1 Corinthians 13:1
This chapter is considered by many the greatest literary passage ever penned by Paul. It is central to his earnestly dealing with spiritual gifts (chapters 12 – 14), because after discussing the endowment of gifts in chapter 12 and before presenting the function of gifts in chapter 14, he addresses the attitude necessary in all ministry in the church (chapter 13).
Eloquence was greatly admired in the first
century and the Corinthians were no exception, though they found little of it
in Paul (cf. 1Co_2:1, 1Co_2:4; 2Co_10:10).
This may explain in part their fascination with tongues. Paul’s application of
this and the following conditional clauses (1Co_13:2-3)
to himself was forceful since he could claim exceptional experiences,
particularly in regard to the languages of men (1Co_14:18) and of angels (cf. 2Co_12:4). But the statement was probably meant
to include every imaginable mode of speech. It was a statement of hyperbole
concerning exalted eloquence, which if void of love might be momentarily
electrifying like a clash of gong or cymbal but then vanished
just as quickly. The word that
was translated "charity" is agape, which means love. This use of love
is not the kind of love that has conditions. It is not "I love you
because", but "I love you in spite of". This type of love is the
kind the Lord Jesus has for all of us. While we are yet in sin, Christ gave his
life for us. This is the God kind of love. The nearest thing to that kind of
love on this earth is the mother's love for her child. Even that falls very
short of being the perfect love that God has for mankind.
"The
tongues of men": That this gift was actual languages is established in
Acts 2:1-13, affirmed in this text by Paul’s calling it “of men” – clearly a
reference to human language. This was the gift which the Corinthians prized so
highly, abused so greatly, and counterfeited so disastrously. God gave the
ability to speak in a language not known to the speaker, as a sign with limited
function.
“Tongues
of angles”: The apostle was writing in general hypothetical terms. There is no
biblical teaching of any special angelic language that people could learn to
speak.
Love:
Self giving love that is more concerned with giving than receiving. The word
was not admired and thus seldom used in ancient Greek literature, but it is
common in the New Testament.
Without
love, no matter how linguistically gifted one is to speak his own language,
other languages, or even (hypothetically) the speech of angels, his speech is
noise only. In New Testament times, rites honoring the pagan deities Cybele,
Bacchus and Dionysius included ecstatic noises accompanied by gongs, cymbals
and trumpets. Unless the speech of the Corinthians was done in love, it was no
better than the gibberish of pagan ritual.
Love on the other hand produces eternal effects (cf. 1Co_13:13).
1 Corinthians 13:2
Even the gift of prophecy (cf. 1Co_12:10) which Paul championed as a great gift
for the Corinthian church (1Co_14:1) or
the gifts of wisdom, knowledge, and faith (cf. 1Co_12:8-9) were nothing compared with love.
Paul was not depreciating those gifts but was appreciating love by showing it
to be incomparable. You may
even be filled with the knowledge of God to overflowing, but without love, no
one will listen. "Prophecy", in this instance, has to do with
predictions. Paul speaks of this gift as the most essential one because it
brings God’s truth to people. Even this gift must be ministered in love.
"Understanding
all mysteries" This encompasses gifts of wisdom, knowledge and
discernment, which are to be exercised in love.
“All
faith”: This refers to the gift of faith, enduring, believing prayer; which is
useless without selfless love for the church.
We
must place our faith in God's ability and not in our own ability. All things we
might do are no use at all, unless we are full of love for God and man.
1 Corinthians 13:3
Even self-sacrifice can be self-centered (cf. Mat_6:2), and the ultimate sacrifice, here
depicted as self-immolation (cf. Dan_3:17-18;
2 Maccabees 7:5; is ultimately futile without love. In all the lessons, you see it is more
important why you do something, than in the actual doing. The woman gave all
she had, which was very little monetarily. Jesus said she had given more than
those who gave great sums, because she gave all she had. The Lord does not want
us to figure out some formula about giving and receiving. He wants us to give
from a free heart, expecting nothing in return.
God
who sees in secret will reward you openly. It is not the fact of giving all
that he owns that is important. If he did not give it from a loving heart, he
should have kept it. It will do him no good. We are not to give begrudgingly,
or of necessity.
I1
Corinthians 9:7 "Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, [so let
him give]; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful
giver."
