LOVE: THE GREATEST OF ALL
1 CORINTHIANS 13:1-13
NASB
1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 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 do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body [a]to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7[a]bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of [a]prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. 11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I [a]became a man, I did away with childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror [a]dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 13 But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the [a]greatest of these is love.
13:3 [a]Early mss read that I may boast 13:7 [a]Or covers 13:8 [a]Lit prophecies 13:11 [a]Lit have become...have done away with 13:12 [a]Lit in a riddle 13:13 [a]Lit greater
NLT
1 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;[*] but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
8 Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages[*] and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! 9 Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! 10 But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.
11 When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. 12 Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.[*] All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
13 Three things will last forever —faith, hope, and love —and the greatest of these is love.
[13:3] Some manuscripts read sacrificed my body to be burned. [13:8] Or in tongues. [13:12] Greek see face to face.
“Love is a many-splendored thing.” . . . “Love is all you need.” . . . “Love conquers all.” . . . “Love lifts us up where we belong.” . . . “Love is in the air.” . . . “Love changes everything.” . . . “What the world needs now is love, sweet love.” . . . “Love is all around.”
This mosaic of love-song clichés reminds us that our world is filled with the language of “love.” The word gets thrown around constantly and carelessly. “Love” is used to describe our feelings for everything from God to chocolate, from cars to pets, from football to family. Sadly, the kind of love implied by the world’s popular poems and platitudes bears little resemblance to the meaning of love described throughout the Bible, and particularly epitomized and memorialized in 1 Corinthians 13.
Although it occurs as we approach the end of the book, 1 Corinthians 13 can be regarded as the “thematic center” of 1 Corinthians. In this passage Paul contrasts unconditional agapē [26] love —the ultimate Christian virtue —with the kinds of character vices that had marred the Corinthians’ interactions with one another. The “love chapter,” as it has often been called, convicts us and inspires us. It is doctrinally dense yet practically rich. A. T. Robertson rightly comments:
Plato . . . and many others have written on love, but Paul has here surpassed them all in this marvelous prose-poem. It comes like a sweet bell right between the jangling noise of the gifts in chapters 12 and 14. It is a pity to dissect this gem or to pull to pieces this fragrant rose, petal by petal. Fortunately Paul’s language here calls for little comment, for it is the language of the heart.[70]
Let’s explore this “love chapter” with the understanding that we aren’t seeking merely to be inspired and informed, but to be challenged and changed.
THE THREE LOVES
1 CORINTHIANS 13:4
The Greek language of Paul’s day had at least three common words that can be translated by the English word “love”: erōs (this term does not appear in the New Testament), philia [5373], and agapē [26]. The word erōs very often referred to a self-pleasing, passionate love, from which we get our English term “erotic.” All too often, this is the level of love implied by our pop songs and glorified in trashy romance novels, risqué primetime dramas, and feel-good movies that inevitably end when the dashing guy gets the perfect girl.
The word philia refers to the affection and closeness one feels in friendships, partnerships, or other intimate kinships. It’s “brotherly love,” a strong emotional, psychological, and social bond of camaraderie between two people.
Even though we find deep emotions in these two words, neither erōs nor philia match the kind of love that imitates the love of God.
In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul refers to agapē love —the kind of love that seeks the highest good of the other person, even at the price of one’s own comfort, safety, and benefit. The word agapē was not used frequently outside Jewish and Christian literature. Unlike the short-lived erōs or the two-way philia, agapē implies permanence, unconditional charity, a decision more than a feeling, a commitment more than a relationship. Agapē means loving not for one’s own benefit, but for the benefit of others.[71]
— 13:1-3 —
Though it would be easy to snip 1 Corinthians 13 from its page, frame it, and hang it on our walls as a constant reminder of authentic love, we must never forget the context from which this beautiful passage emerges. Standing in the center of Paul’s correction of the Corinthians’ self-seeking exercise of spiritual gifts is 1 Corinthians 13. They were strutting their own giftedness out of selfish ambition rather than using their gifts for the benefit of the whole body. Through this love chapter, Paul argues that only those things done from a heart of love (agapē [26]) are virtuous.
