet the soon to come to pass waves of persecution, tribulation, false teaching and carnality of the pagan Roman empire (100-300 A.D.).
1 Corinthians 13:2 Is Hollow: The Greek word kumbalon, cymbal, means, literally, hollow. Giftedness without love is vain and empty. There really is no value in having any gift without having love. Without love life is lost! He that selfishly saves himself (love only himself) will lose his life for life has being only as it emanates agape-love (cf. Matthew 10:39; Matthew 16:25; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24). The man without agape-love is nothing (Gr. outhen, nil, not anything). He is lost!
1 Corinthians 13:3 Is Hellish: Man without agape-love is of no profit (Gr. opheloumai, no gain, profitless, useless). He is like saltless salt, fit only for the dung-heap. Without love a person does not gather with Christ but joins the devil in scattering (see Matthew 12:30). That is what these Corinthians, possessed of miraculous gifts without love, were doing. Someone has analyzed 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 as follows: Thought, purpose, logic, industriousness, but without the radiance of love. Isn-’t that an accurate description of Satan? Even the demons believed, and shuddered (James 2:19). They were gifted but they had no love.
What makes love so great? All gifts, sacrifices and services are hypocrisy without it (Matthew 6:1-18). Motivation is important. God is not interested in empty works of merit. He is evidently not impressed with our gifts as much as with the way we use them. Love is the one thing all men understand. Love may be communicated without language. Love never fails to glorify God. Love never fails to improve the character, both of the lover and the loved. Agape-love does not have to wait upon a feeling to be activated.
Applebury’s Comments
Text
1 Corinthians 13:1-3. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing.
Commentary Necessity of the Most Excellent Way (1-3)
*If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels.*Chapter thirteen is an essential part of the discussion of spiritual gifts. It is not to be taken as a separate exposition of the subject of love. In chapter twelve, Paul had indicated that schism had entered the church over these gifts. In chapter thirteen, he shows that this must be prevented by following the way of love, whether the problem be the misuse of the gift of speaking in a foreign language or the gift of prophecy or the gift of knowledge or even such things as benevolence and martyrdom. In chapter fourteen, he shows how the gift of tongues was to be made equal with prophecy in its benefit to the church. By translation, the message spoken in a foreign language could be understood by the whole church. Thus love is the controlling factor in the use of all these gifts; interpretation (translation) of tongues was the necessary accompanying gift that was designed to make the gift of tongues of equal benefit with prophecy and to keep it from becoming a source of strife and jealousy in the church.
*tongues of men and of angels.*This suggests that there are two levels of language, human and angelic. Language is a means of communicating an intelligible message to intelligent beings. By tongues of men, Paul means the languages spoken by menforeign languages in this context. By tongues of angels, he refers to angelic communication. Just what this is, we, of course, cannot say with certainty. Paul gives two suggestions: (1) In Romans 8:26, he says that the Holy Spirit makes intercession for us with groanings or sighs that cannot be uttered. They are incapable of being expressed in human language; (2) In 2 Corinthians 12:4, he speaks of having been caught up into Paradise where he heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. This only suggests that there is a level of intelligent communication that is above the human. In chapter fourteen, he also suggests that there is a level of communication that is lower than human speechthat which is communicated by such things as the bugle.
We can be sure that the gift of tongues was not tongues of angels for it was the ability to speak in a foreign language without previous study or knowledge. This was plainly seen on the Day of Pentecost when each one heard the message that is recorded in Acts 2:1-47 in his own native language. Neither can it be the pagan pretense that consisted in uttering speech-like sounds in ecstasy, for that was not communication. Neither is there any good evidence that the Corinthian gift of tongues was like this pagan thing, for it was the gift the Holy Spirit distributed for the benefit of the whole church. Paul used the gift and said to the church, I would have all of you speak in tonguesforeign languages.
*but have not love.*This, then, is the point of his message: to use the gift of speaking in a foreign language or even in angelic language without being controlled by the principle of love as defined in this chapter would result in becoming as meaningless as sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. Brass or copper was the metal used to make the echoing gong or other instrument to make noise. It has the ability to repeat the sound without giving an intelligible message. Without love, this gift of the Spirit of God would become just so much noise. Clanging is the sound of men rushing to battle; it is the shout of many voices but without a message. Preaching without love is just so much noise.