You
may give your body to be burned, but that is not what God wants from you. He
does not want you to die for Him; He wants you to live for Him. Everything I do
with love in my heart is better than ten times that much without love.
In
the previous comments of v.1-3, the focus is on the emptiness produced when
love is absent from ministry. In the verses from 4-7, the fullness of love is
described, in each case by what love does. Love is action, not abstraction.
Positively, love is patient with people and gracious to them with generosity.
Negatively,
love never envies or brags, or is arrogant, since that is the opposite of
selfless service to others. Never rude or overbearing, love never wants its own
way, is not irritated or angered in personal offense, and finds no pleasure in
someone else’s sin, even the sin of an enemy.
On
the positive side again, love is devoted to truth in everything. With regard to
“all things” within God’s righteous and gracious will, love protects, believes,
hopes and endures what others reject.
1 Corinthians 13:4
Paul shifted from the first person to the third
person and replaced himself with a personification of love. Some have seen in 1Co_13:4-6 the fruit of the Spirit (Gal_5:22-23); others have seen here a
description of Christ Himself. As different sides of the same coin, both are
applicable and provided a solution to the many Corinthian problems. Love,
defined by 14 predications (half of them negative, half positive) constituted
the “way.” Love, Paul wrote, is patient… kind… does not envy or boast,
and is not proud. Now,
we see a description of this type of love in action. How can you tell if I have
this type of love? This type of love is willing to suffer for the ones he
loves. This is speaking primarily of love for God, but extends to mankind, as
well. This type of love is a positive. This type of love overlooks shortcomings
in others. It is even patient, until they can change.
This
perfect love, spoken of here, never wants what someone else has, or wonders why
they did not get that, too. They are happy for the one who does have it.
"Vaunteth", in the verse above, means boast. Someone who truly loves
will not boast and brag to make someone else feel little.
This
being "puffed up" is speaking of pride. We must never act proud and
cause someone else pain in the doing. True love thinks of other's feelings,
before they think of their own.
Patience (makrothymia)
is the capacity to be wronged and not retaliate. The Corinthian church had many
members who had been wronged (e.g., in lawsuits [1Co_6:8]
and the poor at communal meals [1Co_11:21-22]).
The response of love to these wrongs would be a display of kindness and
goodness. Envy and boasting seemed to abound as two poles of the same problem
(e.g., divisions [1Co_1:10; 1Co_3:3, 1Co_3:21];
gifts [1Co_12:14-25]). The Corinthians
had no monopoly on pride though they seemed to. The verb physioō occurs only seven times in the New Testament,
six of which are found in this letter (cf. 1Co_4:6,
1Co_4:18-19; 1Co_5:2; 1Co_8:1).
1 Corinthians 13:5
Paul then gave four negative descriptions of
love: It is neither rude nor self-seeking nor easily angered,
and it keeps no record of wrongs. "Unseemly"
means indecently, or shamefully. A person who has love in his heart would not
embarrass others and God doing things that would be a shame. He would always do
the decent thing. Love in the sense of " seeketh not her own" could
be very well covered by the word charity. It would mean that others needs
would be more important to them, than their own needs.
This
person, full of love, would not go around with a chip on his shoulder looking
for someone to knock it off. He would be a peace maker. He would have the mind
of Christ and would not be thinking evil thoughts. His mind, stayed on Christ
would have no room for negative thoughts.
Rudeness found expression in the problem of women
in worship (1Co_11:2-16), the disorders
at the Lord’s Supper (1Co_11:17-22),
and the general organization of worship (1Co_14:26-33).
Self-satisfaction was a pervasive disorder particularly manifested in the
eating of food sacrificed to idols (1Co_8:9;
1Co_10:23-24). People who are not
easily angered usually do not start lawsuits (as in 1Co_6:1-11).
Love does not record wrongs, though there was ample opportunity for doing so in
Corinth (e.g., 1Co_6:8; 1Co_7:5; 1Co_8:11).
1 Corinthians 13:6
Love does not delight in evil (e.g.,
incest [1Co_5:1-2, 1Co_5:8]), but rejoices in truth (1Co_5:8). The
person, who has the kind of love that this is speaking of, does not find
pleasure in earthly things. His pleasure is in pleasing God. The truth would be
his motto. We see from the whole armor of God that all Christians must wear,
what part truth has.
Ephesians
6:14 "Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having
on the breastplate of righteousness;"
You
see you are not only to speak truth, but to have it tightly bound around you.