The impressive acts Paul lists in 13:1-3 form a hyperbole to argue from the greater to the lesser. The idea is this: Even if we do works that are by all appearances miraculous, astonishing, and extreme, they ultimately amount to nothing without the key ingredient of agapē love. Without the motivating presence of this kind of love, the most eloquent, impressive speech —even of angels —would sound like a cacophonous clang. Without love, our prophecies, revelations, knowledge, faith, and charity are worthless, empty shells, unworthy of praise and reward.
Some have misunderstood Paul’s use of the rhetorical device of hyperbole in this passage, understanding 1 Corinthians 13:1 to make a distinction between a kind of speaking in tongues as a human language (Acts 2:6) and a type of speaking in tongues as a heavenly, angelic, or prayer language. The Greek construction, however, suggests that Paul added the reference to angelic languages to push his example to the highest conceivable extreme: “If I were to speak in the languages of men —and even of angels —but didn’t have love, I would be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Cor. 13:1).[72] The context demonstrates that Paul was presenting hypothetical examples of the most extreme and excessive acts possible. Note the repeated use of the word “all”: “If . . . I know all mysteries and all knowledge . . . if I have all faith . . . if I give all my possessions . . .” (13:2-3).
Of course, Paul knew that nobody could speak all the languages of humanity and heaven, any more than people could know everything, reveal everything, and give everything. Yet Paul’s argument is even more compelling, given these exaggerated hypothetical feats: Without love, the most eloquent speech, insightful knowledge, and sacrificial acts are useless.
Paul wants to impress upon his readers a vital formula (13:1-3):
EVERYTHING – LOVE = NOTHING
— 13:4-7 —
After explaining the matchless value of love as the essential ingredient in a fruitful Christian life, Paul gives a clear, poetic description of agapē love. He includes several positive aspects (what love is) and several negative contrasts (what love is not).
POSITIVE ASPECTS |
NEGATIVE CONTRASTS |
is patient |
is not jealous |
is kind |
does not brag |
rejoices with the truth |
is not arrogant |
bears all things |
does not act unbecomingly |
believes all things |
does not seek its own |
hopes all things |
is not provoked |
endures all things |
does not take into account a wrong |
does not rejoice in unrighteousness |
When we scan this list, we quickly realize that the negative elements precisely describe some of the problems the Corinthian church had been facing. Love is not jealous, but the Corinthians were marred by “jealousy and strife” (3:3). Love does not brag, but the Corinthians boasted (4:7; 5:6). Love is not arrogant, but the Corinthians had allowed arrogance to flourish (4:18-19; 5:2). Love does not act unbecomingly, but the Corinthian church tolerated shameful and disgraceful intrusions (6:5; 11:4, 22). Love does not seek its own, but the Corinthians had spiraled into selfish egotism (10:24). The contrasts could go on. In short, even though the Corinthian church had plenty of money, an enviable location, countless spiritual gifts, and a legacy of celebrity teachers, they lacked the one thing they most needed, in fact, the greatest thing —love.
The Corinthians were infatuated with the things they had —the trappings of religion, the incidentals of life, the external forms. Instead, they should have striven for love. That powerful fruit of the Spirit would have transformed even the trappings into treasures of transformation and the incidentals into tools to build up the body of Christ.
— 13:8-13 —
Paul adds one final characteristic of love to his list: “Love never fails” (13:8). At first glance, this might suggest that love itself can be trusted never to let us down. In the context, however, Paul contrasts the ever-abiding, never-terminating permanence of love with the temporary nature of some of the gifts and experiences with which the Corinthians were so enamored. Love never collapses, never fades, never loses hope, and never ends. In fact, agapē love, because it is an essential part of God’s own nature (1 Jn. 4:8), will continue forever.
Against the permanence of love Paul juxtaposes three gifts that will fade away with time: prophecy, tongues, and knowledge (1 Cor. 13:8). Prophecy —the ability to pronounce the revelations of God with divine prophetic authority —“will be done away” (katargeō [2673]). This suggests that the gift of prophecy will be done away by some external force or condition that renders it obsolete.
Paul also points out that one of the Corinthians’ favorite gifts, tongues, “will cease” (13:8). The Greek word is pauō [3973], found here in the middle voice, indicating that its function will come to a stop in and of itself. How sobering this must have sounded to the ears of those puffed-up tongues-speakers in Corinth who had thought themselves so grand. One day the very experience they used to set themselves up above the rest would simply peter out.