Jealousy and faction in the church at Corinth over the use of the gift of tongues was effectively nullifying the message of the gospel which taught, among other things, that all in one spirit had been baptized into one bodythe body of Christ. There are two important New Testament words that are translated love. One has to do with feelings; the otherthe one that Paul uses in this Chapter while expressing feelings, can respond to the will. For example, Paul says that love is kind. We as human beings are capable of responding to God’s command to be kind to one another. The first is the love of friendship; the second is the love that can include enemies. We can be kind to those who persecute us. Jesus didn-’t require the impossible when He said, Love your enemies. This love was to be expressed in doing good for them. It is in this sense that God loved the world and demonstrated it by sending His Son to Calvary. This does not imply that one can have the same feeling for an enemy as for a friend, but it may indicate that by loving the enemy he might even be changed into the kind of person for whom one could have a feeling of friendship.
*And if I have the gift of prophecy.*Prophecy was speaking for God under the direction of the Holy Spirit in the language of the people, hence, no translating was necessary. Speaking in tonguesforeign languageshad to be translated for all except the foreigner who, of course, understood his own language. But to use the gift of prophecy or the other gifts mentioned in the text without love would simply mean, as the apostle put it, that I am nothing. Where is the boasting over miraculous powers if the body of Christ is split and torn by faction rather than having its oneness preserved for the benefit of a lost world by the most excellent way of love?
*know all mysteries.*A mystery, as used in the New Testament, was the message which God revealed through His inspired apostles. It would have remained a mystery forever if He had not revealed it. See comment on chapter 1 Corinthians 2:6-10.
*Faith to remove mountains.*See comment on 1 Corinthians 12:9. Jesus used the expression, faith as a grain of mustard seed to remind His disciples that the least amount of faith in connection with the performing of miracles would enable them to move a mountain or uproot the sycamine tree. See Matthew 17:19-20 and Luke 17:5-6.
Faith to remove mountains does not mean mountains of trouble. It means real mountains and explains the limitless power of God that was given by the Spirit through the apostles to enable the early church to perform miracles, speak in tongues, heal the sick, and perform other acts by which the Word of God was being established (Hebrews 2:3-4).
We should not confuse this with the loving trust in God and in His promises that enables the faithful Christian to victoriously face the trials of this life.
*I am nothing.*The conclusions of Paul’s three arguments stated in the form of conditions are significant. Without love, he says, I am a gong, a cymbal. Without love, I am nothing. Without love, I gain nothing. Why should the Corinthians create strife in the church for nothing?
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
**Butler’s Comments
SECTION 2
Giftlessness With Love** (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)
4 Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; 5it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. 7Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
1 Corinthians 13:4-6 Rejects: In these verses are listed the perversities of character with which love has nothing to do. Only agape-love has the power to restrain from doing what is wrong, hurtful and destructive (see 2 Corinthians 5:14); (a) Love is not impatient. Love suffers and waits. Love refuses to give way to anger and vindictiveness. Love waits, hoping for repentance. Love is not resentful when treated unjustly. Love is David with SaulChrist with the Pharisees. Love never gives up, never diesit goes on and on; (b) Love is not unkind. Some patiently endure wrong out of sheer obstinacy, but to be kind to the person who has done the wrong is the victory of agape-love. Barclay says, There is so much Christianity which is good but unkind. The Greek word translated kind is chresteuetai which means literally, serviceable, good, useable. In other words, kindness means action, service, giving. The greatest good a Christian can ever do this side of heaven is to be kind to people (see Luke 10:29-37). William Penn said: I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore there is any kindness I can show or any good thing I can do to any fellow being let me do it now and not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. (c) Love is not jealous. Only agape-love can see all the inequalities of life and remain content with its own place. Paul had learned contentment in whatever state he found himself (Philippians 4:11-13). Where there is no love, there will inevitably be envy, jealousy and hatred. Absence of agape-love left Cain open to envy and produced the first murder in human history. In its baser form, jealousy not only desires what others have, but being unable to attain it, begrudges the good others have. It does not even care so much that it does not have these things as it wishes others had not gotten them. Agape-love rejoices when others have good fortune. (d) Love is not boastful. The Greek word here is perpereutai and is used only in this one place in the New Testament. In classical Greek it means, wind-bag or braggart and Moffatt has translated it, does not make a parade of itself. Love does not show off. Love is quiet, unassuming, and humble. When love does anything it does not do it for praise or the applause of others. Love is not conceited. (e) Love is not arrogant. The Greek word for arrogant is phusioutai, puffed-up. Love is not