The true Christian with this godlike love does not love to make a lie, but gets
real joy from telling the truth.
1 Corinthians 13:7
Love always protects (cf. 1Co_8:13), trusts (cf. 1Co_15:11), hopes (cf. 1Co_9:10, 1Co_9:23),
and perseveres (hypomenei, “remains steadfast in the face of unpleasant
circumstances”; cf. 1Co_9:19-22). Paul thought it all joy to suffer for
Christ. This verse, above, is speaking of being willing to bear whatever
persecution comes our way, in the name of the Lord. This "believeth all
things" has to do with faith in God.
Abraham
believed, and it was counted unto him as righteousness. This means continues to
believe, even in the face of problems. Christians have hope of the
resurrection.
Matthew
10:22 "And ye shall be hated of all [men] for my name's sake: but he that
endureth to the end shall be saved."
We
see from this Scripture that there is something to endure. It, also, tells us
how long it will be required of us to endure.
1 Corinthians 13:8-10
Following this elaboration of the preeminence (1Co_13:1-3) and perfections (1Co_13:4-7) of love, Paul concluded with a
discussion of its permanence (1Co_13:8-13).
Love never fails, in the sense it will never come to an end. Positively
stated, it is eternal. This is not true of the spiritual gifts. Some of the
gifts were foundational (e.g., prophecies and knowledge; cf. Eph_2:20) and confirmatory (e.g., tongues;
cf. 2Co_12:12; Heb_2:4). Every gift is linked in some way to
building up the church to maturity — some (prophecy, knowledge, tongues)
functioning in the early years of the Church Age and others continuing on till
the church is perfected. When that perfection is achieved, the gifts will have
served their purposes and will be rendered obsolete. But this will not happen
to love. As Paul explained it, the gift of knowledge (1Co_13:8), essential as it was, was not
exhaustive. The ability to prophesy, however crucial for the church’s
life, was of limited scope. The gifts were temporary blessings in an imperfect
age. One day they would give way to perfection, toward which all the
gifts pointed.
These
verses refer to love’s lastingness or permanence as a divine quality. Love
outlasts all failures. Paul strengthens his point on the permanence of love by
comparing it to the spiritual gifts which the Corinthians so highly prized:
prophecy, knowledge, and languages, all of which will have an end. There may be
a distinction made on how prophecy and knowledge come to an end, and how the
gift of languages does. This is indicated by the Greek verb form used. In the
case of prophecy and knowledge, they are both said to “be abolished” (in both
cases the verb indicates that something will put an end to those two
functions).
Verses
9-10 indicate that what will abolish knowledge and prophecy is “that which is
perfect.” When that occurs, those gifts will be rendered inoperative. The
“perfect” is not the completion of Scripture, since there is still the
operation of those two gifts and will be in the future kingdom. The Scriptures
do not allow us to see “face to face” or have perfect knowledge as God does in
verse 12.
The
perfect” is not the rapture of the church or the second coming of Christ, since
the kingdom to follow these events will have an abundance of preachers and
teachers. The perfect must be the eternal state, when we in glory see God face
to face and have full knowledge in the eternal new heavens and new earth. Just
as a child grows to full understanding, believers will come to perfect
knowledge and no such gifts will be necessary.
On
the other hand, Paul uses a different word for the end of the gift of
languages, thus indicating it will “cease” by itself, as it did at the end of
the apostolic age. It will not end by the coming of the “perfect,” for it will
already have ceased. The uniqueness of the gift of languages and its
interpretations was, as all sign gifts, to authenticate the message and
messengers of the gospel before the New Testament was completed.
“Tongues”
were also not a sign to believers, but unbelievers, especially those
unbelieving Jews. Tongues also cease because there was no need to verify the
true messages from God once the Scripture was given. It became the standard by
which all are to be deemed true. “Tongues” was a means of edification in a way
far inferior to preaching and teaching.
In
fact, chapter 14 was designed to show the Corinthians, so preoccupied with
tongues, that it was an inferior means of communication, an inferior means of
praise, and an inferior means of evangelism. Prophecy was and is, far superior.
That tongues have ceased should be clear from their absence from any other
books in the New Testament except Acts. Tongues ceased to be an issue of record
or practice in the early church, as the Scripture was being written. That
tongues has ceased should be clear also from its absence through church history
since the first century, appearing only sporadically and then only in
questionable groups.