Finally, Paul mentions that knowledge “will be done away,” using the same verb as he used of prophecy (13:8). Paul doesn’t mean that awareness of information would be done away, for then we would all be mindless entities for eternity. The word “knowledge” likely refers to the acquisition of knowledge, either by diligent study or more likely through God’s special revelation of the “word of knowledge” (12:8).
Currently the content of our prophetic utterances and supernatural knowledge is “in part” (13:9). That is, even prophets, given special authoritative messages from God, never had the complete picture (1 Pet. 1:10-11). And those of us who diligently search the Scriptures will forever have unanswered questions. Until Christ returns, our present world will always be characterized by partial knowledge and partial prophecies —sufficient to live a life of faith, hope, and love, but far from perfect and complete. The apostle John contrasted our current condition of partial knowledge with that of future clarity: “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is” (1 Jn. 3:2).
When Paul refers to the coming of “the perfect,” when “the partial” (that is, prophecy and knowledge) will be “done away” (1 Cor. 13:10), he likely has in mind that condition of perfect knowledge and maturity we will experience when Christ returns and establishes His rule. At that time, “the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Isa. 11:9). Concerning this future time, God spoke through the prophet Jeremiah, “‘They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, “Know the LORD,” for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,’ declares the LORD” (Jer. 31:34).
It is worth noting that despite mentioning that tongues “will cease” (1 Cor. 13:8), Paul doesn’t refer to them in 13:9-10. He doesn’t say that we speak in tongues “in part,” nor does he say the tongues will be “done away” by an outside force, as will occur with prophecy and knowledge (13:8). Rather, this passage does not explicitly answer the question concerning when tongues will cease in and of themselves. Paul tells us that when the “perfect” comes —perhaps the condition of the world at the return of Christ, or, as some suggest, the completion of the New Testament —then those things that are “in part” (prophecy and knowledge) “will be done away” (katargeō). From this passage alone, we can’t be sure if Paul meant that tongues, too, would continue until that perfect condition, or if he meant that they would have already ceased on their own prior to this.
Paul illustrates the truth of the mature condition of humanity with two examples. As little children, our speaking, thinking, and reasoning are immature. When we look back as adults on our childhood, we reflect on the ignorant and naïve ways we thought and talked about the world. When we were children, however, we were not even aware of our immature condition. As we grew and became mature men and women, we outgrew our temporary, childish ways. In the same way, when Christ presents His bride perfect and complete, resurrected and glorified, without spot or blemish (Eph. 5:27), we will look back on our days in our mortal flesh as a temporary period of ignorance and immaturity. The opinions we held, the things we fought about, the issues on which we were once so dogmatic —these things will be replaced with a full knowledge and understanding that can come only when Christ returns (1 Cor. 13:11).
Second, Paul likens our present understanding of spiritual things to a person looking “in a mirror dimly” (13:12). In the ancient world through most of the medieval period, mirrors were made of burnished bronze, poor reflectors of reality.[73] The word “dimly” is the Greek term ainigma [135], from which we derive our English word “enigma.” God’s speaking to Moses openly “mouth to mouth” was contrasted with speaking “in dark sayings” (Num. 12:8, in the Greek translation, ainigma). Keener notes, “Christians presently see a mere reflection, only a little beyond what Moses and the prophets saw.”[74]
Yes, the New Testament brings a much fuller revelation of Christ and God’s work of redemption than the Old Testament; but compared to the glory that will be revealed to us, our understanding is still partial (Rom. 8:18-19; 1 Cor. 2:9). When Christ returns, the distorted images of reality, the mysteries of life, the doctrinal enigmas, and the riddles of suffering all will be gone. When we see the Savior face-to-face, all our question marks will be changed to exclamation points!
CorinneMills/WikiMediaCommons
Mirrors in the ancient world —often made from polished copper or bronze —presented a dim, distorted, and imperfect picture of reality.