contemptuous of others. Love is not the Pharisee who thanks God he is not like publicans (Luke 18:9-14). Love is not obsessed with self-importance. Give a man a little earthly authority or position and one soon sees whether he has love or arrogance. (f) Love is not rude. The Greek words are ouk aschemonei, meaning literally, does not act unbecomingly, or, without graciousness. There is the type of Christian who thinks real loyalty to the Bible means one must act bluntly, candidly, without tact and charm, almost brutally. There may be candidness there, but there is no winsomeness. Love is courteous, tactful, polite, and respectful without compromising truth. Love applies the Golden Rule. Love makes it possible to be right without being rude. (g) Love never insists on its own way. The Greek reads: ou zetei ta heautes; love is willing to sacrifice its own interests for that of others. Love does not demand its own rights (even though it may have some) above those of others. Barclay writes: In the last analysis, there are in this world only two kinds of peoplethose who are continually thinking of their rights and those who are continually thinking of their duties. those insisting on their privileges and those who are remembering their responsibilities.. There can never be true love where there is the Me first attitude. (h) Love is not irritable, (Gr. paroxunetai, from which we get the English word paroxysm, which means, a fit, an attack, a convulsion of emotion). The Greek word means, literally, hyper-sharp, or, intense sharpening. The word easily in some versions, is not in the Greek text. Barclay translates, Love never flies into a temper fit. Having a paroxysm of exasperation is an indication of the absence of agape-love. The Jewish rabbis made four classifications of people dealing with provocation: (1) those easily provoked but hard to pacifytheir loss is cancelled by their gain; (2) those hard to provoke but hard to pacifytheir gain is cancelled by their loss; (3) those easily provoked and easily pacifiedthey are evil; (4) those hard to provoke and easily pacifiedthey are righteous. But agape-love is never bad-tempered. Love must be angry with sin, but never irritable with the sinner. Greatness is not in position, but in disposition! (i) Love is not resentful. The Greek phrase is, ou logizetai to kakon, literally, does not keep books or an account-ledger of evil. Love will always keep a record of the many kindnesses it receives, but never a record of wrongs done to it. Love does not nurse grudges; it makes a concerted effort to forget all wrongs done to it. (j) Love does not rejoice at wrong. The Greek word translated wrong is adikia and means, injustice. Moffatt translates, Love is never glad when others go wrong; love is gladdened by goodness. Love does not delight in exposing the weaknesses and sins of other people. Love will agonize over the sin and condemn the sin, but will always yearn to cover and protect the person who has fallen. Some people get a certain malicious pleasure in hearing about someone else’s fall or trouble. Love does not do that. Love wants the truth. Love is brave enough to face the truth. Love has nothing to conceal and so is glad when the truth prevails. But love always uses the truth to build up, never to destroy.
**1 Corinthians 13:7 Reverse: **Love respects and urges men to do that which is positive good. Love cherishes the righteousness that can only be done when agape-love of God is working through believers. (a) Love cherishes the bearing of all things. The Greek word is stegei. It means primarily, to protect, or preserve by coveringto keep off something that threatens, thus it came to mean to endure. Love would rather protect than attack. Love gets under the load of life and bears it to the limit. We must learn to bear offences done to us if we ever expect to be able to forgive. C.S. Lewis writes, To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casketsafe, dark, motionless, airlessit will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. the only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell. We must bear one anothers burdens if we wish to fulfill Christ’s law of love (Galatians 6:1-5). We must bear the distasteful task of attempting to restore wandering brethren (James 5:19-20). (b) Love wants to believe all things. Agape-love is not blind gullibility. It does not follow every kind of doctrine. Love speaks the truth (see Ephesians 4:11-16). Love is discriminating and rejoices only in the truth. But love is not innately suspicious. Love strives to ascribe the best motives to others in their actions. Love looks for the best in everyone and everything. Love takes people at their word and always hopes in their trustworthiness, as long as it can, and then mourns over those who stumble and fall. (c) Love tries to find hope in all things. When love is disappointed in someone in whom it believed love will yet hope for better things. Love never despairs completely of anyone. Jesus never considered any man hopelesshe tried to the very end to reclaim Judas Iscariot. Hope does not, of course, try to persuade itself that a thief is honest or that the criminal is innocent, but it knows God is not willing that any man should perish. So love always hopes for repentance. (d) Love endures all things. The Greek word is hupomenei, literally, remaining under. This does not mean passive resignation, but the kind of spirit which conquers its setbacks, trials and circumstances by faith in God. It is the kind of dogged constancy which hangs-in in spite of hardships and obstacles. It is the enduring love shown by the patriarch Job, who said, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last he will stand upon the earth. It is the overcoming endurance of the apostle Paul who said, For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:10).