What Paul meant when he referred to the coming of
perfection is the subject of considerable debate. One suggestion is that
perfection described the completion of the New Testament. A few have suggested
that this state of perfection will not be reached until the new heavens and new
earth is established. Another point of view understands perfection to describe
the state of the church when God’s program for it is consummated at the coming
of Christ for His bride and is presented to the Father. There is much to
commend this view, including the natural accord it enjoys with the illustration
of growth and maturity which Paul used in the following verses.
1 Corinthians 13:11
Paul elsewhere described the purpose of gifts by
an illustration employing the imagery of growth and maturity. According to Eph 4: 11-16 the gifts to us were to be used to
bring the church from a state of infancy to adulthood the word translated
“mature” in that passage (Eph_4:13) is
the word translated “perfection” (teleion) in 1Co_13:10. In the Ephesians passage, maturity is
defined as “attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” This is just saying that
we cannot always stay a baby in Christ. Sometime down the road, we need to
start being an adult in the Lord. Milk is for babies. Get where you can chew
the Word and get stronger nourishment. We need to grow in the Lord to the
extent that we can stop being fed, and begin to feed others. It is alright to
be a child, when you are first saved. There is a time, however, to put all that
behind and take on the responsibilities of adulthood.
It
would appear that the same perspective was developed in this passage to the
Corinthians. Paul applied the illustration to himself (cf. 1Co_13:1-3). The threefold talking, thinking,
and reasoning were probably meant to balance the thrice-mentioned gifts (1Co_13:8). With the coming of adulthood, such
gifts become passé. Paul’s use of the word became (gegona, a perf. tense verb, probably proleptic; cf. Rom_13:8; 1Co_14:23)
was of course to be understood in the context of the illustration. It does not
indicate that he personally or the church collectively had yet arrived at that
point (cf. Php_3:12). It would not, on
the other hand, necessarily rule out a gradual obsolescence of certain gifts as
the church progressed toward maturity.
1 Corinthians 13:12
A city like Corinth, famous for its bronze
mirrors, would have particularly appreciated Paul’s final illustration. The
perfection and imperfection mentioned in 1Co_13:10
were deftly likened to the contrasting images obtained by the indirect reflection
of one’s face viewed in a bronze mirror and the same face when viewed directly.
Such, Paul said, was the contrast between the imperfect time in which he then
wrote and the perfect time which awaited him and the church when the partial
reflection of the present would give way to the splendor of perfect vision.
We will not fully understand about
the Lord until we meet Him face to face. We see Him now in types and shadows in
the things we read of Him, There will come a time when the dark glass is
removed and we will see Him face to face. Jesus tore the curtain away into the
Holy of Holies. We can now enter in.
1
John 3:2 "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear
what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him;
for we shall see him as he is."
Then Paul would see God (cf. 1Co_15:28; 1Jn_3:2)
as God now saw Paul. Then partial knowledge (cf. 1Co_8:1-3)
would be displaced by the perfect knowledge of God.
1 Corinthians 13:13
Paul completed his three-paneled portrait of love
(1Co_13:1-3, 1Co_13:4-7, 1Co_13:8-13)
with a final triad: faith, hope, and love. Much discussion has focused
on whether faith and hope were portrayed by Paul as being (with love) eternal.
The solution is probably found in 1Co_13:7.
Faith is an expression of love (the word “trusts,” pisteuei, 1Co_13:7,
is the verb form of the noun “faith,” pistis), as is hope (cf. Gal_5:5-6).
Faith and hope, as manifestations of love, will endure eternally. Faith, hope, and love are all very much
of Christianity. They do not change. You might even say, they are conditions of
Christianity. "Abideth" means continues to abide. You see, these
never change, and they are absolutes. If we had to give up all but one, we
would have to hang on to love. John 3:16: "For God so loved the world,
that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not
perish, but have everlasting life."
To sum up this
lesson, we would have to say that Paul is teaching them the proper functions of
the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the confines of their traditions. There
is a song written from the thirteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians called
"Charity".
So too everyone who
follows the way of love (1Co_14:1)
finds “the most excellent way” (1Co_12:31),
because every individual characterized by love carries that mark eternally. The
spiritual gifts will one day cease to exist, but love will endure forever.