Paul declares that love is not the only thing that will endure beyond this world: “But now faith, hope, love, abide these three” (13:13). These cardinal virtues of the Christian life will not only “abide” —Paul’s term for an ever-present endurance —but they are “now” present. The implication is clear: Instead of obsessing over the current gifts of the Spirit that will vanish in the future, we should invest our time and energy in nurturing faith, hope, and love, as these benefit us not only in the present age, but throughout time and for all eternity.
Among these three virtues, however, Paul draws a distinction: “But the greatest of these is love” (13:13). Why? Because, as Barclay says, “Faith without love is cold, and hope without love is grim. Love is the fire which kindles faith and it is the light which turns hope into certainty.”[75] Also, when Christ returns, faith and hope will be diminished while love will be intensified. Though our perfect trust in God will always endure, our faith in the promises of God and our belief in things that cannot be seen will be satisfied by the fulfillment of all His promises. Similarly, though believers will live for eternity with the expectation of continued growth in relationship with God and others, the hope of glory we have today will be fulfilled when Christ returns. So, while faith and hope diminish and fade with the blessed face-to-face vision of God, our love for Him will only grow with each passing moment —forever and ever.
APPLICATION: 1 CORINTHIANS 13:1-13
Putting Love to Work
Far too often we have turned 1 Corinthians 13 into little more than a sentimental, framed piece of poetry, something to hang on our wall or wear on a keychain —pretty words to admire. But Paul meant for us to take these words to heart, to cherish them, to meditate upon them, and ultimately, to allow them to transform our lives from the inside out. As I think about this magnificent chapter of the Bible, I realize the applications are almost countless. To help us begin putting love to work, let’s consider several self-evaluating questions that arise from our study of this chapter. Let me encourage you to not be satisfied by simply answering these questions. Dwell on them. Meditate on them.
First, do you consider love absolutely essential in your ministry? Is love the single most important aspect in your relationships with others? Or have you become enamored with the mission and the methods? The Corinthians loved to point at their many spiritual achievements —the impressive résumés of their accomplishments. Have you fallen into the same trap? If the members of your family were questioned privately, would they describe you as somebody motivated by authentic love? Or as someone driven by accomplishments, activities, and projects?
Second, do you demonstrate your love? Does it show through the ways you treat others? It is difficult for many of us to show our love to others, especially when we have been burned in the past when we expressed our love without reservation. Love is risky —especially the quality of love described in 1 Corinthians 13. Even though it may require us to lay it all on the line, we should strive for the kind of self-sacrificial, other-centered love that reflects the character of God. Review the positive aspects and negative contrasts of love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, then ask yourself, “How well do I measure up to this standard?” Use these verses to identify and admit the unloving areas in your life and begin to correct them by the power of the Holy Spirit. Ask Him to enable you to change each of these specific long-standing habits.
Third, does your love fade in and out? Is it fickle —hot and cold? Even though loving isn’t safe or easy, it must be unconditional and consistent. Does your love fluctuate because you depend on the responses of others? Is it really agapē love? Or have you been operating in your marriage, family, church, or ministry at the level of philia love? (See the feature “The Three Loves,” p. 191.) Think about how you respond to others when they act in unloving ways toward you. Do you have opportunities in your life to minister with unconditional grace and mercy toward the unlovely? Or do you reserve your love for those who “deserve” it?
Finally, does love come to the surface of your life more than any other virtue? In Paul’s description of the fruit of the Spirit, love comes first (Gal. 5:22). James says the “royal law” is to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Jas. 2:8). Paul writes elsewhere that love “is the fulfillment of the law” (Rom. 13:10). If those around you were to identify one virtue to describe you, would it be love? Or would they see the great zeal and conviction with which you hold and defend the articles of the Christian faith? Would they say you are a person who has become preoccupied with the return of Christ, living in great hope and anticipation? Would they characterize you as somebody dedicated to the work of the ministry? All of these things are good —even great —but without unconditional love expressed through specific, hands-on demonstrations of grace, mercy, and charity toward others, “the greatest of these” Christian virtues is diminished.
The ability to love can come only from love’s divine Source. So as we try to bridge the loveless canyon in our hearts, let’s recall afresh the great love God has shown us through the Lord Jesus. Let’s depend on the inner working of His Holy Spirit to produce in us a genuine and consistent agapē love for others.