The Christians at Corinth were eager for manifestations of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 14:12) but they did not have agape-love. Paul admonished them to strive to excel in building up the church (1 Corinthians 14:12), but their passion for the spectacular miraculous gifts, to satisfy their egomania, was dividing and tearing down the church. In his attempt to stop this self-destruction, Paul inserts this parenthetical treatise on love and states emphatically that Christians would be much better off to have love whether they ever had a miraculous gift or not. He proves, in fact, that while Christians may get along without any miraculous gifts at all (1 Corinthians 13:8-13), they can never get along without agape-love. Love will more than make up for any lack of giftedness anyone may ever have, miraculous or otherwise. John the Baptist had no miraculous gifts, but he had love. The women who ministered to Jesus had no miraculous gifts such as the apostles had, but they had love. Dorcas had no miraculous gifts, but she had love. Love surpasses all other ways of edifying, or building the church. It surpasses all gifts of teaching, preaching, liberality, ruling, organizing, mercifulness, or whatever. Love is the supreme way. No Christian who really loves is inferior.
Applebury’s Comments
Text
1 Corinthians 13:4-7. Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 5 doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil; 6 rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth; 7 beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Commentary What Love Does (4-7)
*Love suffers long and is kind.*If we would know the meaning of love, see it in action. Love has the quality that lasts and it is kind. These two characteristics of love if put into practice would by themselves stop most of the wrangling in churches. In all probability there were in Corinth some short-tempered men who could not look with kindness on the fact that some members of the church seemed to be more prominent than they. This was the foot saying, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body. We should think of the kindness of God our Saviour and be kind to one another (Titus 3:3-5; Ephesians 4:31-32).
*Love envies not.*Love is not jealous of the honor or success of others. But there was jealousy in the Corinthian church because one had the gift of tongues while others had gifts that were less desirable to them. But all the gifts were distributed by the same Spirit according to His will for the benefit of all the church. Love is the antidote for jealousy in the church.
*love vaunteth not itself.*Love does not brag about its gifts, possessions, honors, or accomplishments. It is this spirit of the braggart that tends to produce jealousy in a church. Bragging about ability to speak in tongues was destroying the body of Christ at Corinth. He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord (1 Corinthians 1:31).
*is not puffed up.*It isn-’t inflateda thing that arrogance and pride produce. Some of the Corinthians were puffed up over position, but failed to carry out their responsibilities in the church (1 Corinthians 5:2).
*doth not behave itself unseemly.*The conduct of love is not unbecoming to a Christian. Christianity is rooted and grounded in love. But much of the conduct of the church at Corinth was unbecoming to men professing to love God and claiming to be the objects of His love. They were guilty of practicing division, immorality, going to law before heathen judges, and wrangling over the possession of spiritual gifts, especially the gift of tongues. If one’s conduct is unbecoming to a Christian, he needs to be shown the most excellent way, the way of love.
*seeketh not its own.*Selfishness was the root of much of the trouble in the church at Corinth. If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? The body is not one member, but many. There is work enough and honor enough for every member of the church. Love is the axe to use to cut the root of selfishness before it bears bitterness and strife to the shame of those who call themselves the body of Christ. Paul had this to say to the Philippians, in lowliness of mind each counting others better than himself; not looking each of you to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others. Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:3-5).
*is not provoked.*It is not love that makes one irritable. We stand amazed at the gentleness of Jesus in situations that would have provoked most men, but He was the embodiment of love. The church at Corinth needed to be more Christ-like in so many ways, especially in the use of spiritual gifts. Sharp disagreement over the relative value of tongues and prophecy was making the church appear ridiculous in the eyes of the pagan community to which it was supposed to be bringing the gospel of redemption.
*taketh not account of evil.*Watch that man who sets down in his notebook every evil deed done to him whether real or imaginary for the purpose of getting even. Love is not his master. Whether one member suffereth, all the members suffer with it; or one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. The church needs to remember that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
*rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth.*Is it possible that there were some in Corinth who were rejoicing over the fact that the leader of the party to which they belonged had the gift of tongues even though he might have been misusing it for personal glory? Did some rejoice in the assumption that they could practice unrighteousness with impunity because they were members of the church? Love cannot rejoice in the unrighteous conduct of misguided church members. Love does rejoice with the truth. John says, I rejoice greatly that I have found certain of thy children walking in the truth, even as we received commandment from the Father (2 John 1:4).
*beareth all things.*Paul spoke of bearing the hard things that he faced in his work as an apostle to the Gentiles in order to win some to Christ. The root from which the word beareth comes means a roof or a cover. Love wards off insults and injuries; love won-’t mention the unlovely traits in others; love won-’t remember the unkind deed, but is always ready to forgive. The church at Corinth with its imagined slights over the distribution of the spiritual needed so much to be shown the most excellent way.
*believeth all things.*Some people cannot believe that there is any good in those who do not support their views or belong to their party or follow the leader they believe to be superior. Some who followed Apollos discredited every thing that Paul did. Love looks for the good in others and is willing to believe that others not only mean well but actually do some good. Some elders cannot bring themselves to believe that the deacons are really concerned about the church. Some deacons cannot believe that it is an honor to serve in the body of Christ, but long for the promotion to the position of elder. But love for the Lord, and love for His church, and love for the lost believes that it is a privilege to serve in the most inconspicuous way that Christ might be exalted and that the lost might be saved.
*hopeth all things.*Gentiles once had no hope and were without God in the world (Ephesians 2:12), but in hope we were saved (Romans 8:24). Had some of the Corinthians forgotten these vital issues? Israel lost hope of the promised land as they faced the trials of the journey. Some of the Corinthians were saying that there is no resurrection of the dead (1 Corinthians 15:12). But love could say with Peter, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Peter 1:3). Is there any wonder that the Corinthians were striving for supposed superiority in the possession of spiritual gifts instead of walking the most excellent way of love?
*endureth all things.*Love is like the good soldier who stands up under every attack of the enemy. Love is the way to defeat schism in the body of Christ, for it leads to obedience to Him rather than human leaders.
1 Corinthians 13:8-12
Applebury’s Comments
Text
1 Corinthians 13:8-12. Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall be done away; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away. 9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; 10 but when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away. 11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I was fully known.
Commentary The Transitory Nature of Spiritual Gifts (8-12)
*Love never fails.*When taken with the statement, love endures all things, we see why Paul says that love never fails. To endure is to withstand all the attacks of the enemy. Love that does that never fails. It stands up after the battle rolls on. It is like the walls of the city that never fall before the enemy assault. This fittingly introduces, by way of contrast, the transitory nature of the spiritual gifts: prophecy, tongues, and knowledge. It was not necessary for Paul to repeat the whole list for one to understand that all of the spiritual gifts were to be wiped out when the completed revelation should come.
*in part. that which is perfect.*While spiritual gifts served a worthwhile purpose, they were, at best, only in part; they were not the complete thing. That is why they were of necessity transitory; they were to give way to that which is perfect. But what is the perfect thing? Commentators suggest that it is Christ or the perfection that will be known when He comes. But there is no reference to the coming of Christ in this context. The word translated perfect means mature when it refers to persons as in 1 Corinthians 2:6. Paul says, We speak wisdom, however, among them that are fullgrown. When it refers to things, as in this case, it means the end or purpose achieved by the thing, complete. That which was in part must balance with that which is complete. The things that were in part, the spiritual gifts, were used of the Lord to bring the revelation of His will to man. Without the work of the inspired apostles we never would have known the wisdom of God. The spiritual gifts given by the Spirit through the laying on of apostolic hands made it possible for others to reveal the same wisdom of God. But when this revelation was committed to writing as it was in the first century, there remained no further purpose to be fulfilled by these gifts. Therefore, when the completed revelationthe Biblecame, the things that were in part were abolished.
By walking in the most excellent way, the Corinthian church should have been able to use the gifts for the benefit of the whole church while awaiting the day when the completed revelation would be available for all to use.
*When I was a child.*The apostle clearly indicates that the spiritual gifts belonged to the childhood period of the church; their possession and use were not the mark of spiritual maturity.
*now that I am become a man.*As the mature man puts away childish things, the church could look to the time when it was to have the completed revelation of the Word and put away the transitory spiritual gifts.
*For now we see in a mirror darkly.*The subject is still spiritual gifts. It is not a reference to time as opposed to eternity. By now Paul points to the situation which existed at Corinth. They had the gift of tongues, but it was like seeing an imperfect reflection in a mirror in contrast to the perfect view possible through completed revelation in the Bible.
*but then face to face.*This is not a reference to the coming of Christ when we shall see Him as He is. By then Paul is indicating the time when the completed revelation would be available for all.
*now I know in part.*This was true of the time when the gifts were being used as opposed to the full knowledge that would be possible through the complete revelation in the Bible. It is not a reference to the partial knowledge of this life as opposed to knowledge in heaven. Context does not permit the application to heaven.
*as I was fully known.*Just as God knew the needs of all men so He has given complete instruction in His Word for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:2-4).
1 Corinthians 13:8-13
**Butler’s Comments
SECTION 3
Giftedness is Temporary, Love is Eternal **(1 Corinthians 13:8-13)
8 Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; 10but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. 11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. 13So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:8-9 The Passing: The text clearly states that these miraculous gifts would stop. They would fulfill their purpose and cease to exist. The question is; when were these gifts to stop? Again, this text clearly says the gifts were imperfect (Gr. merous, in part). 1 Corinthians 13:11 of this chapter states the gifts were for an infant church (Gr. nepios, lit. without the power of speechsee Matthew 21:16; Matthew 11:25; Romans 2:20; 1 Corinthians 3:1; Hebrews 5:13). If we are to believe the Bible, miraculous gifts were never intended to be universal or perpetuated beyond the lifetime of the apostles. Miraculous gifts were never given to all believers. They were never to heal all believers, edify or deliver all believers. There are clear indications that Christians could be endowed with miraculous gifts only through the laying on of the hands of the apostles (see Acts 8:14-24).
The infant church had difficulty in two areas: (1) in believing that Jews and Gentiles were acceptable to God on the same terms (faith, repentance and immersion in water for the forgiveness of sins), without the Law of Moses. Judaizers constantly harassed the church insisting their message of circumcision and the Law was the true way to salvation. So the message of the gospel had to be confirmed by miracles before the church could ever be fully weaned from the infantilism of the Law to the manhood of the gospel (see Galatians 3:23-29; Galatians 4:1-7; Ephesians 4:11-16; Hebrews 5:11-14; Hebrews 6:1-12). When the church finally shed its immaturity (and when God destroyed the threat of Judaism by destroying Jerusalem and the Jewish nation at the hands of the Romans in 70 A.D.) miracles were no longer needed; (2) distinguishing between true apostolic doctrine and false doctrine. Once the apostolic teaching was put on record (written in our New Testament books) and verified by miraculous manifestations, there was no longer any need for these miracles. Miracles evidently passed away as the generation of believers upon whom the apostles had laid their hands passed away, for there is no divine sanction for perpetuating miracles beyond the hands of the apostles.
Paul uses the Greek word katargethesontai to declare the gifts of prophecy and knowledge will be abolished. The Greek word literally means, reduced to inactivity. When he says tongues will cease he uses the Greek word pausontai, meaning to stop, to make an end. They are strong, unequivocal words, predicting the cessation of miraculous gifts.
1 Corinthians 13:10-12 The Perfect: The miraculous gifts were partial (imperfect) and temporary (will pass away). When the perfect thing (Gr. teleion) came, the* partial thing* (Gr. to ek merous) was abolished (Gr. katargethesetai). The Greek word teleion is a noun in the neuter gender. It should not, therefore, be translated to mean, when Christ comes again. The word teleion is not referring, either grammatically or contextually, to a person, but to some thing. The word teleion means, that which has reached its goal; that which has matured or come to its fulfillment. It does not mean that which is sinless.
The perfect thing in this context is referring to the mature church; the church which no longer needs miraculous confirmation of the apostolic message. The perfected, matured church will have had enough miraculous confirmations and guidance to acknowledge that the Judaizers, Gnostics, Nicolaitans, and other abberant religious teachings are false. The perfected, matured church will know that Gentiles or Jews do not need to keep the Law of Moses to be members of Christ’s body. The church in its manhood will be able to eat and digest the strong meat of the final, complete, New Testament scriptures. The mature church will realize that agape-love is the surpassing way to sanctification and evangelismand that possession of miraculous gifts is not the way.
When spiritual maturity came, from the completed, integrated church, from the completed apostolic revelation, from perfected, Christ-like love, the church reasoned or reckoned (Gr. elogizomen), or thought, like a man (Gr. gegona aner), abolishing the things of the infant (Gr. katergeka ta tou nepiou). As long as the church was spiritually immature, it spoke like an infant (Gr. elaloun hos nepios), it thought like an infant (Gr. ephronoun hos nepios), and it reasoned like an infant (Gr. elogizomen hos nepios). As long as the church was infantile, unable to distinguish between true and false without miraculous guidance, it was not seeing the whole picture of redemption and sanctification. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:12, the infant church was then seeing only a reflection (Gr. esoptrou, in a mirror) and that, dimly. The Greek word ainigmati is translated darkly in the KJV and dimly in the RSV, but it is the word from which the English word enigma comes. Enigma means, puzzling, perplexing, questionably, or obscurely. As long as the infant church was eager for miraculous manifestations of the Spirit in preference to agape-love, the aim of the completed New Testament scriptures, they could never see themselves or circumstances as they really were.
Paul is saying that as soon as the completed apostolic revelation had been written down, the church would see the whole scheme of redemption and sanctificationit would no longer be enigmaticand the church would grow and mature through agape-love, and the temporary, partial manifestations of the Spirit would cease to exist for the church. When the faith was once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3) the church could distinguish true from false, good from evil, by the completed apostolic word (1 John 4:1-6). God granted to the church in his word all things that pertain to life and godliness (2 Peter 1:2-4). God has given in the completed scriptures everything the church needs to make the man of God complete, thoroughly furnished (equipped) for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17). The church in its mature manhood, without miraculous gifts of its infancy, may now look in the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere (James 1:22-25). The church may now see the whole picture of redemption and sanctificationin the New Testament scriptures it lacks nothing that pertains to life and godliness. The aim of the apostolic message and ministry is not miraculous manifestations of the Spirit, but love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith (1 Timothy 1:5).
1 Corinthians 13:13 The Perpetual: Love will never fall (Gr. piptei), it will endure forever. Love never falls to the groundthere is nothing temporary about love. Love never loses its strengthit is inexhaustible. Love never leaves its placeit is unassuming and immovable.
Faith possesses the past by giving us a conviction of things not seen. Hope claims the future, and looks beyond to the glory not yet realized. But love is the goal God has for us. And faith and hope are the means to that end. Paul does not mean that love will outlast faith and hope. He does not mean that faith and hope will someday cease. Faith and hope and love will all go on as long as our relationship to Christ lastsfor eternity. We will trust, put our hope in, and love God in heaven, forever. But love is the greatest. Faith and hope serve to develop godliness, but love is godliness, for, God is love (1 John 4:16).
Our possessions and gifts we leave behind us. Only godliness abides. At the gates of death we will lay down forever the various weapons and tools which God, in his marvelous grace, has put into our hands for this earthly pilgrimage. All our gifts and every other capacity designed for this temporary earthly existence we shall resign. But we will carry through the pearly gates the moral and spiritual character which the Holy Spirit, through the conflicts and testings of life, has developed within us through the word. Faith, hope and love abidebut the greatest is love. Make love your aim (1 Corinthians 14:1).
APPLICATIONS:
If God said he would grant you one wish, either the supernatural power to predict the future, or the trials and tribulations that would help you love your enemies like David or Jesuswhich would you wish?
What do you think this chapter has to say to those today who insist the church, and Christians, need to have miraculous gifts of tongues, healing, prophecy, etc.?
Do you really believe that just plain, old, Christian love is the most important thing for Christ’s church today, or ever?
Do you think the church has it?
How do you think the church, or Christians, may get it?
Do you know people who believe that Christian love accepts all thingstrue and false, right and wrong?
Where do you think you might improve your agape-love-life?
Do you think the church today is more mature (less childlike) than the church of the first century? How?
Is love the most important virtue you wish to cultivate in your Christian experience?
May agape-love be cultivated? In what way?
APPREHENSIONS:
What is agape-love? How is it different from other aspects of love?
Why are all Christian gifts and Christian actions hollow without love?
May a Christian do an act of love without feeling like it?
What is kindness?
What does courtesy have to do with Christian love?
Why were miraculous gifts destined to pass away?
When did miraculous gifts pass away?
What is the perfect that was to come?
When did the church see in a mirror, dimly?
When did the church see face to face?
1 Corinthians 13:13
Applebury’s Comments
Text
1 Corinthians 13:13. But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Commentary Things That Abide (13)
*But now abideth.*There was no reason for the church at Corinth to feel insecure simply because they were in the childhood period of the church so far as spiritual gifts were concerned. While they were looking forward to the completed revelation of the Word of God, they were reminded that there were things that did abidefaith, hope, love.
*faith.*Faith as an abiding thing is not to be confused with faith which is listed as one of the spiritual gifts, for that was a thing that would be done away. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ whom God raised from the dead is an abiding faith. Paul said, I know him whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed unto him against that day (2 Timothy 1:12).
*hope.*Hope that is based solidly on the fact of the resurrection will abide until He comes with the clouds and every eye shall see Him (Revelation 1:7).
*love.*This is the most excellent way; it was permanent; it was the greatest of the three abiding things. The apostle’s advice is: Follow after love.
Summary
In many ways, chapter thirteen is the high point in First Corinthians. Even taken alone, it is a wonderful message of practical value. The most excellent way should be followed by all Christians of all ages. But, like all Scripture, it should not be taken out of its context if it is to be understood. We should remember that Chapter s twelve, thirteen, and fourteen are a unit and should be studied together. This is seen in the closing statement of chapter twelve and the opening words of chapter fourteen. Paul closes the twelfth chapter by saying, And moreover a most excellent way show I unto you. Then in chapter thirteen he shows the importance, the meaning, and the abiding nature of love. This he does over against the wrangling that was going on in the church at Corinth over the possession of spiritual gifts, particularly, the gift of tongues. The climax of his appeal is: Follow after love. In a series of conditional statements, Paul raises the question of the value of spiritual gifts such as speaking in tongues or possessing the gift of prophecy or having faith to remove mountains. He boldly declares that without love he is ineffective as a noisy gong; he is nothing; he gains nothing. The description of love that follows is sufficient to show the church that this is the solution to their problem of strife, for love is long-suffering and kind. It possesses all those characteristics that nullify jealousy, arrogance, selfishness, irritability, and desire to repay evil for evil. It has no pleasure in wrongdoing; it rejoices with the truth. Love covers all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. This was the divine remedy for a church that was sick because of it was torn by strife and jealousy over possession of miraculous powers, disrupted by pride in their leaders, and discredited before the community because of unchristian conduct. The apostle then presents an explanation of the transitory nature of prophecy, tongues, and knowledge in contrast to love that abides. Three of the nine spiritual gifts are used as examples of the whole group. These, although not complete in themselves, served to bring about the completed revelation of God’s willthe Bible. When the completed revelation came and was confirmed by the accompanying miraculous demonstration, the incomplete things were done away. They are likened to the things of childhood that are put away by the grown man. They were like seeing an imperfect reflection in a mirror in contrast to the complete revelation in the Bible that is like seeing face to face. They gave incomplete knowledge, but the completed revelation enables one to know all things that pertain to life and godliness with nothing more to be added, for God fully understands the needs of His people and has completely revealed His will in the Word. As the church faced the fact that these things which were causing strife and division among them were, after all, only transitory, they were reminded that there are things that abide. Faith, hope, and love would abide long after the spiritual gifts had given way to the completed revelation of God’s Word. Therefore the apostle urged them to follow after love.